DETROIT-AID is a simple idea; Detroit has abundant, good-will, which has amassed over the years, not just among Americans, but among the peoples of the world, who think favorably about Detroit.  There is vast, untapped, international good-will, towards Detroit, from her role as the "Arsenal of Democracy," to the Motor City, from the music of Motown, to the current crucible for creation of the dominant world culture that seeks Detroit talent, such as Eminem, Kid Rock  and Mike Posner, among a field of generations of Detroiters who are so intimately entwined with Detroit's neighborhoods and history.  Rescue Detroit proposes sponsoring a free concert for Detroit city residents, to take place simultaneously, in Comerica Park and Ford Field; broadcast worldwide, to raise the money necessary to fund the business plan of Rescue Detroit, dedicated to the rebuilding and rehabilitation of the city of Detroit. 

RESCUE DETROIT, a Michigan not-for-profit corporation, invites Detroit artists and performers to participate in Detroit-Aid, an international telethon to help fund the mission statement of Rescue Detroit, as explained in the business plan, on Rescue Detroit's home page (the icon is to the upper left).  Rescue Detroit intends to re-populate the city of Detroit, by offering anyone who seeks residency in the city, a free college education.  Rescue Detroit will transform the Michigan Central Station and the doomed Cass Technical High School, if the funds are available in time, into Zaddik University.

Given the recent announcement that the Detroit Public School District is proceeding with the demolition of Cass Tech, the ability to save the structure will be dependent on raising the funds quickly, to save that historic building.  It is of utmost import that Rescue Detroit raises sufficient funds to purchase the structure and renovate it, as the future Cass Tech campus of Zaddik University, an institution dedicated to the non-sectarian study of God and to provide a free college education to any resident of the cities of Detroit, Highland Park, and Hamtramck.  Rescue Detroit will incentivize middle class families to return to residency in the city, to secure a loan-free education for their children, or themselves.   

Invitations are publicly extended to any and all Detroit performers, willing to donate their time to participate in such an historic and uniquely Detroit experience.    The concert will showcase and highlight the problems facing Detroit, at the same time, creating potential residual sales from distribution of the music and video created through the Detroit-Aid concert, and in popularizing and distributing The Zaddik, to create an international sales market, ensuring a future stream of funding, as the concert CD, book, and video of the concert, spread in popularity.  A copy of The Zaddik, a Story of James and Paul, will be sent to any donor who contributes $35.00, or more.  Additional cross-promotion of the concert music, video, and concert photo album, may be had for respective donations of $50.00 (The Zaddik with concert CD); $75.00 (with the addition of the concert video to the package); $100.00 (concert photo album, rounding out the collection).

Rescue Detroit's business plan calls for investment in the neighborhoods, to renovate that which can be saved and build "green" on lots that are vacant.  Rescue Detroit anticipates that the financial incentive for businesses to build within the city may be achieved with as few as 20,000 to 30,000 new or renovated homes in core areas of the city.  Zaddik University, with its main campus at the Michigan Central Station, will create demand for local housing from Corktown, through Mexicantown, up Michigan Avenue, to Dearborn.

Rescue Detroit intends to sell 100 million copies of The Zaddik, within the first two years of publication, placing it ahead of The Da Vinci Code, and around the sales of Stephanie Meyers' Twilight Saga.  The Zaddik Literary Agency will also soon publish The Praxis,  a History of Lilith and Her Clan; the quintessential vampire novel, which could readily create an additional franchise product to fund the goals of Rescue Detroit.  There is also a second and third novel planned in The Zaddik series.

Zaddik Law PLLC is researching the validity of filing suit in federal court for the Eastern  District of Michigan to enjoin the demolition of Cass Tech; however, due to the Administrative Procedures Act, such review bears a high legal standard; that of abuse of discretion.  However, if suit may be brought without sanction, then it shall be filed.

 If you are a Detroit performer who finds this project a worthy cause to invest time in, or you know how to get in touch with Detroit performers to participate in this event, please contact the performer and ask them if they are interested and if they will contact Rescue Detroit,  to discuss their involvment, at 586-722-3538. 

Detroit Michigan has been at the forefront of America's history since Henry Ford began to build cars on an assembly line.  Detroit has to unique distinction of creating the first traffic lights; creating the first painted road lanes; creating the first mall in America, built by the J.L. Hudson company which now exists in its later life as the Target Corporation; Detroit created the first limited access road, a "freeway" where automobile traffic could move quickly from east to west, called the Davidson.  Indeed here is a list of some of the "firsts" Michigan has lead the nation in:  

1849 - The Michigan State Fair was the first state fair in the United States.

