Hello from Second Street Labs

Hey there, from Second Street Labs.

For those of you outside of Midtown Detroit, today is Dally in the Alley. It’s our neighborhood’s annual holiday, a celebration that feels as unplanned as it is inevitable—when September rolls around, the streets fill with neighbors, friends, music, and the kind of energy that can only happen here.

Queer folks loiter happily in the alleyways. Curated beats spill out of every bar and balcony. Kids chalk sidewalks while neighbors share food and stories. Dally is part street fair, part block party, part rite of passage—and altogether Detroit. It’s a collective exhale before the cold sets in, a reminder that this city thrives on connection and reinvention.

At Second Street Labs, we think a lot about networks. Not just the digital kind—the ones that flow invisibly through our cities. A festival like Dally is the best proof that networks are alive: people, infrastructure, music, light, and memory all layered together. The city hums because the connections between us are strong. The same principles that drive our research in sensing, data, and machine learning are on full display in the everyday rhythms of Detroit.

That’s why today felt like the right moment to launch the Lab’s blog. Just like Dally brings Midtown together, we hope this space can connect ideas: research, creativity, and the joy of building in and for Detroit. We’ll share our work, our experiments, and maybe even some stories from the street corners where it all starts.

Here’s to Dally. Here’s to Detroit. And here’s to making sense of the cities that bring us to life.

See you in the alley.