Hymn To Hastings Street

Detroit teacher presents a memorial to tne sights and sounds of the old neighborhood.

DIANA LIEBERMAN

Staff Writer

IV

hen drama teacher Beth
Dzodin-Fuchs began
teaching at Spain
Elementary-Middle
School in Detroit three years ago, it
was a homecoming of sorts. Her
mother had grown up on Hastings
Street, in that very neighborhood.
Hastings Street is long gone,
destroyed to make room for 1-75, the
Chrysler Freeway, on Detroit's lower
east side. But the memory of the
street — once a thriving boulevard of
small businesses with a multicultural
flavor — remains in the hearts of the
community's older generation.
Last year, under Dzodin-Fuchs'
guidance, Spain School drama stu-
dents began working on oral histories
of the "elders" at Hannan House, a
nonprofit community center that
provides programs and services to
Detroit older adults. With the
encouragement of principal Ronald
Alexander and the active cooperation
of a few highly enthusiasti communi-
ty members, Dzodin-Fuchs decided
to use the seniors' stories for a dra-
matic presentation.
The result, authored by Valaida
Benson, was Back In the Day, a musi-
cal play with an intergenerational
and interracial cast. A fund-raiser for
the Spain School drama department,
the work made its debut Thursday,
Feb. 5, at the school's newly built
Victoria Miller Auditorium.
Gabrielle Turner, 64, of Detroit, a
retired engineer who acts as story-
teller in the musical drama, remem-
bers the variety of sights and sounds
on Hastings Street — from Bardoff's
Grocery Store to Mr. Alieveto's Fresh
Fish to Count's Barber Shop, "corn-
plete with Wardell the shoeshine
boy."
"There was so much going on, I
always felt they should sell tickets
just to walk down the street," he
says.
Spain School, at 3700 Beaubien
near the Detroit Medical Center, was
built around the shell of the former
Lincoln School, says actor Jim
Simmons, 62, a retired printer and
graphic designer from Detroit. Along

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2004

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Detroit from Dimona, Israel, said he
loves to act. "When I'm not in a
play, I'm acting anyway," he says
with a grin.
Also in the bar mitzvah scene is
sixth-grader Tuere Conaway, who
says she enjoys acting but wants to
be a doctor.
As the cast rehearses, Dzodin-
Fuchs and her husband, Nathan, a
Detroit teacher who plays the rabbi,
teach those playing the congregants
how to congratulate the bar mitzvah
boy with a round of yasher koach (go
forth in strength).
"He's reading from the holy book
in Hebrew," Dzodin-Fuchs explains
to them. "You look at him, like,
Wow!' It's like in church, when
you shout:A-men!'"
The energetic actress-teacher is a
graduate of Oak Park High School.
She earned a bachelor's degree in
theater and dance at Michigan State
University and a master's degree in
theater from Tel-Aviv University.
"I believe in the power of the arts
to develop self-esteem and to help
young people to find their place in
the world," she says. "This show
helps the children get an under-
standing of where they come from,
helping them grow as artists and as
individuals. I was fortunate that a
lot of very talented people came
together for the writing experience."
Among those talented people is
playwright Benson.
"I based the story on the day the
community found out it would be
destroyed to make way for the
expressway," says Benson, whose 66
years have included dancing in the
chorus line at Detroit's Paradise
Top: Thirteen-year-old Ben Ibura arrives for rehearsal at Spain School.
Club, writing songs for the Four
Above: Beth Dzodin-Fuchs with'actors Gabrielle Turner, George D. Ramsey Sr. and
Tops
and acting in television comedy
Milton C. Craighead, all of Detroit.
shows and commercials in Los
Angeles.
"The performing arts have been
Interracial Harmony
very good to me," says Benson, who
with other members of the Lincoln
Dzodin-Fuchs, a member of the
now sings with the jazz group,
School Alumni Association, he vol-
Birmingham Temple, added scenes
Global, volunteers at Spain School
unteers at least once a week at the
to the play that highlight the inter-
and Hannan House, and enjoys her
school and is working on the oral
action between the neighborhood's
three grandchildren.
history project.
black and Jewish residents. Among
"Where the principal's office is
"I always tell the kids, if they
them is a bar mitzvah scene featur-
enjoy performing, they should pur-
now used to be a horse stable,"
ing native Hebrew-speaker Ben
Simmons says. "The only thing still
sue it."
there from those days is the chestnut
Ibura of Detroit.
The 13-year-old, who came to
tree northwest of the school."

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