Hi! We’re kicking off this week by… ending it. We’re taking a break on Thursday for some family time, giving thanks time, eating time and naptime. We’ll be back next Tuesday.

And thanks to the readers who caught a broken link last week -- if you’re still waiting to read about master garden designer Piet Oudolf and his plans for Belle Isle, you can dig in here.  <3 Ash & Kate

Crisis that never ends: A semi-solution to the high lead levels in water piped to Detroit’s schools doesn’t fix the massive problem of aging infrastructure, across our city and many others. “This is an everywhere problem. ... And we have been ignoring it for years.” (New York Times)

2020 here we come: Dan Gilbert could fund a ballot initiative for auto insurance reform, if lawmakers don’t get it done by the middle of next year. (Crain’s Detroit Business)

Still bad, but better: Wayne State has the lowest graduation rate among Michigan’s public universities -- but their turnaround efforts are starting to work, and catching the eye of state and national education groups. (Bridge)

Logistics lowdown: All the info you need to navigate the Thanksgiving parade, Turkey Trot, Lions game and traffic. (Curbed Detroit)

Ad #fail: Nestlé Waters tried to use their donations to Flint to make a feel-good commercial. Instead, they just outraged Michigan viewers who see little to celebrate in the water crisis and a certain degree of irony in the company donating back a natural resource it bottles and sells. (Deadline Detroit, YouTube)

Entrepreneurship, creativity and entertainment: those are the through lines that come up in descriptions of the Motown Museum revamp, though specific expansion plans are still up in the air. The museum just received a $500,000 grant from DTE Energy, bringing them up to $16.5 million of their $50 million fundraising campaign. (Freep)

And now to nurture next-gen Motown fans: “Motown Magic,” a kids' show animated in Lisa Frank-esque zingy colors, features classic Motown songs covered by contemporary artists. It premieres today. (Netflix)

Mom-to-mentor: A program formed as part of the multi-pronged effort to improve the city’s alarmingly high infant mortality rate is looking for more volunteer mentors. SisterFriends Detroit pairs women who are pregnant for the first time with mothers who can offer guidance and a support system. (Michigan Chronicle)

“Disaster mansion” no more: Feast your eyes on the before-and-after pics of this Indian Village home’s major restoration. (Curbed)

Tip-free future? How getting rid of traditional tipping affects the bottom line at restaurants like Folk and Rose’s Fine Food. (Eater Detroit)

Don't forget the RenCen: It has its own zip code. It keeps all its trash out of landfills. It’s a confounding maze even to locals. Unique and isolated as it is, the riverfront complex is facing stronger competition for tenants, with more and more office space coming online downtown. But it's got great views -- and close to half the price-per-square-foot of Bedrock rents. (Crain’s)

What does “historic building” bring to mind? Maybe a Beaux-Arts behemoth like the Detroit Institute of Arts. Or one of the recently restored downtown gems, like the Whitney Building. Or a stately old church, like Sweetest Heart of Mary and its twin Gothic Revival spires.

But it’s not just grandiose landmarks in the greater downtown area that have historical value. The nonprofit group Preservation Detroit launched an initiative this month to identify under-recognized sites that could use support and restoration, aiming to create a list of places worth preserving in neighborhoods around the city. They’re taking submissions through the end of November, with plans to release their first Detroit’s Endangered Historic Places list in spring.

The list will be based both on community input and the group’s own ideas. It’s a way to shine a light on sites in need of love, without going through more onerous processes like local historic district or federal historic landmark designation. (And without needing the funds to rehab a building yourself). The form simply asks why the site matters to you and what you’d like to see happen there.

Preservation Detroit Board President Eric Kehoe told Detour what makes a site “endangered”: “If there’s a consensus among community members that a site’s important and is in danger of being demolished or significantly altered in a way that does a disservice to the site.”

Being put on a list doesn’t automatically mean a building will be saved. In Chicago, a preservation group’s 2016’s list included two buildings that were demolished last year. The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual list of endangered historic places has included three Detroit sites: Tiger Stadium (‘91, ‘92), the Madison-Lenox Hotel (‘04) and historic downtown buildings in general (‘05). The former two were demolished. Still, the lists can bring attention to lesser known sites and give them a chance to be preserved -- or at least send a signal that people care about them and don’t want to see them torn down.

