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Metro Detroiters seek adventure through iPhone apps.

This snaking line of people at the old Herman Kiefer Hospital in Detroit wait for oral vaccines, which, in 1964, was the recommended treatment.

October 2010: Arts and Entertainment calendar

Before acting as executive producer on Detroit 1-8-7, David Zabel spent eight years as a writer and five years as showrunner for the medical drama ER. Having grown up in Manhattan, Zabel had little previous experience with Detroit. Hour Detroit asked the onetime aspiring poet about his impressions of the city and the controversy surrounding his new show.

Michael Imperioli, the Emmy Award winner and former Sopranos star, is not just an actor. He’s also the lead singer and guitarist for the rock band La Dolce Vita, and he (along with his wife, Victoria) sits on the advisory board for the Jazz Foundation of America.

Since 1927, Detroit’s repository of great art has been housed in the sprawling Paul Cret-designed Italian Renaissance building on Woodward.

September 2010

Norm Silk and Dale Morgan make a living creating centerpieces and designing social spectacles. But their decision to buy and restore a famous-pedigree house in Detroit brought a role reversal of sorts: Suddenly, they were in the spotlight.

If life were like a Saturday-matinee serial, the further adventures of Vincent Markowski would have had a more upbeat, action-packed ending. However, this was Hamtramck, not Hollywood, and Markowski — better known to the world as Tom Tyler — had come to his sister’s large frame house on Moenart Street to suffer a slow, tedious death. Only 50, the celluloid action hero and Western movie actor was afflicted by a rare and frightening disease that had already cost him his looks, his marriage, and his livelihood.

Variety, as they say, is the spice of life — even (or maybe especially) when it comes to exercise.

Meadow Brook Theatre, Michigan’s largest non-profit professional theater, opens its 45th anniversary season on Oct. 6 with Dracula: A Rock Opera. The musical will be the first show directed by 31-year-old Travis Walter in his official capacity as artistic director. Walter recently spoke with Hour Detroit about his plans for Meadow Brook audiences.

Luis Croquer, who came from New York’s El Museo del Barrio in 2008 to be director of MOCAD, considers Detroit a seedbed of artistic opportunity. Eighteen months into his role, Croquer, who was born in El Salvador and whose father was a diplomat, reflects on his Detroit agenda.

Through Nov. 28 U. of M. Museum of Art American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was an arrogant, litigious man, but his gorgeous art belied his...

Like Lee Iacocca, he’s been called “the man who saved Chrysler.”

A prime-time cop drama premiering Sept. 21 (ABC, 10 p.m.), is already receiving backlash from critics who say the production perpetuates the perception of Detroit as dangerous — not to mention 187 is California’s police code for homicide.

Façadism, which refers to the act of surgically preserving a building’s street-facing exterior wall during demolition, sounds as though it could be a mental illness right out of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. But sometimes, it can be the sanest option when attempting to strike a balance between developers and historic preservationists.

At Walsh College, doodling is a good thing.

A century ago, bustling Detroit was dubbed the Paris of the West.

Detroit’s Cultural Center is about to get even more culture.