Al Taubman,
Unplugged and Terminally Irresistable
December 1, 2006, Center for Creative Studies, Detroit, Michigan
I'm writing out notes I made the night Al Taubman addressed the annual meeting of Cityscape Detroit, a respectable urban planning club that has a street-level focus of Detroit life. Taubman pulled an audience of just more than 100 people to the new lecture hall at the Center for Creative Studies. I believe it was the Wendell W. Anderson Auditorium, Walter B. Ford II Building.
At first, Taubman claimed the name of the event, "Al Taubman, Unplugged" made a joking reference to his mental state. However, of course, it's a MTV feature for electric guitarists to perform their music on acoustic, non-electric guitars.
Taubman addressed his audience from a podium first. He knew many of the men and women in the audience. Many walked up to him in the front row, where he sat with his son and a rather remarkably beautiful publicist, and caught up with him. Others had been trained in architecture or urban planning at the school that carried the Taubman name. He quoted statistics from the Brookings Institute that by 2025, the United State's population is predicted to increase 50 million. He challenged the audience to plan on recruiting millions of those new Americans to live in Detroit. Even though it seemed that the Sunbelt states of Arizona, Florida and Texas held the cards, Michigan had plenty to offer, abundant water, high educational levels, a business-positive climate and a good tax structure. He punctuated this challenge with a fist pounding on the podium.
Taubman took his place on a tall stool on the floor of the lecture hall. Now not only was Taubman unplugged, he was fairly undefended. He took his questions directly from the audience, unmoderated. Taubman discussed his early career working with oil and gas millionaire Max Fisher. Fisher had developed processes to make gasoline out of junk sources, and gasoline from junk sources didn't follow the same rationing rules. No stamps were necessary to buy it. So Max Fisher had a great advantage when World War II ended, and Taubman built for Fisher the first modern service stations, a great improvement upon the dreary prewar stations. Taubman even invented plastic boxes to slap over old pumps to make them look fresh and modern.
Taubman is a collector of old books, including ones that show how people shopped and traveled in earlier epochs, including France before the advent of cars or Persia. He didn't bring any of these images to the forum, but he described how mall structures arose in Persia, France and the East Coast of the United States in the late Nineteenth century where population density and transportation created opportunities for foot traffic. As he claimed to the audience, "We didn't invent anything".
Taubman had only praise for Coleman Young, and Taubman said he always liked working with Coleman. At one time, Taubman was putting together a downtown Detroit retail center called the Kern Block. Many of his tenants for the suburban malls had an obligation to open stores in the downtown venture. However, a few people filed documents in Washington to protect a number of historical buildings, and by the time the issues were resolved several years later (notes say 3 years later in 1974), the retailers were off the hook. Taubman had good advice for kickstarting development in the Detroit neighborhoods. Most of the narrow lots with no depth were drawn up for antiquated houses after World War I. Thus, treat most of the Detroit neighborhoods as raw land, and redraw lots in more modern sizes.
Taubman willing accepted graciously questions from his audience. It seemed that a leader from Transportation Riders United lobbed a question at Taubman, asking him to account for the dearth of good public transporation in downtown Detroit. And then the TRU representative turned to a neighbor and began chatting animatedly. Like a patient store clerk at a clothing store, Taubman leaned forward and requested, "Maam, I want to answer your question. May I please have your attention?" And once he had it, he explained Detroit's collapsed transportation system in terms of a collapsing population density. Dense cities such as Berlin have good public transportation because more people live in less space there. Without increasing Detroit's population density, not much could be done for Detroit's transportation options.
Low population density also served as his answer when urban planning professionals in the audience charged him with shuttering downtowns. When one has the population density for boutique shopping, a Royal Oak with dress shops and home decor shops appear. Downtown Birmingham thrives despite two major malls within 10 minutes drive, partly due to good population density. Pack them in and the upscale retail will come. When one audience member laid at his feet the responsibility for sprawl, Taubman replied affably, "We service development." "Maybe the city shouldn't have sold so much water to these people." When the questions became a little too hot, Taubman pleaded humorously, "Next month I'm going to be 83 years old. Give me a break !"
Taubman encouraged questions on his incarcertation in Federal Prison. He had served his country in the United States Air Force for four years. If this is where his country asked him to report for service, then that is where his country asked him to report for service, a stoic response. During his time serving his sentence, Taubman didn't decrease his philathropy, his way of "working for his country". In the "warehouse for people", Taubman talked with many inmates, and he concluded that about a half-dozen of them were innocent of the crimes attributed to them. Talking the time to explain the art auction price fixing case, Taubman explained how he was innocent of the charges that placed him in prison. He announced that his book was due to be published in April 2007, "Threshold Resistance" and recommended it to those who wanted the rest of the story.
Taubman still reigns as one of Detroit's leading art patrons. It is good to know that he began collecting art during his education. An instructor named Carlos Lopez gave him an india ink wash of a falconer. After that, he began to collect more and more as his fortunes increased. I wonder if anyone has credited Taubman with making the art auction houses of Sotheby's and Christies's into one of the bellwethers of wealth in the modern world economy. For example, one suitor for the Los Angeles Times began his bid by selling off paintings to raise cash.
Taubman showed his generous disposition at the mixer afterwards. He spent a good deal of time one-on-one with the woman from Transportation Riders United, and he literally opened up a conversation with almost every man and woman who stayed around for refreshments, answering more questions and opening more discussions. It was generous of him to speak for a small Detroit advocacy group, who probably raised a thousand dollars with lecture tickets.
Cityscape Detroit, Event Sponsor
Threshold Resistance at Amazon
Center for Creative Studies, Detroit's Cultural Center
Transportation Riders United
Christies's Auction House
Sotheby's Aucution House
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