Eminem's '8 Mile' trailer park still draws urban legend intrigue, gritty Detroit inspiration

Eric Lacy | By Eric Lacy |
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on October 24, 2013 at 10:12 AM, updated October 24, 2013 at 2:12 PM
Who isn't an Eminem fan? Honestly? I think he's a dream." - 46-year-old Wyandotte native Patricia McDermott, Continental Mobile Village manager

WARREN, MI - Patricia McDermott knows the drill.

She's been the Continental Mobile Village's manager for about seven months and realized quickly it's best to be armed with answers when the questions start firing.

Did he live here? Does he still live here? What's he like? What happened to his trailer?

"It's amusing," McDermott told me in her office, just a stone's throw from Eight Mile Road. "It's really amusing."

Consider McDermott, a 46-year-old Wyandotte native, an Eminem expert by necessity. She experiences the pure fandomonium Slim Shady draws to this 215-unit community on a monthly basis.

Just over the summer McDermott had a white rapper "from the wrong side of Cleveland" visit the trailer park, perform an impromptu rap concert and make plans over the phone in her office to visit other "8 Mile" filming locales like Detroit's St. Andrew's Hall.

"I was thinking: ‘I don’t do record labels, so I can’t help you,'" McDermott said of the Clevelander's visit. "He actually called St. Andrew’s Hall and asked to go on a tour of the basement. It was crazy.

"The way that I kind of take it as that some of these people actually blow their entire vacation trying to track down Eminem, and then come up with a lot of loose ends.”

Other recent visitors have come from Quebec, Canada - a mother-daughter team primed for an Eminem sightseeing vacation - upstate New York and rural Indiana.

They all find out eventually that not only did Eminem not live in the community, but the trailer that was his home in "8 Mile" was brought in by movie crews and is now long gone.

"They ask about the trailer," McDermott said. "And I tell them I have no idea where it is. Where do they put something like that? In The Smithsonian?"

Hip hop hotspot

The popularity of Continental Mobile Village for "Stans" (a nickname for Eminem fans) is understandable, and it will probably always be thought of my most fans as the place where Marshall Bruce Mathers III really lived.

McDermott does her part to set the record straight; she also tells fans there's no actual place called "Salem's Lot," the trailer park Eminem mentions in the hit song "Lose Yourself." The song was honored with an Academy Award for Best Original Song in "8 Mile."

"It's not even the name of our park," McDermott said laughing. "It was from the song lyrics 'Mom, I can't grow old in Salem's Lot.' And to my knowledge, he never even lived in a trailer community off Eight MIle."

"I always heard he lived in a trailer park in Clinton Township."

Eminem has said publicly several times that he's lived in Metro Detroit trailer parks, and described his upbringing last year during a behind-the-scenes video shoot in Milford, Mich.

"Why does everyone think I"m from a (bleeping) trailer park?," Eminem said smiling during his shoot for the Skylar Grey song
'C'mon Let Me Ride.
' "Why can I not break that stereotype? I've lived in them, yes; many of them for many years.

"But that doesn't mean I'm from a trailer park."

Regardless, McDermott will likely have to do plenty of more trailer park tours at Continental Mobile village once Slim Shady's new album, "The Marshall Mathers LP 2" is released on Nov. 5.

The album is expected to revisit Eminem's roots in Warren and Detroit, and its cover art shows the current state of his former childhood home in Detroit at 19946 Dresden. The bungalow sits less than five miles east of Continental Mobile Village.

I checked out Eminem's old Dresden post, located on the city's east side, a few weeks ago and counted a whopping 70 abandoned homes - 66 between 8 Mile and 7 Mile roads.

Continental Mobile Village has about 51 vacant sites, but appears in much, much better shape.

The residents I saw there during my recent trip appeared to be simply trying to live quiet lives off Eight Mile, considered Detroit's most infamous road. The actual Warren address for the community is 20785 Schultes.

Hard times, tough residents

Why so many vacancies? The 2008-09 U.S. banking and mortgage crisis didn't do this community, like other parts of Metro Detroit, many favors.

During the "8 Mile" filing, the trailer park - with a mix of owned and rented trailers about 12 feet wide and 60 feet long - was thriving and near capacity.

Then the mortgage crisis, creating a buyer's market, inspired several residents to leave their trailers and move into cheap homes, McDermott said.

"Everyone was just abandoning their mobile homes," McDermott said. "They were saying ‘Hey, I can go and buy this house and it’s only going to cost me 10 grand.”

The fact Eminem knows what it's like to struggle and overcome challenges is what McDermott believes makes him so popular and relevant.

Slim Shady's Warren roots have not only inspired visitors to visit her trailer park, but also sign agreements to either own or rent a unit there.

"“I'll often ask someone, ‘How did you find out about our community?’ and they'll say ‘Eight Mile,’” McDermott said. “And I'll say, ‘Oh, you’re a drive-by?’ and they'll say ‘No, the movie.’”

Payments for trailer park owners in the community range anywhere from $400 to $600 a month. There are also "handyman specials" available on fixer-upper units that can be bought for under $400 (monthly site payments also required).

Strolling around the community this month, I got the sense its a blue collar kind of place full of families and hard working people just trying to get by like anyone else.

I saw a woman mowing her lawn and kids walking home from school. The scene appeared to be a far cry from the community in "8 Mile." McDermott said film crews used propane tanks and dumped over garbage cans to give the area a dingier and more down and out kind of look.

What appears authentic at the trailer park since crews began filming "8 Mile" is the love residents and visitors alike have for the area's most accomplished star.

McDermott is eager to take her 14-year-old son Michael, a bass guitar player, to an Eminem concert and describes one of the world's best rappers as perseverance personified.

"Who isn't an Eminem fan?," McDermott said smiling. "Honestly? I think he’s a dream.

"I think he captured the dream, and I think a lot of the kids feel like ‘Hey, it happened for him and it can happen for me.’”