It’s early January in Detroit, which brings certain predictable things every year — weather charitably described as miserable, amateur skaters doing face-plants on the Campus Martius ice rink on any given night, and the North American International Auto Show, which started last week with a handful of media-only days. And who better to send to a show about autos than an automobile know-nothing like myself!

The fact is, I understand very little about autos, except how to drive them and, based on experience, how to crash them. Having me explain an auto show is like having Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano explain ethics in government – neither of us is at all familiar with the subject matter. So for those who are looking for insightful coverage of the auto show, welcome! You’ve come to the wrong place.

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They stand in line so patiently, you’d never know some of them haven’t eaten since yesterday.

That line’s so long it winds from the soup kitchen door, along the wall and around the corner to the back, then curves down the alley and out to the street on the side. And no matter how hard the wind blows or how heavy the rain, they wait politely. By the end of the day, a thousand of them will have stood here.

The crowd is a mix of those who are somewhat poor to those who are desperately so. Some are homeless and have to scrounge every meal, while others are just short on their assistance at some point each month and need a little help. But once in line the distinctions are blurred. They’re just hungry people waiting for a meal.

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The look on his face says it all.

Vasile Sirca wears an expression of pure fatigue. He’s standing behind the cookie counter at his store, Nortown Bakery, on Van Dyke by Seven Mile. He’s the only one here, as usual. And he looks like he’s been through a war.

“There are a lot of problems on this street. Lots of shootings,” the 59-year-old says. “Long ago, it was a lot better than now. But the neighborhood change.”

That’s putting it mildly. Back when the store opened in 1939 it was a Polish bakery in a Polish neighborhood known informally as Nortown for its location at the city’s upper limits. Like much of the east side back then, Van Dyke was lined with mom-and-pop businesses, and the sidestreets were dense with single-family homes. Today it looks like a battle was fought and lost here. Grassy lots are missing their houses, ashes and cinders mark the shells of others, windblown trash lines the curbs and fences.

In the past decade, most people who had the means to move away did, leaving behind those who can’t leave — the poor and the elderly, the career criminals and drug dealers. They’re the ones who’ve put that look on Sirca’s face.

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Luther Fowler sits in a fold-out chair and watches the neighborhood pass before him.

He’s seated inside the open bay door of a warehouse on the corner of Conner and Canfield, where he’s got a hobbled together fruit market and a full view of east side life. His perch has given him an assessment of the mood out here.

“The spirit is low,” the 59-year-old says of this area. “All the life seems to be leaving. There’s just a sense of disappointment, not really giving a fuck, wanting to get the heck on out of here, leave Detroit and just go. Get up and just go.”

This area isn’t downtown, or Midtown, or the riverfront, where there are exciting projects, new residents, signs of hope for the future. This is an old east side neighborhood, a remote place where a Church’s Chicken or a dollar store is talked about as a major development, where more people travel by bus than by car, and where the old housing isn’t being restored but instead just crumbles slowly.

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She was desperate. She had no job, and her boyfriend’s small paycheck was barely enough to pay for everything. They’d sold the TV, and the couch they were sitting on was probably next to go.

One night, the couple was going over their bills, projecting a budget through the rest of the year, and after subtracting for rent and water and heat and electricity, they saw what they’d have left over for her two kids’ Christmas.

Thirty dollars.

On impulse, she went online, logged onto Craigslist, and out of her burst the ramblings of a shot-in-the-dark plea.

“My name is Christina,” it began. “I have two kids a boy 10 and a girl 6. I left their father last year. Things were really bad.”

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