Origins

Elizabeth Solaka was born in the experimental, modernist landscape of Lafayette Park in downtown Detroit, the youngest in a house full of siblings, art, and music. By the time she was five, she roamed the neighborhood alone, eating a full deli breakfast at Zukin’s before walking herself to school, where a running tab was quietly settled between Mr. Zukin and her dad.

She taught herself to swim at the pool on the roof of the parking structure nestled between two Mies van der Rohe towers. She checked out books from a traveling bookmobile called Reading Is Fun. And sometimes, a swimming pool trailer rolled into the neighborhood.

Her mother, a ballerina, transformed our basement into a ballet studio, where a young Romanian teacher, Iacob Lascu, (literally) first found his footing in the United States. He would go on to choreograph for Marygrove College and spend twenty years producing The Nutcracker with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Her mom later ran a thriving New York–style cheesecake and catering business, and eventually owned The Soup Kitchen Saloon, a premier Detroit blues bar. As a pre-teen, Elizabeth would frequent the restaurant. Once, she was invited by the legendary Willie Dixon to come up to the piano and play a duet with him. The crowd danced on tables, her mom included.

Her father, a Chaldean born in Iraq, was an architect before joining his father’s Ye Olde Butcher Shoppe — a New York–style gourmet grocery store filled with premium meats, caviar, and the daily New York Times.

Motown artists like The Spinners and The Temptations often stopped in. Once, The Spinners handed Elizabeth a giant fabric rubber band in honor of their song “Rubber Band Man.” She spent hours sitting on the checkout counter, feet swinging, happily eating King Cones from the freezer while her grandmother, Peaches, knitted small purses in the corner and greeted the regulars. She carried the day’s cash home every evening.