 
Little_buddy
Member
Username: Little_buddy
Post Number: 88
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 11:23 am: |    |
I worked there in the late 70's, anybody else work there or live by there? I remember the Lawndale bar, but can't remember the bars right across the street from the plant on Fort St. |
Jams
Member
Username: Jams
Post Number: 8500
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 11:38 am: | |
Fleetwood kept many bars in the area open. I remember seeing a couple of safes that on payday would have $10-20grand to cash paychecks from there.
Dad worked there.
BTW it was Westend and Fort St. |
Xd_brklyn
Member
Username: Xd_brklyn
Post Number: 386
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 11:40 am: | |
That's the Michigan Cadillac plant, correct? I never worked there, but my uncle was a foreman there for years. He mentioned a diner he would go to on Michigan where the ham & pea soup was thick as oatmeal. And didn't that plant move to Livonia in the 80s? |
Jams
Member
Username: Jams
Post Number: 8501
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 11:51 am: | |
Nope, it was referred to as Fleetwood it provided the upholstery to the Michigan Cadillac plant on Michigan Ave. |
Karl_jr
Member
Username: Karl_jr
Post Number: 254
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 1:38 pm: | |
Bars across the street - The Hollywood was one of them. As for the soup at Clark street assy it was Liles and changed owners and became Mikes Ham Place, still making ham sandwiches and soup. |
Xd_brklyn
Member
Username: Xd_brklyn
Post Number: 389
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 2:03 pm: | |
Great. I'll have to try out Mike's Ham Place next time in town. Google shows it is at Michigan & Roosevelt. New owners, but from reviews online, it sounds like the soup and ham sandwiches are still worthy of a trip down there. Thanks. |
Whithorn11446
Member
Username: Whithorn11446
Post Number: 225
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 6:55 pm: | |
"Nope, it was referred to as Fleetwood it provided the upholstery to the Michigan Cadillac plant on Michigan Ave."
The Fleetwood plant at Fort & West End was Fisher Body where the body components were assembled. Wasn't the upholstery manufactured at the old Ternstedt fabrication facility around Fort & Livernois ? |
Jams
Member
Username: Jams
Post Number: 8512
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 7:13 pm: | |
Could be. I remember my dad talking about the sewers at Fleetwood and their Singers, but I was very young at the time, so likely my recollections are very fuzzy.
Now, if you were to ask me about Archway cookies and Dad's westside route.... |
Gannon
Member
Username: Gannon
Post Number: 12557
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 26, 2008 - 7:38 am: | |
My father worked in the offices of both Fleetwood and Ternstedt...I might be able to get him to come on here and share what he remembers.
For a time, he passed out the paychecks at one or both places and was a very popular fellow.
He drove a '68 Beetle to Fleetwood...but wonders where I get my hippy-ness from, heh.
Some of my earliest childhood memories were of those trucks leaving Fleetwood with 5 or 6 2/3rds of a Cadillac on their backs...and those damn slag trucks that used to clog up Dix/Toledo Rd. between Lonyo and Central or so, stinky mofos for sho. |
Pgn421
Member
Username: Pgn421
Post Number: 530
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, April 26, 2008 - 9:48 am: | |
i was the yard switcher, back 78-79 at Fleetwood. the bar across the street was The Fleetwood Inn, great burgers. |
Soter
Member
Username: Soter
Post Number: 1
Registered: 05-2008
| | Posted on Friday, May 09, 2008 - 5:20 pm: | |
I worked at Fleetwood from fall of 1976 to summer 1978 when I ran out of money for college. I lived in Delray just a few blocks south of the plant and walked to work. I quit when I had enough money to finish school. The plant was at Fort and West End. I worked in the body shop hanging doors on the Cadillacs, 70 cars an hour. |
Reddog289
Member
Username: Reddog289
Post Number: 278
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, May 10, 2008 - 4:27 am: | |
isn,t that place a railroad yard now? and has anyone been to the hard hat bar on Fort& McKinstry? |
Pgn421
Member
Username: Pgn421
Post Number: 541
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, May 10, 2008 - 6:51 am: | |
it now is a ocean container yard. |
Busterwmu
Member
Username: Busterwmu
Post Number: 483
Registered: 09-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, May 10, 2008 - 12:34 pm: | |
Yes, it's an intermodal transfer facility from Railcars to Semis and back. The regular train yard in the same area is called the Garden Yard and once was full of tracks for the Detroit Produce Terminal. Today, the Terminal is still served by trains but on a much reduces scale. When did Fleetwood close, anyways? |
Plymouthres
Member
Username: Plymouthres
Post Number: 513
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2008 - 9:28 am: | |
Soter-
Does the name Parsons ring a bell? Ron or Buck......? I went to school with Ron and his dad, I believe, was a foreman. Ron started there in around '76 and his dad started wayyyyy before that! They were related to the Parsons family (Benny and Phil) of stock car fame.
Lunch was always at Jerry's Federal Bar, too. |
Little_buddy
Member
Username: Little_buddy
Post Number: 90
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 - 3:48 pm: | |
I worked on the 6th floor as a loner from 74-76. Bruno Constentine was my boss. Was a janitor from 76-78 there. Worked all three shifts. Was a big old building with lots of nooks and cranies to explore. I know the plant manager had some of the nicest paneling on his walls I have ever seen. |
Sshaw
Member
Username: Sshaw
Post Number: 1
Registered: 04-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008 - 4:00 pm: | |
Soter... Was you Dad Mike in Facilities Engineering? |