Culture Convo: Belle Isle Beauty

It took me a long time to see the beauty in Belle Isle .

Detroit’s island gem always felt like too much car congestion, not enough nature. The roads felt like an asphalt noose wrapped around the greenery that is there. Way too much of a literal Motor City vibe leaving me choking on exhaust instead of feeling like I’d escaped from the city.

There’s beauty in the historic architecture that’s there today, but I’m not really sure it should’ve been built at all.

No matter who is running the place, the maintenance of what’s built there has always been an issue in my lifetime. Just look at the recent fight to save the Belle Isle Boathouse, which should be preserved instead of torn down. Or the vast investments that have been made in the past decade to reconnect the natural ecosystem of Belle Isle with the Detroit River .

I’ve got the original designer of Belle Isle on my side with that one. Pioneering landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted wanted it untouched by the human hand, too. A “park for Detroit” was the goal, Olmsted wrote, where the natural wonder of “the fields, the meadow, the prairie, of the green pastures” should take center stage.

Let the city be the city, Olmsted argued, with its “picturesque” architecture. Let Belle Isle be wild. “Openness is the one thing you cannot get in buildings,” Olmsted wrote. “What we want to gain is tranquility and rest to the mind.”

Although the Department of Natural Resources hit its 10-year anniversary of running Belle Isle in February 2024 and has studies and community input sessions being conducted about what it should look like as the second most visited state park in the U.S., I’m realizing it’s truly the public that has helped me find beauty in the “Jewel of Detroit” by seeing how beautiful we make it just by being there together.

This sense of beauty is captured in the photos of Niki Williams . His photos of friends, family, and Belle Isle lovers helped me see that while I was struggling to find my escape on the island, others were making the most of the water and the views, including the sunset you can watch from the western point of the island as the sun slowly engulfs the skyline.

“It’s like a big exhale as the sun goes down,” says Williams, who has a great knack for capturing people in their element.

And getting away to Belle Isle is clearly a big exhale for those who make it what they want — by embarking on a romantic getaway on the westside tip, turning a picnic shelter into a stage for an epic family reunion, or getting as lost as you can in the woods to the east.

For me, that’s been the secondhand effect of seeing Belle Isle through the lens of Williams. Like some of the couples he’s captured with his camera, I’ve fallen back in love with this 982-acre island park by seeing how much it means to others and getting more creative about how I use it.

As in the rest of the city, there are stunning patches of beauty littered throughout Belle Isle. But just like Detroit, it doesn’t beg you to find them. And just like the rest of the city, you can make it exactly what you want it to be.

Ryan Patrick Hooper is the host of In the Groove on 101.9 WDET , Detroit’s NPR station (weekdays from noon to 3 p.m.).

This story originally appeared in the July 2024 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Our digital edition will be available on July 8.

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