The Detroit Historical Society will screen “Stealing Home” on Sunday, April 12 at 3 p.m. at the Detroit Historical Museum as part of their monthly Film Series. This event is free.
For more than 100 years, Detroit fans watched baseball at Bennett Park, Navin Field, Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium. When the city demolished the stadium in 2009, blight took over. “Stealing Home,” a documentary film by director Jason Roche, tells the heartwarming story of the Navin Field Grounds Crew, a group of devoted fans who preserve their city’s history by maintaining the iconic baseball diamond at Michigan and Trumbull. But city officials don’t view their civic devotion as an act of service; they see it as trespassing. Will the grounds crew save this historic baseball site? Or will they be thrown out stealing home? The running time is 87 minutes.
The Society’s Film Series features free monthly screenings of fascinating Detroit films on the second Sunday of each month in the Louise C. Booth Auditorium at the Museum. Upcoming films include the following:
· “Grown in Detroit” on Sunday, May 10 at 3 p.m. This film focuses on the urban gardening efforts managed by a public school of 300, mainly African American, pregnant and parenting teenagers. This school is one of three in the country that focus on urban gardening and this population. As part of the curriculum, the girls are taught agricultural skills on the school’s own farm, which is located behind the school in what used to be the playground. The young mothers, often still children themselves, learn to become knowledgeable about the importance of nutritional foods, the process by which these foods arrive at their plates, and ultimately, to become independent and self-empowered through the process of farming. “Back to the roots” has sprouted as a simple yet effective solution for Detroit. As industrial models fail, this is a solution to be replicated in other former industrial giants the world over. The running time is 60 minutes.
· “Killing Jimmy Hoffa” on Sunday, June 14 at 3 p.m. Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance and probable murder is one of the great crimes of the century. Despite a massive Federal investigation spanning four decades and hundreds of suspects, only the general contours of the crime are known. In the American mythology, Hoffa is both hero and villain — a self-made man who ran the nation’s largest union and so beloved by the rank and file Teamsters he represented that they supported him as union president while he was under indictment and even in prison.
The Detroit Historical Museum, located at 5401 Woodward Ave. (NW corner of Kirby) in Midtown Detroit, is open to the public Tuesday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free for all, all the time. Parking in the Museum’s lot is $6 at all times. Group tour pricing and information is available by calling 313.833.7979. Permanent exhibits include the famous Streets of Old Detroit, the Allesee Gallery of Culture, Kid Rock Music Lab, Doorway to Freedom: Detroit and the Underground Railroad, Detroit: The “Arsenal of Democracy,” the Gallery of Innovation, Frontiers to Factories, America’s Motor City, and The Glancy Trains. For more information, call the Museum at 313.833.1805 or check out our website at detroithistorical.org.
Source: Detroit historical society
Click here to be introduced to the Detroit Historical Society