Memorial Made Of Liquor Bottles In Detroit

Everyone likes to honor their deceased loved ones in whatever way they see fit, and some of those ways are unorthodox, while others are more common. For example, we often see family members and loved ones get together to place follows on gravesites, throw family cookouts on their birthday, and even organize balloon releases. In some of the less fortunate neighborhoods you may hear gunshots ring off, music blasting, or liquor being poured out.

What one family started doing to honor a couple of loved ones turned into a tradition and started gaining traction all over the city. What started as a way to honor two uncles in a family has become something everyone in the city wants to be apart of. The Humes Family and their generational home on Petoskey St. on the westside of Detroit, will be known forever.

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It took a little while for the Humes family to figure out how to pay respects to their uncles, but in June of 2017 they found the perfect way to remember their loved ones forever. James Otis Smith passed in 2009 and Ive Silas passed in 2011 are the uncles that this memorial is in honor of, Smith passed from cancer while Silas passed from a heart attack. While working at Ford and being a neighborhood mechanic respectively, these men were special to the entire neighborhood.

In June of 2017 the Humes family began to leave empty liquor bottles outside of their empty generational home in Detroit, Michigan. It started off small, with just their family adding to the sea of bottles, when it suddenly caught traction. Before the family really knew what was going on, everyone was adding to their memorial for their uncles. Now the memorial has 1,000s of empty liquor bottles littering the yard and walkway. The coolest memorial I've ever seen!