Celebrate 313 Day: Watch This Short Documentary about Detroit

“Uncle Frank’s House: An American Dream”, a documentary featuring people and locations of Detroit’s East Side, can be viewed on Vimeo for free this month. The film has an original music score by local performer John Greasy.

Filmmaker Kathy Drasky went looking for her great uncle’s house in northeast Detroit. As she says in the trailer to her award-winning short documentary, “Uncle Frank’s House: An American Dream”, she found “so much more.”

Starting March 13, the film, which premiered at the Bel Air Luxury Cinema on 8 Mile Road in October 2018 and has spent the time since garnering awards on the film festival circuit, will be available to viewers for free on the Vimeo movie platform.

“To celebrate this world-class city, its history and its incredible people, I just want more people to see the film,” says Drasky from her home in San Francisco. Originally from Connecticut, Drasky had never even been to the Motor City until 2015. But that visit changed her perspective on what Detroit meant to its residents — and the world.

WATCH “Uncle Frank’s House: An American Dream” on Vimeo for free this month. HEAR the movie’s soundtrack, including the hit single, “Detroit Life” by John Greasy on Spotify.

Drasky had a loose connection to Detroit. Her great-uncle, Frank Drasky, came to the city in the mid-1920s from Norwalk, Connecticut for a job in the auto industry. After World War II, like so many Detroiters, he and his wife achieved the American Dream— home ownership.

Frank Drasky shoveling snow in front of his house on Stotter Street, circa 1950. Photo courtesy of the Drasky family.

“We didn’t really know Uncle Frank,” Drasky explains, “But my Dad kept a bunch of photos and a few letters that Frank had sent to his brother, my grandfather.”

The photos and letters became the impetus for the film. While visiting Detroit, Drasky had a phone call with her father. He encouraged her to go and see if Uncle Frank’s old house was still standing. After a brief comedy of family errors, Drasky found the house intact — no small feat in a city that has suffered the loss of more than half its population since the mid-20th century and witnessed the foreclosure of nearly one-third of its remaining properties in the past 20 years.

Where the story could have ended, however, is where it actually begins.

Northeast Detroit is not as well-known as some of the city’s more prominent or headline-dominant areas. At its heart, it remains a community-oriented neighborhood that has withstood more than its fair share of decline and neglect. The film spotlights a handful of long-time locals, including community activists Pat Bosch and Karen Washington from Restore Northeast Detroit (NED), and Mary Aganowski, the owner of the historic Two Way Inn, to provide background on what happened to “the Polish Grosse Pointe” after the 1967 riots, the collapse of the auto industry and ensuing political corruption that devastated the city’s home-owning middle class — both white and black.

“Detroit defined the American Dream,” says Drasky, which according to her research for the film meant home ownership for both black and white residents after World War II. “This, of course, was not without complications.”

The 8 Mile Wall, as colorfully reclaimed by the community. It once symbolized redlining and segregation that limited home-buying opportunities for African Americans. In spite of it, many black Detroiters still got their piece of the American Dream: home ownership and a ticket to the middle class. Photo by Kathy Drasky.

“Uncle Frank’s House” combines oral history, video interviews, found footage, family photos and present-day video shot with an iPhone to tell a compelling story. What takes it over the top, though, is the movie’s original soundtrack written by East Side native John Greasy. After Drasky finished filming on location in 2017, she and Greasy worked back and forth online for the next year to strike a balance of heart and soul. Greasy’s range is phenomenal. He meshes his own home-grown hip-hop style with the sounds of a century: ragtime, jazz, pop and R&B.

John Greasy and Aretha. His words and music took the short documentary about Detroit, “Uncle Frank’s House” to another level. Listen to the soundtrack on Spotify. Photo courtesy of Going Global Music Group LLC.

“Writing music pertaining to my city is a platform to speak on the good, the bad and solutions to change it for the better,” says Greasy. He has produced an extensive catalog of music over two decades, performs locally and teaches courses for children and teens on music writing and producing, an industry unto itself in the city that gave the world Aretha Franklin and Motown.

The film features the single “Detroit Life”, which Greasy will be performing live at the iconic New Bethel Baptist Church on March 29. New Bethel was founded by Franklin’s father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin.

“I came to Detroit as an outsider,” says Drasky, who ended up making multiple visits to the city. She typically carried a manila envelope with the photos her father gave her of Uncle Frank. “I’d show these photos of my uncle and the house on Stotter Street to the people I met. I wasn’t expecting anyone to remember him and no one did. But everyone knew the feeling of what it meant to take pride in your home and your neighborhood. People looked at these photos from the 1950s and they saw themselves — or their parents or grandparents — and we started a conversation.”

The American Dream has been redefined in the 21st century, but it is still out there. After watching “Uncle Frank’s House”, you’ll be encouraged to follow yours.

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For more information, contact Kathy Drasky and John Greasy.