Four quarters, three nations, a city that has seen it all. Detroit's flag divides its history into boxes: British lions, French fleurs-de-lis, American eagles. A municipal coat of arms at the center, like a signature uniting these fragments.
Each quarter tells of a sovereignty: colonial France that founded the city in 1701, England that conquered it in 1760, the United States that took it back in 1796. Detroit changed flags before finding its own. This composite coat of arms, adopted in 1948, embraces this patchwork identity.
Detroit falls, burns, empties out. Then is reborn slowly, neighborhood by neighborhood, artist by artist.
The flag keeps flying, a silent witness to a city that refuses to disappear.