  Peterhuntprincess Member Username: Peterhuntprincess Post Number: 11 Registered: 03-2008 |
I just discovered the plat of land that was Herman Gardens. Ive seen the aerial before and after photos on this site but I would like to see actual pictures of the buildings, around the area, the park in the center, etc. I googled and could not find a single actual photo of this place, nothing even close. I checked the past blogs and nothing with a photo came up. I spent hours looking so forgive me for being a couple years late, but please fill me in. (Message edited by Peterhuntprincess on August 24, 2008) | ||
Gertrude Member Username: Gertrude Post Number: 108 Registered: 05-2005 |
My dad spent most of his childhood there. Let me see if I can dig up some family pics but my grandparents weren't picture people if you know what I mean. If I can dig one up, it will be of a doorway. What I remember of them from my childhood is squat brick rowhouses almost in really bad shape. My grandmother said that she was happy to leave there in 1965 when they bought a house across Joy Rd on Archdale. I have no idea how they raised five kids in either place. Good luck in your search. What are you planning on doing with them? | ||
Peterhuntprincess Member Username: Peterhuntprincess Post Number: 12 Registered: 03-2008 |
Honestly im an architectural nut. I just love looking at old Detroit buildings. If I could get my eyes on some photos I plan on relaxing. I just can't get that big vacant lot out of my head. Im sure im not the only one who feels that way also. Thanks for the kind gesture. | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 1847 Registered: 04-2006 |
It looked a lot like the recently torn down townhouses at the Lodge and Temple. In the Center was a larger building for seniors. There was also a powerplant/incinerator in the NE corner. | ||
Tayshaun22 Member Username: Tayshaun22 Post Number: 430 Registered: 02-2005 |
The ghetto. The end. | ||
Terryh Member Username: Terryh Post Number: 910 Registered: 11-2006 |
What exactly was Herman Gardens? Housing projects? Was it a tough white working class area? | ||
Reddog289 Member Username: Reddog289 Post Number: 544 Registered: 08-2007 |
Scary when i was a kid back in the 70,s/8o,s. We would go to the A&P and Franks nursery on Greenfield, my Grandma would pray that the car wouldn,t break down in front of "That Hermans Gardens". As a little kid i,d be scared, yet when my cousin played football at Lutheran West I thought nothing of it. When i do drive by there i also wonder whats the deal with the gardens? | ||
Sean_of_detroit Member Username: Sean_of_detroit Post Number: 1603 Registered: 03-2008 |
There are aerial pictures somewhere in the tours on this site, I think. It's one of those ones where you hold your mouse over the picture and it changes from now to then. | ||
Raggedclaws Member Username: Raggedclaws Post Number: 215 Registered: 08-2006 |
There are at least 5 significantly lengthy threads of discussion regarding HG just on this site alone. Use the 'search' button. Wiki has an entry on HG. HG was legendary where I grew up, the "big bad", so to speak. See Reddog's post. As kids we were told to never, ever go there. And stay in school so that we would not end up there. Like Tayshaun said...the ghetto. My friends and I didn't give it much thought, just where the poor folk lived. | ||
Chuckjav Member Username: Chuckjav Post Number: 656 Registered: 09-2007 |
Herman Gardens - early 1990s http://www.orsonprattbrown.com /Angela/Bertha/rowhouses-herma ngardns.jpg | ||
Chuckjav Member Username: Chuckjav Post Number: 657 Registered: 09-2007 |
Flashing back to the fall of 1976, sitting in one of my Sociology classes at WMU; discussing the so-called behavioral sink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B ehavioral_sink ......What always came to mind: Herman Gardens, Brewster & Jefferies Projects. Classic. | ||
Mikeydbn Member Username: Mikeydbn Post Number: 368 Registered: 04-2004 |
https://www.detroityes.com/webisode s/2004/13-UrbanPrairie/HermanG arden.htm | ||
Barbara_10 Member Username: Barbara_10 Post Number: 1 Registered: 08-2008 |
Herman Gardens was low-cost housing back in the early '50's. We had a lot of HG kids at Mackenzie High School. I remember skipping school in 1954 and going to HG to the home of one of our conspirators. Her single Mom was at work. HG wasn't a half bad place back then. I have heard since then that it is not a place you would want to be anywhere near in broad daylight today. | ||
English Member Username: English Post Number: 792 Registered: 10-2003 |
I can't believe that across the nation, many of these housing projects are gone. When I was a kid in the 1980s, I always considered the projects hell... although both my parents were raised in them. They said they were bad in the 1950s, and from the way they talked, certain death back then. I only went into a project a couple of times... one of the high-rises (Jeffries?). A friend of the family lived there... I was really little. However, some of the apartment buildings in certain areas of Detroit and Highland Park remind me of the projects. Back in 2006 the girl who did my hair lived in a scary-looking building. Her place was very nice and fixed up, but the rest of the place was totally jacked up. | ||
56packman Member Username: 56packman Post Number: 2421 Registered: 12-2005 |
