Robert Allen

Detroit Free Press

A downtown Detroit coffeehouse and an adjoining jewelry store get all their water from a system of plastic pipe and garden hoses attached to a nearby fireplug with duct tape and towels.

The jerry-rigging, though, isn't the work of the business owners trying to get free water.

The city's Water and Sewerage Department hooked it up several months ago because two, nearby crumbling buildings make it too dangerous to work on the water main leak below.

The makeshift water service is the only way that Chris Jaszczak, 66, owner of 1515 Broadway, is able to serve coffee to his customers. All water served is boiled first, and customers aren't offered tap water.

It's just one more example of a city immersed in bankruptcy making do with imaginative fixes, like using tires to plug utility manholes whose covers have been stolen. Or firefighters using pop cans hooked up to fax machines as emergency alerts.

The fireplug service is a temporary fix while the DWSD figures out how workers can safely make water repairs to the water line in the alley behind the two businesses along Broadway, a stone's throw from Comerica Park.

Crews need to dig to the water main to fix a leak. But two neighboring tall buildings, the Wurlitzer and Metropolitan, crumbling from decades of neglect, are too threatening.

The worry is that vibration from heavy equipment needed to make the repairs in the alley will jar loose bricks and other debris on the two buildings, bringing it down on workers.

Jaszczak said pieces of the Wurlitzer building on the south side of his business — and his upstairs home — fall on the property every day. His residential loft has numerous buckets and tarps to catch rain.

"I mean, this is embarrassing," he said, showing the Free Press the extent of his rain-catching setup, with a tarp even on his son's bed.

He said it's a problem that's only getting worse. But with winter coming, there's an urgency for the city to fix the water main before the ground and hoses freeze.

DWSD spokesman Greg Eno said it will cost about $100,000 to have the buildings in the alley secured with netting and scaffolding. There's been uncertainty about who will pay, but he said the city is likely to foot the bill.

Daphne and Paul Curtis, previously reported as the owners of the Wurlitzer building, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

On the roof of Jaszczak's building, he's used fallen bricks and tarp to cover a large hole left a few years ago when a piece of the Wurlitzer fell from the top of the 13-story building, smashing through his second-story roof and onto his floor. On the roof, pieces of brick, mortar and broken glass are scattered across the vinyl liner; in many places, falling bricks have gouged holes.

Jaszczak said the roof liner was installed 13 years ago and shouldn't be leaking like it is.

In the back alley, where garden hoses are tapped into the fireplug, high-level parts of the Wurlitzer are bowed out precariously, stacks of bricks visible from the ground, waiting to fall.

Dan Martinez, co-operator of the café, advised a Free Press reporter to wear a helmet when walking in the alley behind the business.

"I don't even walk back there," he said.

The fireplug setup has been in place since shortly after the Fourth of July, when the water was abruptly shut off because a leak was detected at a neighboring business.

Jaszczak, forced to improvise to accommodate the holiday traffic to his business as the Tigers were playing at Comerica Park, hauled buckets of water from the nearby Detroit Beer Company.

"I had to carry the buckets up two flights of stairs just so I could wash the dishes," he said.

Free Press staff writer Tresa Baldas contributed to this report.