Dateline Detroit: If you can make it here ...

Things are so bad in bankrupt Detroit that the city is considering selling the masterpieces in the Detroit Institute of Art.

So how are Motor City hardware stores dealing?

“We’ve been here for 89 years, so we’ve seen lots of ups and downs,” said Emily Webster, co-owner at Detroit Hardware Co. “That said, we definitely see signs of a comeback — Midtown and Downtown are actually kind of booming compared with some other struggling neighborhoods.”

Though this runs counter to a mainstream narrative that says the center city is getting the short end of the recovery stick, Webster’s testimony aligns with a sort of general-consensus view of the embattled metro: that the bounce-back of its housing market was only a matter of time, but it’s a tale of two cities when you consider that much of the recovery seems concentrated in certain neighborhoods.

Indeed, Webster cites a slight increase in sales, though not necessarily an increase in profit. Demand is certainly up for products required to fix up (and board up) homes. And though Detroit Hardware Co. customers come from all over the city, they are largely concentrated in the Midtown and Downtown areas, where rents have been rising of late and all kinds of new businesses have been cropping up.

Webster’s advice: “You have to be as friendly and as nice as you can to every single customer who comes in the store, and in this area of Detroit, you have to keep your sense of humor because we get all kinds of people. Some people think a mom-and-pop can close on the holidays; close whenever you need it to. You can’t treat it like that.”