Retiring editor reflects on his East Side story

There was something odd about the church where my grandfather's funeral was held in 1974. In those days, you didn't see modern buildings on Detroit's well-worn lower East Side.

Many years later I discovered why. The new Our Lady of Sorrows on Meldrum Avenue was built after its predecessor went down in flames in 1963. The fire received national attention. And it was in the news again in 2011, after the restoration of the crucifix that had been dramatically shouldered out by firefighters who had given up on saving the church itself.

The disaster was just one example of how the lives of that community were tied to the fortunes of the auto industry. The blaze started in an abandoned, five-story Briggs Manufacturing auto body plant and leapt across a side street to torch the church where my grandparents were married in 1919.

"The 1963 fire was a brutal blow to the city's Belgian Catholics," an Associated Press story about the restored crucifix said.

Auto assembly plants — Packard, Dodge Main and Chrysler Jefferson among them — were the heart of the economic value chain on that side of Detroit. Then came the suppliers, such as Briggs. From there, the grocery stores and the banks and the cleaners and the bakeries and the breweries that supported a Detroit population that tripled from 1910 to 1930, thanks to the booming auto industry.

My grandfather, who arrived from Belgium in 1913, toiled in what we would today call the service sector. He did tinsmithing in his garage and helped run a saloon less than a mile from the Briggs plant.

There was at least one journalist in the area, too. One of my grandmother's brothers, Camille Cools, founded the Belgian Gazette.

If there's such a thing as a journalist gene, it came to me. For all but four of the past 35 years, I've worked for Automotive News on the eastern outskirts of Detroit's downtown, not far from the stomping grounds of my ancestors.

And as of today, I've retired, after overseeing our global operations for most of the past decade. It's a fitting time to reflect on a city, a family, an industry and the newspaper that has provided me with more job satisfaction than anyone could ever hope for.

I've given tours of the old neighborhood to Automotive News colleagues, an industry guest from China and a relative from Belgium.

Yes, they've been astonished to see firsthand the urban devastation they had known only through photos. I think they've been just as surprised to see the pockets of vitality that mark parts of the city and give a richer dimension to a complicated historical picture.

The Belgian visitor was my late cousin Luc Versichele.

Five years ago, we took a break from our driving tour for coffee and pastries — Brussels sidewalk café style — outside a bakery called Sister Pie.

We sat just a few blocks from the site of the home that nearly a century earlier housed my father, his parents, his grandparents and other relatives. I remember the sounds of hammers and power saws providing an audio backdrop, thanks to construction on a retail strip that is now home to one of Detroit's celebrated new restaurants.

Signs of strength go beyond there. Our Lady of Sorrows, where my grandfather's funeral was held, stands tall as New Liberty Baptist Church. Up Van Dyke Avenue, Dakkota Integrated Systems has built a plant on the site of the former Kettering High School. And across I-94, supplier Flex-n-Gate opened a plant in 2018, billed then as the city's biggest auto investment in 20 years.

As for the auto factories mentioned above? The historic Packard site is still in ruins — more than 60 years after its closing. But automaking continues to thrive in the Jefferson and Conner area, as it has since a Chalmers factory was established there around 1907. This year, Stellantis opened its new Mack Assembly complex, next door to Jefferson North.

Just three years ago, it looked like General Motors' Detroit-Hamtramck factory was doomed — just as Dodge Main, its neighborhood predecessor, had been four decades earlier. Now the plant has new life as Factory Zero, where GM will build electric vehicles.

My great-uncle's Belgian Gazette folded a few years ago, having long since served its initial purpose of delivering news of a World War I-ravaged homeland to a community of immigrants.

But Camille Cools hasn't been forgotten. In 2014, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Gazette's founding, a street was named in his honor in Moorslede, Belgium. In a simultaneous ceremony, he was also given a proper gravestone in Detroit's Mount Olivet Cemetery.

And as I call it quits at 66, a Versical is finally working for an automaker. One of my nephews is a GM engineer, developing advanced electronics.

Meanwhile, another generational story is playing out at 1155 Gratiot, home of Crain Communications.

Fifty years ago this past spring, a young Keith Crain was dispatched from Chicago by his father to take over the newly purchased Automotive News. His son KC is now CEO of the company and, like his dad once was, publisher of Automotive News.

KC is investing in AN while adding such titles as Digital Health Business and Green Market Report (a cannabis trade journal!) to the Crain arsenal of publications.

Executive Editor Jamie Butters will continue to guide our coverage to reflect an automotive ecosystem that's expanding beyond its traditional value chain.

And our new vice president of editorial operations, Chrissy Taylor, has been brought on to sharpen our digital game as we prepare to serve a generation that doesn't read news on printed pages.

She is already plotting how she'll mark another centennial: On Aug. 27, 2025, Automotive News will turn 100.

I'm looking forward to seeing that celebration play out, in print and online. But I'll also be watching — and rooting — as Automotive News makes a mark in its second century.

You may email Dave Versical at [email protected].