Herman Gardens and other similar housing projects in the city (Connor and E. Warren looks very much like Herman Gardens) were built in the immediate post WWII period to house veterans coming home from the war. They had money to rent a place, many like my father bought their first home on the GI bill. There was a virtual halt on construction through most of the depression, save for areas like Rosedale Park, where the professional class lived, there was no quantity home developments put up. All of those servicemen coming home had war brides in tow, or got married quickly as they shipped out, or quickly wanted to get hooked up with their girlfriends and didn't want or need to live at home with ma and pa. WWII shaped so much of our modern lives, and still does. | ||
Peterhuntprincess Member Username: Peterhuntprincess Post Number: 13 Registered: 03-2008 |
Thanks... | ||
1st_sgt Member Username: 1st_sgt Post Number: 174 Registered: 11-2006 |
I can tell you it was a nice place to live in the early 60's. Herman Elem was a good school even though I was bused into it from my own neighborhood. | ||
Whithorn11446 Member Username: Whithorn11446 Post Number: 266 Registered: 03-2007 |
"Connor and E. Warren looks very much like Herman Gardens) were built in the immediate post WWII period" 56 Packman, Parkside which you are referring to at Conner and E.Warren was built in the 1930's. It housed many white southerners that worked in the nearby plants. Until the early 1960's both Parkside and Herman Gardens were well over 90 % white because the policy of the federal government at the time was to keep housing projects and surrounding neighborhoods similar in racial composition. The Kennedy-Johnson administration changed that policy. In the case of Parkside it would later play a role in changing the middle class neighborhood surrounding it during the middle to late 1960's. More specifically, Parkside and its changing nature assisted the real estate agents in blockbusting the Warren-Conner and Warren-Dickerson area and ultimately the neighborhoods up to I-94. | ||
Hpgrmln Member Username: Hpgrmln Post Number: 554 Registered: 06-2007 |
It was an apartment complex with a police mini-station! | ||
Mashugruskie Member Username: Mashugruskie Post Number: 36 Registered: 09-2006 |
Herman Gardens was re-built twice. Low housing first which then turned into a slum. In the 1980's it was cleaned up (at least three large sections were repaired that I recall), and destroyed and turned into a dump within one year. I had a friend who used to cut through it in the 1980's and he ended up battered with boot marks gouged into his face. I'm glad the place is gone. | ||
Peterhuntprincess Member Username: Peterhuntprincess Post Number: 14 Registered: 03-2008 |
By the way welcome to the forum Barbara_10! | ||
Alfie1a Member Username: Alfie1a Post Number: 58 Registered: 10-2007 |
Our family lived there for 2 years during the early 60's. I was really young but remember having much fun. There were a lot of kids to play with. One thing that stuck in my mind about that place was going to the DPW yard with some older kids over near Schoolcraft - Southfield. Maybe the reason it stuck was cause of the woopin i got for it. The only other thing i can remember was this one old guy, our neighbor, would always give us homemade apple turnovers, pies, apple butter. anything made from apples, he had it. We didn't know the place was a dump. lol. My mother says she cried when we moved there. | ||
River_rat Member Username: River_rat Post Number: 354 Registered: 02-2006 |
Herman Gardens of the past was the prologue of the Detroit of today. | ||
Detroit313 Member Username: Detroit313 Post Number: 706 Registered: 02-2006 |
I used to live in Joy West Manor (Next to HG) back in 1985/86 Terrible times... I had to go to Herman Elementary for 1st grade. That was the first time I had a GUN pulled on me! WTF! I was six years old! <313> | ||
7051 Member Username: 7051 Post Number: 144 Registered: 02-2006 |
I heard that Herman "Gardens" was fertilized with the corpes of unlucky people... | ||
7051 Member Username: 7051 Post Number: 145 Registered: 02-2006 |
correction ^^^ corpses | ||
Alfie1a Member Username: Alfie1a Post Number: 62 Registered: 10-2007 |
http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/ i/image/image-idx?q1=herman+ga rdens&rgn1=vmc_ti&op2=And&q2=& rgn2=vmc_ti&type=boolean&c=vmc &view=thumbnail | ||
Gertrude Member Username: Gertrude Post Number: 109 Registered: 05-2005 |
I went to Herman for first grade in 1979. On my first day there, I got lost and couldn't find my bus. I had never taken a bus before and the school seemed so big to me. I didn't want to get yelled at so I figured I'd just walk home. I knew I could cut through the Garden to my Grandma's house, where I was living with my dad while my parents finalized their divorce, but I was afraid of getting lost or attacked or something. So I walked along the service drive instead. The Gardens were another world even though we lived right by it and my grandparents had lived there a good ten years. That whole area was like a war zone in the 80s. I couldn't wait to leave Detroit (and Michigan) because of it. My family was so angry with me! I'm pretty sure my Grandpa went up there and started a fuss because they made sure I found the bus next time. 1st_sgt - Did you know any Falcons? Those were my dad's family and they would have been in the Gardens/that area about the same time. | ||
