From Atlas Obscura, Your Guide to the World’s Hidden Treasures:
The Heidelberg Project: Bringing Color, Art, and Controversy to a Decaying Part of Detroit
by Ella Morton
Slate
November 19, 2013
Watching the deterioration of his impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhood of McDougall-Hall two decades after Detroit’s 1967 race riots, artist Tyree Guyton felt the need to do something. So he picked up a paintbrush and painted pastel polka dots all over his grandfather’s Heidelberg Street house.
Guyton’s paint job was the first act toward what became the Heidelberg Project, an outdoor community art project aimed at breathing life back into his decaying district. Encouraged by his grandfather, and with the help of local kids, Guyton began decorating the abandoned homes beside the polka-dot house and installing art made from salvaged materials.
The project now spans two blocks and is constantly evolving, anchored by the altered houses. One ramshackle two-story home is covered in stuffed animals. Another is painted with numbers of wildly varying sizes and colors. Strewn across the yards are sculptures incorporating decorated cars, shopping carts, doors, shoes, and household appliances.
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