Morningside’s Finest: Nicholas Riley

As my husband and I headed to a friend’s house in Cornerstone on Christmas Day, we noticed a ladder under a blank marquee at the Alger Theater. On our way home that afternoon, the ladder was gone, but there were new messages on both sides of the marquee. Who on earth would be willing to come out on Christmas Day to put up signage on the Alger? I wondered. Whoever it was definitely deserves a shoutout. Turns out that dedicated volunteer and good neighbor was Nicholas Riley, who lives with his wife Kim and 3-month-old son Genaro on Berkshire near Mack. They moved to MorningSide from Hamtramck early in the pandemic and eventually met almost all the neighbors on their “awesome block,” but they hadn’t yet gotten involved in the larger community.

That changed several months ago when Nicholas (who also goes by Nick) struck up a conversation at Alma’s Kitchen on Mack with a board member of Friends of the Alger Theater. Nicholas had always admired the architecture of the Alger, and during the course of the conversation he found himself volunteering to help with “whatever needs to be done” at the Alger. “It was one of the few decisions I’ve made after a few beers that I didn’t regret the next day,” he jokes. He’s now in a regular rotation with two other volunteers to keep the Alger marquee up to date. They’re looking to recruit two more.

Nick has worked in a variety of settings, including the Mercury Bar in Corktown, where he met co-worker Kim (now his wife), and in a program for people with developmental disabilities. Now his job is being a stay-at-home dad while his wife teaches at a Detroit charter school. Kim says he’s the perfect dad. “I tell him he was born to be a mother,” she says with a laugh. Nicholas says it was his son who motivated him to join the effort to re-open the Alger Theater. “I imagine taking him to movies at the Alger someday. I’m doing this for him.”