DETROIT – One of Detroit’s community gems is looking for some great architects after a man targeted The Eastside Community Network over the weekend and purposely rammed his pickup truck into the building.
The man behind the wheel, Benjamin Noah Weinstein, has already been arrested, but he did plenty of damage to the building.
“If you know anything about us, we’re going to try and make it beautiful,” said CEO Donna Givens Davidson.
Surveillance video captures the moment Weinstein rammed his truck into the building, and staff subdued him along with his two guns before police arrived.
He smashed into a beautiful communal space in the mid-century modern building.
The Eastside Community Network is a gathering place that hosts everything from dance classes to health clinics.
It functions as a hub for education and access to services.
“I think what we want to do is make lemonade out of lemons,” Davidson said.
There’s insurance money for the repair, but now the thought is how to reimagine the space into something even better.
Davidson is brainstorming on how to achieve it. Do they approach the local universities and ask the various architecture programs to perhaps compete and submit ideas?
They want to upgrade the space and implement some further security upgrades without making the center feel locked up.
She’s hoping Detroit’s architecture and creative community can help.
They’ve mounted a campaign to help fund further upgrades here.