Saintme Member Username: Saintme Post Number: 212 Registered: 08-2006 |
Wow, that before and after picture left me speechless. | ||
Sstashmoo Member Username: Sstashmoo Post Number: 2294 Registered: 02-2007 |
Anyone remember "Sin city" in Taylor? Another subsidized housing development that was destroyed within a few years. I heard they leveled that whole place too? It was out by the old Southland apartments. Are they even there anymore? I remember going into Sin city. It looked like a war zone. Cars out front with no tires on them. Street signs covering up broken out picture windows. They were brand new little houses, totally trashed. | ||
1st_sgt Member Username: 1st_sgt Post Number: 176 Registered: 11-2006 |
Sorry I don’t remember many family names just a few first names from school. I lived down Joy Rd, over on Burnette between West Chicago and Joy Rd. My sister and I was bused to Herman Elem for 2nd grade to 6th about 1961-67. Herman Gardens was a fun place to visit. I had class mates from school and my Aunts houses had lots of neighbor kids to play with. There were lots of kids, mostly white, where my neighborhood was different with few kids and mostly black. I remember the little platinum blond girl I sat next to in class; she lived down from my Aunts house. She had an older sister, they looked just alike, but they never could move from right in front of their house, they never could “come out and play” now a day’s its normal for that kind of supervision but back then it was real strange. All of us were outside away from the house from morning “till the street lights came on” but that family was different. I can remember my Mom or Aunt hollering for us to come home and hearing them just about anywhere, or it was relayed by other kids that we were being called in, you would stop what we’re doing and ran straight home. There was one a family lived in another unit close by that the mom and dad could not hear or talk; they blew a whistle for the kids to run home. I had two sets of relatives living in the Gardens late 1950’s till about 1966/67. Two sets of aunts, uncles and cousins. One Uncle was a Mister Softie man. (A celebrity to us kids), the other was a Korea and Vietnam vet. There was a large grass mall to play on, tennis courts to play in, and trees to climb like crab apple and maple (I remember the smell of the maples to this day). Their front door faced Joy Road the back door was where the parking lot was off to one side. We always used the back door facing towards the parking lot, the clothes lines were in back also. I remember they had three bed rooms up stairs. The living room, eat in kitchen and laundry with storage room was on the first floor. Life was centered in the kitchen, that’s where we all visited at. The units on the end of the row were taller and had more rooms for bigger families. My first baseball, glove and bat were bought from the hardware/ sporting goods store right across the street on Joy Rd where we crossed and went shopping at. All the units were all the same color brick; you had to know the place in the row where they lived or the number to tell them apart. I liked it there.. | ||
Focusonthed Member Username: Focusonthed Post Number: 2010 Registered: 02-2006 |
It's funny, you look at those 1950s pictures, it could be any townhouse apartment development. Amazing what happens when you concentrate poverty. | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 1582 Registered: 12-2006 |
The Prof remembers in the mid eighties having to get body work done on one of his old clunkers, and someone recommended a guy who lived in HG and repaired cars in the street right in front of his apartment. "He does good work," friend said, "but only takes cash." Remember The Prof is not from these parts and at that time had not been here long, and didn't know what HG was. So I put $600 in my wallet and took the bus, Joy Road if I remember correctly, and walked to the guy's flat when it was time to pick up the car. He looked around after I paid him, out on the stoop in front of the building, and said "who drove you here?" "I took the bus, then walked in." He was stunned, and said so, fairly loudly. "You walked through this place with six bills on you? Man, you're out your mind." "Sure," sez I, "but nobody knew I had the six bills. Now with you shouting about it, everybody in the neighborhood knows you have it." Got in the jalopy and drove off. Hope things turned out OK for him. It was a pretty rough neighborhood then, by the looks of it. I don't remember exactly when or why it was demolished, but nothing is there now, and probably nothing will be there for a long time. I heard through another grapevine that the Tipperary Pub, right near HG on the southbound Southfield service drive, has closed recently. Anyone know more? | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 1860 Registered: 04-2006 |
Prof, I've lived in that neighborhood for nearly my entire life. Tommy sold the Tipp a few years back to these kids from St. Al's. I suspect having multiple owners and a place that does seasonal business cycles did not work too well. I live in the area and never went there after tommy sold it so I can't say for sure. I do however recall having to walk up there and drive my parents and their buddies back home when I was 14 on quite a few occasions. |
