Monday, April 10, 2006

Grosse Pointe Scam

So, the fine people of Harper Woods-- a small group of them, anyway-- want to petition to change the name of their fair city to "Grosse Pointe Heights."
My initial reaction was something along the lines of "Who are they trying to kid?" The City Formerly Known as East Detroit, for example, has fooled approximately no one by tacking a "pointe" onto their name. A residential appraiser cited in the Freep article admitted that, contrary to the claims of name-change advocates back in '92, East*bleep* property values have not increased, and they spent a bucket of money changing all the signage and letterheads.

That warms my heart.

The fetishization of "Pointe"-y-ness is lame anyway. We have five Grosse Pointes, at least one blatant wannabe, apparently another one pending, plus innumerable strip malls and apartment complexes that slap that extraneous "e" on to add a veneer of class. Or a soupcon of le stupid. And yet, the allure of the "e" remains.

On second thought, though, perhaps Mr. Scott Campbell and his ilk are on the right track. Eastpointe hasn't done nearly enough to debase the concept of The Pointes. So, in addition to the possibly forthcoming Grosse Pointe Heights, I propose the following new communities to join the City, Woods, Park, Shores, and Farms in Pointedom.

Grosse Pointe Slums
Grosse Pointe 'Hood
City of Faux Pointe
No Pointe

I expect St. Clair Shores, Roseville, Fraser and Center Line to get in on the act. If we can work together, we can send everybody's property values spiraling down to a nice baseline, and I can score myself some lakefront property. Go team!

1 comment:

Inverarity said...

To steal a stand-up comedian's joke, I'm still hoping to see Roseville rename itself to "What's-The-Pointe."