Roger & Me Page #8

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They hired the company that built

New York's South Street Seaport...

to come to Flint

and create Water Street Pavilion.

We took a four-square-block area,

tore it down...

and built this new facility...

which is a lot of glass and steel,

as well as plants...

and different colors

to make it festive, fun and exciting.

Also, a major parking ramp...

and some other facilities

connected with the building.

It's more than just another building

in downtown Flint.

I like the color and the excitement of it.

It's very good for tourism in our area.

A major stop for the bus tours

that come to our area.

They pull up, park the bus,

and unload 40 senior citizens or so.

Water Street brings a fun atmosphere

that comes with a festival marketplace...

much like other festival marketplaces

around the country.

But the crowning jewel in Flint's plan

to attract tourists was Auto World...

hailed by city officials

as the world's largest indoor theme park.

Today is the first day...

of the rebirth...

of the great city of Flint.

The governor had reason to be excited.

Donny and Marie had come

to celebrate the opening of Auto World...

constructed at a cost

of over $100 million...

and dedicated to the belief

that the automobile made America great.

I paid my $8.95 and saw something

I hadn't seen in a long time...

downtown Flint, rebuilt exactly to scale...

under the glass-enclosed dome

of Auto World...

to look like it used to

before the factory closings.

They predicted

a million tourists would come...

to ride the world's only

indoor Ferris wheel...

to gaze at the world's largest car engine...

and to meet the official sponsors

of the American dream.

My favorite was the exhibit sponsored

by General Motors.

A puppet auto worker...

singing a love song to the robot

replacing him on the assembly line.

The song was called Me and My Buddy.

Auto World will make

a major contribution...

to our important

tourism and travel industry.

It's not only a contribution to that,

but as the mayor said:

"To jobs for our people,

our children, our neighbors."

The million tourists never came to Flint.

The Hyatt went bankrupt

and was put up for sale.

Water Street Pavilion saw

most of its stores go out of business.

And, only six months after opening...

Auto World closed due to a lack of visitors.

I guess it was like

expecting a million people a year...

to go to New Jersey to Chemical World,

or to Valdez, Alaska, to Exxon World.

Some people just don't like to celebrate

human tragedy while on vacation.

It started to get looking like Toronto...

upper middle-class

black and white people...

and everybody was dressed nice.

We thought it would be

the entertainment center of the county...

in all truth.

That may be naive, but that was my goal.

Let's make it the entertainment center...

so that everybody wants to be

in downtown Flint.

We're going to have

entertainment and art.

It's going to be very cultural,

it going to be very upbeat.

Somebody said something to me,

and maybe it's true.

They said, "Look, Maxine...

"you can't make Palm Beach

out of the Bowery.

"You want to make Palm Beach,

you got to go there."

Half of Flint was now receiving

some form of government welfare.

Meanwhile, Roger Smith

gave himself a $2,000,000 raise.

GM lobbyist Tom Kay tried to explain.

I don't understand your connection,

that by saying...

because General Motors was born here,

it owes more to this community.

- don't agree with that.

- Why not?

Because I just don't agree with it.

I believe it's a corporation.

It's in business to make a profit.

It does what it has to do to make a profit.

That's the nature of corporations

or companies.

It's why people take their own money

and invest it in a business...

so they can make money.

It isn't to honor their hometown.

What's going on here?

They're evicting somebody from his home.

I was just wondering.

It turned out that the guy Deputy Fred

was evicting had gone to my high school.

His name was James Bond.

As if that hadn't

caused him enough grief...

he was now being thrown out of his home.

Where can I go to stay?

We had five kids

at the place where I was this morning.

And you went over there

and evicted them?

- Set them out on the ground.

- Why is that?

Because they didn't pay the rent.

You think I like this?

I got other things to do.

- You've been doing it a long time.

- t's a job.

- What can I say? t's a job.

- t's a job.

Somebody's got to do it.

I feel sorry for the people that have kids.

What will they grow up to?

What do they look forward to?

- Lf I was a young man, I'd keep working.

- Look out there. It's nothing.

- They got a bleak future.

- know. I worked over there for 17 years.

- quit. I worked there.

- Why did you quit?

Got tired of the system.

It was like a prison to me, so I quit.

It was like a prison?

That factory played tricks on your mind.

- Where are you going to stay?

- 'll probably stay at my brother's tonight.

The thing is,

I don't want to stay with somebody.

I want a chance

to have something of my own...

which doesn't look

like it's going to happen, ever.

Not in this town.

These are rough times.

Really rough times.

I got thrown out of my house once.

The health inspector came out...

and told me that I was dressing my rabbits

in a unsanitary condition.

So now I have to build me a building...

where there's washable walls,

washable floors...

and an unbreakable light.

I have to have a scale

that weighs properly...

and I have to have three sinks

where I dress the rabbits.

- What's going to happen to him?

- He's going to be eaten.

He's going to be our supper

on the supper table.

What's the matter?

What are you guys crying about?

How do you slaughter them?

Hung them upside-down

and stripped their fur off...

and gutted them.

Quit biting.

And chop their heads off.

Quit it.

What happened to your brother

who worked at the factory?

He got laid off.

Now you know what I'm talking about.

He's dripping.

My girlfriend out in Fenton, we tan them...

and we try to make coats,

gloves and animals out of the furs.

- What kind of coat does rabbit fur make?

- A rabbit coat.

- What else do you think it makes?

- s it a nice coat? Warm?

I don't know. We ain't made one yet.

We got to get enough furs.

- How many do you need?

- A lot.

You need lots and lots of furs.

Right now, we've only got 135 furs...

with all the rabbits I've done so far...

before I got in trouble.

That's why I'm not actually

supposed to be doing this.

I was brought up to learn to survive.

If you were out in the wilderness...

I'm getting ready to gut him.

You think it's hard

to survive in Flint these days?

Why?

The shops are all going down,

and people just ain't...

got the money like they used to anymore...

and you can't be buying things.

That's why I said

my rabbit meat usually went...

The people of Flint

had been through the wringer.

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