1855 - Michigan State University was founded as the nation's first land-grant university and served as the prototype for 69 land-grant institutions later established under the Morrill Act of 1862. It was the first institution of higher learning in the nation to teach scientific agriculture.

1866 - Vernors ginger ale became the first soda pop made in the United States by James Vernor and Company, Detroit. Mr. Vernor concocted and sold his ginger ale at his drug store.

1872 - Elijah J. McCoy, a black inventor raised in Ypsilanti, patented the first automatic lubrication system for locomotives and other machinery. The device was so effective it was difficult to sell imitations that were not "the real McCoy"; McCoy's name became synonymous with anything genuine or authentic.

1879 - Detroit telephone customers were first in the nation to be assigned phone numbers to facilitate handling calls.

1891 - The world's first international submarine railway tunnel was opened between Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario.

1896 - The nation's first carpet sweeper was invented and patented by Melville R. Bissell of Grand Rapids.

1909 - First rural mile of concrete pavement in the U.S. opened in Wayne County. It was constructed on Woodward Avenue between McNichols Road (Six Mile) and Seven Mile Road at a cost of $13,534.59.

1910 - U.S. Census placed Michigan first in the nation in the manufacture of automobiles.

1913 - The Ford Motor Company introduced the first moving automobile assembly line at Highland Park.

1917 - Michigan was credited with painting the first center line on a state highway-the Marquette to Negaunee Road.

1919 - The legislature granted the Michigan Secretary of State power to discipline careless drivers, leading to today's point system for driving infractions.

1920 - The first four-way traffic signal with red, green and amber lights appeared in Detroit. Designed by William L. Potts of the Detroit Police Department, the light was placed at the intersection of Woodward Avenue and Fort Street.

1920 - GMC became the first company to develop research laboratories under the direction of Charles Kettering.

1920 - WWJ began commercial broadcasting of regular programs. It was the first such radio station in the nation.

1922 - The first practical highway snowplow developed in the United States was designed and built by Edward C. Levy, Munising's public works superintendent. It was mounted on runners and consisted of two wooden wings, each 10 feet high and 20 feet long. The wings were retractable, permitting the plowing of all city streets, county roads or alleyways, but they were obsolete in a few years with the advent of rotary, angle and V-plows mounted on the front of trucks.

1923 - The nation's first intercity superhighway, "an eight-lane divided marvel," was built on an 18-mile stretch of Woodward Avenue between Detroit and Pontiac. It had a 40-foot median for public transit service.

1924 - J. L. Hudson's in Detroit became the first air-conditioned department store.

1925 - The first use of aerial surveys for highway design occurred when the Abrams Aerial Survey Company of Lansing took photos of a planned route between Benzonia and Beulah.

1926 - The nations first regularly scheduled air passenger service began operation between Grand Rapids and Detroit.

1927 - First commercially-prepared baby food was invented by Daniel F. Gerber of Fremont.

1928 - The Ford Motor Company was the first auto manufacturer to use safety glass as standard equipment.

1929 - The Michigan State Police established the first state police radio system in the world.

1930 - The one mile-long Detroit-Windsor Tunnel was the first automobile tunnel built between two nations and cost $23 million to build.

1937 - What Every Driver Must Know: A Summary of the More Important Rules of the Road was published by authority of Secretary of State Leon D. Case. In 1938, a million copies of What Every Driver Must Know were distributed. Michigan was nationally recognized as the first state to place traffic law instructions into driver's hands.

1939 - The Packard Motor Car Company in Detroit manufactured the first air-conditioned car.

1968 - Fisher Body introduced a specially designed child safety seat to protect one- through four-year-olds from interior collision.

1969 - Ford Motor Company introduced rear-wheel antilock brakes.

1971 - Michigan was the first to complete a border-to-border interstate highway, I-94, that runs 205 miles from Detroit to New Buffalo.

1972 - General Motors became the first automaker to establish a biomedical science department to perform and report research addressing the mechanisms of toxic and traumatic injury.

1973 - The State Safety Commission convened the Cycle Safety Conference - the first such symposium held anywhere in the world. The conference was designed to study how bicycles and motorcycles could safely coexist with cars and trucks in Michigan.

1974 - The first mass produced air bags were provided as a $225 option on some Cadillac and Buick models.

