When "there's no
place like home
means growing
new roots.

"

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN

Staff Writer

1/2
1998

60

evan Sipher points out that
Jews have always been wan-
dering.
Then look at Detroit, a
city based on the automotive industry
with little public transportation and
popular commute-worthy outlying sub-
urbs. Says Sipher, 33, "It's a city people
have been leaving from square one."
Whether for graduate school, career
or to spread their wings somewhere
else, young adults have been fleeing
Detroit for decades.
Those who leave and stay away find
warmer weather, bigger cities, more
career opportunities and, sometimes,
love in other locales. Sipher grew up
in Southfield, had his bar mitzvah at
Temple Israel when it was still located
downtown. He left for New York in
1987 to pursue a master's degree at
New York University, and a career as a

with other cities, and Steve Hutton
may someday move back to Detroit.
Lisa Applebaum-Jacobson, 35, went
to New York in 1990 to pursue the art
world. She had been there before, for
Bloomingdale's executive training pro-
gram, then came back to Michigan to
work as a cosmetics buyer for her
father's company, Arbor Drugs.
"I really missed New York — the
energy, lifestyle, the whole cultural
aspect of the city," Jacobson says. "I'm
the last one to put down Detroit — it
has a lot to offer. But Detroit doesn't
have the downtown."
Deborah Waller Meyers, 26, has a
similar story. The Farmington Hills
native liked the East Coast (college at
Brandeis University) and wanted a
career in international
Photos by Jennifer Weisbord
affairs.
"It wasn't so much
thinking about moving
away, it was finding
opportunities," says
Meyers, who lives in
Arlington, Va."If you
want to do foreign policy-
making, you come to
Washington," she says.
Jeff Sklar, 25, left for
the journalistic center of
New York City. Two col-
lege internships at Rolling
Stone magazine and
another at Epic Records,
and Sklar was ready for
the big time.
"Back then, there was-
n't
a
lot
happening
in Detroit. There's
Left: Andy Tobias: loving the Windy City.
more happening now — I'd have
more to think about," he says.
Above inset: Devan Sipher: Home became
And while he loves the career offer-
a place for plays, the Big Apple.
ings of New York, he misses
Michigan's quality of life.
C... there's a certain lifestyle that
playwright.
It 1997, and he's still in New York,
you become accustomed to, maybe a
writing a play called "Disconnections"
tad slower, but [including] things you
— about, what else, the question,
don't get when you live in a big city
— like patches of lawn that are bigger
"Where am I from?"
"Where are the roots in Detroit?"
than three feet by three feet, unless
asks Sipher, known for his long-run-
you're in Central Park, which is awe-
ning Highland Appliance TV com-
some and kind of a novelty but you
mercial. "And yet, how far back do
look around and are surrounded by
roots go? Families arrived 50-75 years
buildings, get this caged-in feeling."
ago, so how much is actually rooted
Sklar started as an intern at
there? It's a matter of feeling rooted.
Financial World magazine, which did-
As a Jew, it's a continual exodus, we're
n't pay enough to live on — so he
continually leaving. What are Jews, if
lived on the money he made from sell
ing his Jeep. Three months later, he
not a rootless people?"
Andy Tobias and Rachel Schey
started working at John Kennedy Jr.'s
intended to leave, and did. Deborah
George magazine.
Waller Meyers, Lisa Applebaum
"I can't drive up Orchard Lake
Jacobson, Lynn Isenberg and Jeff Sklar
Road, chill out by the lake, go for a
found better career opportunities.
run. You feel more like a cog in a
Matt Berman and Jessica Rapp went
wheel instead of, in Michigan, feeling
away for grad school and fell in love
like you're your own little wheel."

