Matthew Piper

Matthew Piper works at the Green Garage, helping to grow, connect, and support the business-in-residence community there. He's also a freelance writer and editor. On the El Moore project, he's serving as a creative editor and occasional author.

The Cass Corridor in black & white

I was impressed this week by a map of the Cass Corridor made in 1971 by the Detroit Geographic Expedition Institute, a short-lived but influential coalition of citizen geographers. (Thanks to Detroitography for collecting and reproducing a smattering of the maps that the DGEI produced, and to Model D for helping spread the word about Detroit cartography this week.) There’s a lot …

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What the floors say

When the redeveloped El Moore’s first residents start moving in in early June, they might notice something interesting about the historic flooring in their apartments: See that distinct line at the bottom of the photo above? That’s where a wall used to be, before we removed it during construction. It’s now become a kind of remnant, a visual reminder of …

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A close-up look at Cass Farms

Local history and architecture nerds, rejoice! While doing some web research on A.C. Varney, the original architect of the El Moore (1898), we discovered a remarkably detailed document about the history of our neighborhood that we’ve never seen before. We thought you might like to have a look, too. The unassumingly titled Historic and Architectural Resources of the Cass Farm …

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Back to Earth: El Moore sandstone in the UP

A few weeks ago, my husband and I enjoyed a long, restorative weekend in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where we camped, hiked, and took in the magnificent sights, including Tahquamenon Falls and the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The immensity of Lake Superior, the lushness and density of the forests it nourishes, and the humbling scale of the region’s …

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Meet the named neighbors of the El Moore

One of my favorite features of the El Moore is its name, carved from the stone above its historic entrance in an ornate, exotic font that perfectly complements the building’s Spanish Medieval style. This is a small detail that makes a big difference, helping define the El Moore as more than just a building — it’s the El Moore, a distinctive place …

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