Dittmer Works on Ransom Gillis, Once Lived in Mies Townhouse

Melissa Dittmer, Bedrock's director of architecture and urban design, wrote about her time living in a Mies van der Rohe-designed townhouse in Lafayette Park. We found this piece in Places Journal, and wanted to share her first-person account of Lafayette Park, given the neighborhood's recent designation as a national landmark. In addition to her special ties to Lafayette Park, her current role with Bedrock includes helping plan the restoration of Ransom Gillis house by HGTV's Nicole Curtis.

While you need to check out the full text of Dittmer's lovely first-person essay, here's a bit to get you started:

I am comforted by this consistency; but there is a difference between my window-watching in New York City and in Detroit: here in Lafayette Park I am observing the routines of people I've come to know well. These people are not strangers. They are my friends, neighbors, colleagues. Our routines reinforce our relationships to one another and our status as a community. More important, these images of community have come to represent Lafayette Park to the surrounding neighborhoods and the city of Detroit.

If you'd like to live Dittmer's old neighborhood (she moved to Grosse Point a couple ofyears ago), there's a Lafayette Park Mies unit up for subletting this fall. The process takes time and effort, but seems well worth the work and maybe even the $2400-a-month price.

·Nicole Curtis' Ransom Gillis Tour Highlights Renewal [Curbed Detroit]
·Lafayette Park: Living in Ordered Exhibition [Places Journal]
·Mies van der Rohe Townhouse All Yours for $2400 a month [Curbed Detroit]
·Parks Service Names Lafayette Park a National Landmark [Curbed Detroit]