1975 - Michigan became the first state in the nation to combine driver licensing and voter registration as part of the same service, later known nationally as "Motor Voter."

1976 - The Jaycettes formed the "Buckle Up Babes" program, which became a national model for child safety seat loan and rental programs. 

Source: (http://michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17447_18630_22469-11896--,00.html)

The city of Detroit was laid out by Augustus Brevoort Woodward, a friend of Thomas Jefferson and Pierre-Charles L'Enfant.  While living in , Georgetown practicing law, he befriended L'Enfant who discussed with him the new layout for Washington D.C.  Woodward made a copy of the layout and when Jefferson became President, Woodward was appointed Chief Justice of the Michigan Territory and moved to Detroit, arriving on June 30, 1805.  The city had burned to the ground on June 11th.  also   Woodward's interpretation of L'Enfant's plan for the District of Columbia became the design chosen for rebuilding the city of Detroit.  While L'Enfant's design included full wheels and spokes, Woodward's design accommodated the Detroit River so he chose a half wheel with spokes design.  Proud boulevards leading to grand parks with fountains and war memorials are found in both cities to this day. 

In 1884 Silas Farmer published his History of Detroit and Michigan and meticulously detailed the city of Detroit in the fading years of the nineteenth century.  You may read the book should you have the mind to by going to Google Books and typing Silas Farmer's name.  The book is an indispensable history if you want to get a glimpse of old Detroit.  Like any city, Detroit has had its generational change.  At first a trading post and fort, then a wilderness town, then a frontier town, then a city with boulevards, filled with Victorian mansions proclaiming the wealth of Michigan's lumber barons.  A city of trees, Detroit was once called by some the "Paris of the Midwest." 

The division of the city was the mighty, Woodward Avenue.  If your neighborhood fell on the eastside of the road, you were forever an eastsider and likewise for all those westsiders as well.   It is Rescue Detroit's goal to use it's resources to rebuild the neighborhoods of the city.  Low interest loans to support small business owners, grants and loans for people to fix up their homes, get an education, or just help them through a time of need.  Its all about restoring the vitality of the neighborhoods, so anything that gives assistance to the revitalization of the neighborhoods will be considered.   To that end we pledge to use money raised to "green" the city of Detroit. 

Here is a picture of Belle Isle from an airplane in the 1920's, with so much hope ahead of her and so much past behind her.  The Dossin Museum is located on the Canadian side of the island, which would be south of the city of Detroit, where lives the Canadian city of Windsor, two sisters on the river of the straits.  If you ever visit the city of Detroit, you should stop by Belle Isle and see it.  The history of maritime trade in the Great Lakes is a rich and wonderful tradition of this area, the city of Detroit also being the home of Old Mariner's Church.   Here is a link to the Dossin Museum which is tendered through the Detroit Historical Society. http://www.detroithistorical.org/exhibits/index.asp.  Once there, click on the left hand icon for the Detroit River Watch Cam.  Its impressive to watch the freighters going by on a slow bell.    

For those of you who believe that Detroit is worth saving, please help by either participating in Detroit-Aid, or simply buying one of our novels to help fund this worthy mission.  That is the goal of Rescue Detroit: to rebuild the city of Detroit, lot by lot, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood.  Proceeds from the sale of our books will be used to fund the mission statement of Rescue Detroit.  Part of our goal is not only to spark neighborhood development, but to provide assistance for people who no longer have jobs.  The key to a successful city is an investment in property.  One noted Detroiter once said:  Many are pining and dying from monotony and depression, who might bury their cares by planting a few seeds...” D. M. Ferry wrote this in the 1876 Seed Annual.  The vegetable section began with a quote from Plutarch advising exercise through gardening.  “Out-door work...must tend to develop that attachment of the citizen to his home, which is one of the strongest safeguard of society against lawlessness and immorality.”    Ferry invented the “commission box,” a seed rack for retail display, and was the first to have brightly colored seed packets.  Indeed Dexter Ferry is an example of the Amercian Dream.  He started with nothing and grew his company to be the largest seed producer in the world for his time.  The Ferry Warehouse is now part of the Greektown Casino complex, a fine example of preservation of the past for use in the future.  We firmly believe that people who have a stake in land, who have an interest in making sure their home is well cared for, just as a garden needs to be cared for, will create a milieu where neighborhoods are safe and free of crime.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions for the mission of Resuce Detroit, please feel free to comment.  Thank you for your consideration of assisting in our vision of a New Detroit.