Cityscape

In the Rosa Parks Boys' Skateable Space, a Corktown Cinema Grows

July 01, 2014, 1:58 AM by  Danny Fenster

This past Sunday, just after 8pm, Francois Decomble was pulling a sofa into the middle of the room at 2051 Rosa Parks as a friend leveled a film projector at the back of the room.

Just a block south of Corktown’s main Michigan Ave. drag, Decomble and friends have rented and transformed the once-desolate building into—well, into something that is very hard to define. ‘Community gathering place’ seems to capture broad elements of the project but leaves out specifics like ‘art gallery’ and ‘live music venue’; the indoor-outdoor skateboard park made of the entire structure is a central and organizing principle of the space, but skateable ramps and banks were deconstructed Sunday night into movie theater seating, a projection screen draped in front of the stage. It has served as pop-up shop to clothiers and cooks. There is also a refrigerator stocked with Faygo and a freezer of ice cream.

Decomble’s heart is in the potential for the space as a neighborhood cinema house. The bowling-alley DVD menu for The Big Lebowski, tonight’s film, was displayed on screen. “My goal, and it’s still an idea” Decomble said, in his thick French accent, “is to have, one night, a popular (movie) to bring people here, and if it’s working and people are talking about it, to do another night of the week where it’s more art film.” Right now, he said, he is still building an audience. 

In the parking lot and along a largely untrafficked Rosa Parks Boulevard, some of the Rosa Parks Boys skated around, practicing tricks and discussing future plans, as a handful of twenty-somethings slowly arrived, parking their cars on the boulevard or carrying their bicycles for safekeeping inside the building. Feeding on a frozen King Size Snickers ice cream bar, Decomble offered brief tours of the place. “It took us two months” from napkin-scribbled idea to final build-out of the space, Decomble said.

It was approaching 9 o’clock, the advertised Lebowski start time, and the balmy summer night was just beginning to darken enough for optimal viewing. People began grabbing seats on the grandma’s-basement couch and various mismatched recliners and benches in front of the screen. “Shall we?” Decomble suggested, flipping a light switch off.

A few seats remained as the credits began rolling, but people still trickled in. A kid in flood pants and skate shoes shot through an opening in the gallery space wall and slid down a skate drop into the theater. By the time The Dude went looking for a cash machine, the only spot left was a pillowed hollow in the banked, skateable wall at the theater’s rear. A few people mingled outside, smoking cigarettes and mixing white russians.

 

Decomble had been kicking around ideas with some friends about a multi-purpose space, and had just sketched out something like a floor plan on the back of a napkin—”just a square right here, one table area right here, a mini ramp, and on the back a movie theater, some art space”—when his roommate Jim Tumey received a call from a photographer friend at Skateboard Magazine.

Levi’s, the denim clothier, had recently helped build skate parks in India and South America as part of a new skateboard-branded leg of the company, the photographer said, and they were looking to invest in their first US project. “So the photographer called Jim (Tumey),” Decomble said, “and he asked him, ‘hey, do you know of any cool skate projects going on in Detroit?’”

“All we had was this idea and this napkin,” Decomble said. It seemed to be enough. Levi’s kicked in $7,500.

Decomble and Tumey live in a third-storey apartment just up the street from the new space, across I-75 on Rosa Parks, with Justin Bohl—a former Birmingham school teacher and a nationally-sponsored skateboarder. The “Rosa Parks Boys” moniker began jocularly for the three young skateboarders on Rosa Parks Boulevard, but has taken a more amorphous life of its own, encompassing a larger group of the Detroit skateboard scene that helped clean and construct the new space.

Levi’s and Skateboard Magazine shot video of the space, gave Detroit a nod, and the Boys opened the space with a large concert and party on memorial weekend.

While Decomble is focused on film, Tumey is trying to get artists into the space. It is a fitting use for the space, with walls still standing from the home built for a DIA co-founder in 1870, according to Decomble. Tumey is open to any medium; “We just want a place for people to show their work,” he said. A show by the artist Stephen Ostrowski titled “Flourophore” opens with a reception from 4-9pm this Friday, and on Sunday at 7:30pm four bands will perform—a brief break in the Sunday night film ritual. Last week they hosted a hip hop show by

Besides a metal donation bin tacked discreetly to a wall inside, all the events are free of charge. “We just want to keep this going as long as we can, and maybe break even on the rent.,” Decomble said, “we all have day jobs.” Decomble came to Detroit from France four years ago for an automotive engineering job. Tumey works in real estate in the city. Bohl still substitute teaches, but the vicissitudes of education inspired a career change; he is currently studying physical therapy at Wayne State.

Following the weekend’s art show and concert, Decomble is planning for an Italian-themed film night in a couple weeks, with a Fellini film and a gelato ice cream truck.


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