In other, albeit lesser, sad news, the Motor City is losing a lawyerly scribe to the Queen City. Casey Coston, a Metro Times columnist, has accepted a job with a Cincinnati law firm. For the last 10 years, the corporate bankruptcy attorney had the unlikely position of feeding Detroit’s desire for nightlife gossip in two columns, Fly on the Wall and Loose Lips, for which Coston headed to artsy parties in abandoned buildings when the city was a wild frontier. More recently, he launched the popular Rubble Rouser column, in which Coston raised the public profile of Detroit’s architectural gems, such as the Madison Lennox — buildings that city leaders are allowing to rot by not pressuring owners to sell or redevelop. Coston says he’s leaving with a bit of sadness but for a better job and opportunity, heading to a “pretty nice city,” that would remind him of Detroit — if Detroit’s neighborhoods hadn’t fallen into disarray. With his usual acerbic wit, Coston leaves us with these words, “Beware of Greeks. Beware of Macedonian families with stadia packages, because I know they are going to come up soon with a Joe Louis proposal for the area west of Grand Circus Park.” As far as Detroit’s hipster scene goes, Coston writes these parting words: “Detroit is one of the most thin-skinned, ass-kissingest towns I have ever seen. You would have thought, given its industrial past and its pock-marked present, that people would have a bit of a tougher hide. Alas, I was way off base on that. Most folks would much rather prefer a blinding ray of hero-worshipping saccharine-sweet sunshine being wafted their way as opposed to a bilious yet candid critique of their abilities and foibles.”
Coston, apparently, is planning to stay in Cincinnati. At least in some quarters, he’ll be missed.
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