I've got the horse right here: Ponyride gives Detroit businesses room to grow

Emily of Anthology coffee shop, one of Ponyride's many tenants. The power outage kept us from sampling the coffee, but the beans smelled great. (Photo by Denise Vultee)

"The power is out."

Emily, the barista, called out the warning as we walked through the doors of Anthology, a coffee shop on the first floor of Ponyride. Our Entrepreneurship and Art class was meeting there to tour the 30,000-square-foot industrial building in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood that serves as an incubator for local artisans and entrepreneurs.

Minding/mining the gap

But although the building's electricity was not working today, another kind of power was evident. As our guide led us through the maze of workshops, studios, and office spaces that make up Ponyride, we heard story after story about chance encounters between tenants that sparked new ideas, which in turn led to bigger things.

This larger-than-life mural decorates a wall of the dance studio.  For an idea of the scale, notice the bench in the corner. (Photo by Denise Vultee)

This is the kind of synergy that can happen when people with highly diverse backgrounds and training find themselves working shoulder to shoulder.

Social network analysts point to the advantages of being the one person positioned to serve as a bridge across the knowledge gap between two "clusters." In her recent book The Creator's Code, Amy Wilkinson calls people who transport ideas in this way "Sunbirds," and she counts their ability to identify such gaps as one of "the six essential skills of extraordinary entrepreneurs."

At Ponyride, it happens every day.

Clothing designers, metalsmiths, woodworkers, dancers, and other creative entrepreneurs share both space and ideas. The nominal rent of 50 cents a square foot keeps the building completely occupied.

Meet the artisans

At one point in the tour, our guide, who sported an impressive red beard, produced a tin of Beardbalm from his pocket--then showed us the Harry-Potter-sized cubbyhole under the stairs where it's made.

Metal utensils forged in the Smithshop. The studio is also restoring the iron balcony of a historic Detroit building. (Photo by Denise Vultee)

At the other end of the scale, we toured the Smithshop metalworking studio, where artisans create products ranging from delicate jewelry and kitchen utensils to massive architectural pieces.


We had an opportunity to chat with some of the entrepreneurs along the way, including Chris Morris of The Dirt Label, which now has a brick-and-mortar store in Royal Oak.

Others talked about more recently launched ventures, such as Belrauch Handy Oil, an eco-friendly household lubricant. Everyone we spoke with was clearly passionate about their work.

Despite the loss of electricity, the large windows in many of the studios allowed us document our trip in photos. Beyond those windows, in stark contrast to the creative energy inside, loomed a vacant eight-story concrete warehouse surrounded by concertina wire: the kind of building many who don't live in the city still associate with Detroit, and a silent reminder of the challenges facing projects like Ponyride and other revitalization efforts.