Cam and I recently took a walk through downtown Mount Clemens, a walkable zone at the edge of the otherwise suburban and rural Macomb County.
Despite being the main Walkable Downtown near us, we’ve only ever been here a couple of times, briefly. Nothing’s drawn us in; instead we go to other, farther downtowns like Royal Oak or downtown Detroit itself. I’ve come for the used book store, the Beatles-themed river bar, but never came away with much impression or appreciation of the city itself. I started to feel like this was a problem after coming across that “Clinton River Chronicles” movie, which had a lot about Mount Clemens. It’s situated at the mouth of the area’s biggest river, it’s the county seat, and for the last three years we’ve lived in a town that surrounds it on three sides. So I figured it was time to walk around in Mount Clemens.
We parked in a public lot outside the Three Blind Mice Irish Pub, in what seemed to be the north end of downtown. I plotted a 2.95-mile route that took us south into downtown, then veered east into a residential neighborhood, arrived at a riverside park, crossed a bridge over a manmade “spillway,” then over another bridge and straight back north again.
Here’s one of our first views of downtown, at the intersection of New and Main. This area felt like a real mixture of different eras of development.
We saw a few historical markers early in the walk. Here’s one explaining the namesake of the county, Alexander Macomb, a general from the War of 1812.
Nearby was a replica of a type of cannon used in that war.
There’s also a not-entirely-nice-looking bust of JFK, built on a spot where he gave a 1960 campaign speech.
Continuing south, I believe the neighborhood we walked through was the former Kibbee Flats, a black neighborhood that used to flood really badly every year before they built the Clinton River Spillway. According to the “Clinton River Chronicles” video, this neighborhood was called River Acres circa 1995. I couldn’t tell if that was still the name.
At the south end of this neighborhood was Shadyside Park, where lots of people were out having fun on a Monday. Kids were yelling. A basketball game was going. People were playing horseshoes.
From the park you can take a nice bridge across the Clinton River Spillway, a long straight channel dug in the middle of the last century to act as a relief valve for the severe floods.
Looking east down the spillway feels almost like looking down the Mississippi River.
In the other direction you can see the park again.
Crossing a road bridge back over the spillway, headed back to downtown. I liked the yellow-orange Riverfront Inn on the right, with this other bridge on the left.
Church with a historical marker, can’t complain.
There’s something going on with the architecture here, at least in comparison to the subdivisions and strip malls we’re used to. There’s a noticeable uptick in unusual buildings. Nothing super crazy, but it’s definitely something; there’s sort of a sci-fi-art-deco undercurrent to a lot of it.
Here are a few things that caught my eye within a few minutes of walking down Main Street. This is a strip mall, with some legal services and a nonprofit. I like the tall panel blaring the address number, the weirdly segmented window areas facing the street, and the contrasing rounded archway above the entrance.
It seems like this used to be an Elks Lodge, but it closed. The desert-toned stone panels are cool.
Yellow brick building is The Urban Naturopath; peaked gray building is Chaos Studio Salon.
A night club that appeared to be closed.
This one is a little zany looking to me. It looks like the headquarters of a comic book villain. It’s the Macomb County Administration Building.
Now we were back in the area we started from. We looked at one more thing: a riverside park area next to city hall and the fire department, with docks for boats and fishing. You can ride your boat up the river and dock it here for free. I thought that was pretty unique. Unfortunately one of the only people using the park at the time was a man holding a bottle and shouting.
Great views of the city’s landmark buildings, too — the one on the left is the Macomb County Building, and the one on the right is the Macomb County 16th Judicial Circuit Court.
Some closer views of the County Building.
They started construction on this in 1931 and finished in 1944. Apparently they had to pause construction during the Great Depression, but they went ahead with using the lower floors of the unfinished building in the meantime.
The stairs in front of the courthouse were painted with fish and math problems.
And that was basically it for our Mount Clemens walk. We got back to the car just as the clouds converged for a pretty good rainstorm.
I liked what I saw in Mount Clemens but still came away with that unimpressed, unsatisfied feeling I knew from previous visits. It seems like it has the right bones for a cool town. It seems like it should be more fun and interesting than it is. (It’s missing a brewery!) I didn’t see much that I’m curious to see more of, and I’m not sure there’s all that much more to see. But I still want to walk more sections of the city, look a bit closer at the stuff downtown, and see if I’m wrong.