Trains once ran along the path beneath your feet, the Dequindre Cut. The Dequindre Cut runs below street level along a former Grand Trunk rail line that for decades carried freight between Eastern Market, the riverfront, and the factories beyond. When the trains stopped, the sunken corridor sat abandoned, filling with weeds and some of the city's most striking graffiti.
In 2009 the first stretch reopened as a greenway, a nearly two-mile paved trail for walkers and cyclists linking Eastern Market to the Detroit River, with separate lanes for foot and bike traffic. Rather than scrub away the old graffiti, the project preserved much of it, so the walls below the bridges still carry years of layered street art. The Cut is part of a broader effort to stitch Detroit's riverfront and neighborhoods back together with public space.
Walk down the ramp into the green corridor, notice the old rail bridges crossing overhead, and the painted walls, an industrial scar turned into one of the city's favorite paths.