Historic preservation can also help preserve neighborhood identities, Kehoe suggested, a simmering issue as Detroit's rapid changes bring fears of displacement.

“There’s kind of the traditional way of looking at [preservation], where it’s like, ‘we need to make sure the windows are historically accurate,’” he said. “That’s an important side, but there’s … another way of looking at preservation, where we want to preserve certain aspects of our community that aren’t as tangible as a specific building, but it’s a way of life and cultural history.”

That larger-scale version of preservation is apparent in the group's advocacy for the Cass-Henry historic district, officially formed in July. Along with saving historic architecture, the designation preserves affordable housing, a mainstay of Cass Corridor that’s been disappearing in the wake of nearby development. The historic district literally makes it bureaucratically harder to demolish those buildings (even to turn them into District Detroit parking lots).

Preservation Detroit has been doing more outreach around the city, with events like coffeeshop meet-and-greets and trivia nights, to see how they can be of service to community preservation efforts, including the informal and nontraditional.

“Whether or not they think of themselves [that way], there are a lot of preservationists in Detroit, because there are a ton of people who have kept their neighborhood going through generations of disinvestment,” Kehoe said. “And those are preservationists, through-and-through.”

>> Keep reading: When endangered buildings start tweeting for their lives. The threatened national sites where civil rights history was made. Mapping the most senseless Detroit demolitions, and a 2012 list of endangered local buildings that reveals some major preservation wins in the last few years.

>> Take action: Add your two cents and submit a suggestion for an endangered historic site. (It’s quick!) Hit up a preservation happy hour tonight. And if you’re still all fired up about old buildings? Kehoe said Preservation Detroit always needs volunteers. --Kate Abbey-Lambertz

Kids can surprise you with the wonderful and wild ideas that they pull out of thin air -- but sometimes, imagining a wide-open future is a luxury in itself.

In the Pictures of Hope program, started by Birmingham photojournalist Linda Solomon, kids living in homeless shelters are given cameras, photo tutorials and encouragement to envision their dreams. Solomon has taken the project around the country.

On a Saturday last month, she and mentors from local media and politics met with 15 Detroit kids, ages 5 to 14, who were staying in Cass Community Social Services shelters. CCSS might be most well known for its growing village of tiny homes, but the nonprofit houses hundreds and feeds thousands of Detroiters in need each year, as well as offering health services and green manufacturing jobs. 

Back in October, kids wrote down dreams: to go to college; to be a doctor; to be a famous artist; to have a home. They then took their cameras -- which they get to keep -- out to shoot photos that illustrated those goals.

There’s something pretty poignant about seeing how kids suffering from homelessness can dream big while facing substantial need, from “My dream is to help as many people as I can,” to "My dream is to have a closet with my own clothes.”

CCSS turned the children’s pictures and dreams into greeting cards (timely for holiday notes or gifts). You can pick up a box of 15 cards for $20 online, with all proceeds going to support the nonprofit. Or you can buy them in person while meeting the young artists next week at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History reception on Weds., Nov. 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. --Kate Abbey-Lambertz

• ❤️ Fisher Building in New Center: Pot + Box, Pure Detroit, Yama, Workshop, The Peacock Room and more. (info)
• 🏵️ East Warren: Pop up vendors selling bath and body products and jewelry, drinks and more previews of forthcoming retail. (info)
• 💛 NW Goldberg: Tabernacle Ministry is hosting 40+ vendors in one spot. (info)
• ❇️ Livernois Avenue: DCreated Boutique, Detroit Fiber Works, Simplycasual and more. (info)
• 💠 Grandmont Rosedale: More than 25 local vendors, childcare, food trucks and other activities. (info)
• 💜 Corktown and Southwest: Eldorado General Store, Mama Coo’s Boutique, the Farmer’s Hand, El Popo Mkt, Zochi’s Gift Shop Flamingo Vintage, Danto’s Furniture, Detroit Moped Works and more. (info)

Wyandotte cops learn the perils of an unclaimed Google Business listing.