 
Focusonthed
Member
Username: Focusonthed
Post Number: 1525
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 4:40 pm: |    |
Sears at Lawrence and Wolcott, Chicago. Old school.
 |
Parkguy
Member
Username: Parkguy
Post Number: 169
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 7:30 pm: | |
We moved into the city in 1979, and Montgomery Ward, Federal's, Crowley's, Hughes & Hatcher, and I think Winkelman's, and United Shirt were all still open at Greenfield and Grand River. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5715
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 10:56 pm: | |
That Chicago store looks terrible with the ghettoized windows. Sears Oakman in Detroit never looked like that. Thanks.
The funkiest Sears jjaba has ever seen is Houston. It survives in a bombed out zone there.
jjaba. |
Durango
Member
Username: Durango
Post Number: 58
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 11:33 pm: | |
Jjaba,
Here is the photo again. The Wayne State linked failed me.
|
Lefty2
Member
Username: Lefty2
Post Number: 753
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 11:48 pm: | |
retailers didn't move out because they wanted to. they had to. |
Focusonthed
Member
Username: Focusonthed
Post Number: 1527
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - 12:56 am: | |
Jjaba, yes, it's certainly been bastardized over the years. I believe it's currently the oldest Sears store still around though. It's twin store is visible from the Chicago Skyway at 79th Street, both built in 1928. Its windows were mostly bricked over at some point too.
Anyway, sorry for the non-Detroit threadjack. |
Reddog289
Member
Username: Reddog289
Post Number: 132
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - 2:14 am: | |
michigan/schafer was a good sized shopping district, went to wards up till the end. |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 2387
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - 1:40 pm: | |
Point of fact for you young'uns.....prior to the sixties, there were NO fast food joints anywhere. The closest things to them were White Castles or White Towers, and they weren't too common. There were drive-ins in the fifties, but they were not in the large shopping areas that I can recall. All the 'dime stores' -- Woolworth's and Kresge's -- had lunch counters, and they were usually packed. Most of the shopping areas also had a Sander's store, where the employees had to pass a test in old & ugly to get hired.
The Wards store at Grand River and Greenfield had an internal doorway to the Kresge store next door, and seems I'd always get a box of popcorn there and eat it in the aisles of Wards as Mom took me shopping..... |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5717
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - 3:52 pm: | |
Ray1936 just insulted jjaba's mother.
For the record, there was no Sander's at Grand River and Oakman. There may have been some "Greek" joints, but no Sander's there. The closest one was Wyoming and Fenkell, northside of the street, on Fenkell, west of Wyoming.
Durango, lovely photo of Grand River-Oakman. Thank you so much. What's the date?
jjaba, whose mother worked in second basement at Crowleys downtown since Jewish salesclerks couldn't work above there. |
Durango
Member
Username: Durango
Post Number: 63
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - 4:28 pm: | |
Jjaba,
The west Grand River/Oakman photo was from the Detroit News 6/29/50. Courtesy of the Wayne State Motor City Virtual Library. I don't have a date for the Kresge photo from Grand River and Greenfield. I will post a few pictures after work today. I am two hours behind you east forum members. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5725
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - 6:35 pm: | |
Thanks Durango. jjaba appreciates your photos and reminds you to identify them if you can by dates and location. Merci.
jjaba, behind Sears Oakman selling newspapers. |
Durango
Member
Username: Durango
Post Number: 64
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - 8:06 pm: | |
Jjaba,
I will follow your wise advice. Here is photo of Grand River and Greenfield from the Detroit News 1/1/77. It looks like a cold wintery day in Detroit.
|
Masterblaster
Member
Username: Masterblaster
Post Number: 103
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 1:23 am: | |
I am immensely ecstatic to have read these posts and seen these old photos. There have been a lot of responses about Grand River/Greenfield-Oakman and Mack/Moross. Does anybody have any info/memories about some commercial districts that have not been touched upon, such as:
Dexter/Davison
Highland Park
Harper/Van Dyke
Chene/Ferry,
and any others |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5727
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 2:28 am: | |
Dexter-Davison, with Dexter-Davison Market on Dexter and Waverly is Jewish community central in the 1940 and 1950s. Davison and Lawton is the new JCC. Jewish schools, synagogues, green grocers, delicatessens, huge baby strollers, double parking everywhere. Big Bear Market on W. Davison down by Linwood. Dexter Theater, Dexter Bowling Lanes.
Dexter is a narrow lane, and had huge through buses on it running down to W. Grand Blvd., then East to Cass Ave. and down Cass Ave. to River.
Esquire Deli, Grunts Grocery Store with pickle barrels, pick from the bottom and get an armfull of brine.
jjaba, in Hebrew School in new 1950 bldg.next to B'Nai Moshe' Synagogue. |
Reddog289
Member
Username: Reddog289
Post Number: 136
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 3:17 am: | |
i must be an old timer,used to be afraid to eat at kresges or woolworths. my mom worked at the lunch counter at the kresge,s on grandriver. i,ll have to ask which one. could be why i was leary of eating there. my father told me he bought [my] shotgun from the wards on gr/greenfield when he was 16 that would been in 48. think the hammer i use is from there too. grew up hearing about those places good to see it in pictures |
Reddog289
Member
Username: Reddog289
Post Number: 137
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 3:21 am: | |
ray, there still is a white tower at mich/schaefer at least as of3 weeks ago
(Message edited by reddog289 on December 13, 2007) |
Durango
Member
Username: Durango
Post Number: 65
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 4:45 pm: | |
Masterblaster,
Per your request, here are a few photos of the Dexter/Davison Intersection. 2 from the Detroit News 12/13/40. Sixty-seven years to the day, amazing how things have changed. My parents first house, that I remember, was a two family flat on the 3200 block of Fullerton back in the early seventies.
|
Durango
Member
Username: Durango
Post Number: 66
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 4:49 pm: | |
The photos on my prior post were from the Wayne State Virtual Motor City Library. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5730
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 6:01 pm: | |
You got it Durango, horse pulling milk wagon on the Westside of Detroit. jjaba remembers Detroit Creamery deliveries. Excellent. Thanks.
jjaba, Westside Torah Bukkor. |
Durango
Member
Username: Durango
Post Number: 67
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 8:10 pm: | |
Jjaba,
Here is an earlier photo of Dexter and Davison intersection from the Detroit News, July 1933. Photo source Wayne State Motor City Virtual Library.
|
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5735
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 8:59 pm: | |
You are looking West on W. Davison at Dexter. The land left would be built upon by the JCC as a recreation and cultural center in the 1950s.
From here they moved to Meyers Rd. and Curtis, but again, when they arrived Jews were moving again.
W. Davison is so wide to allow for the volume of traffic going to Fords, Highland Park and Chrysler's, also HP. In 1942, the Davison Ditch was the first expressway, although Pasadena, Calif. was at about the same time.
jjaba, Westside Bar Mitzvah Bukkor. |
Durango
Member
Username: Durango
Post Number: 68
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 9:24 pm: | |
Jjaba,
Lets go a little deeper in the neighborhood. Here is a photo of the Dex-Fullerton Market located at 12310 Dexter Blvd. The photo is from the Detroit News, May 14, 1946. The source is the Wayne State Motor City Virtual Library.
|
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5737
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 9:33 pm: | |
So what's the picket all about, with the two cops? Looks like the Dexter-Fullerton MNkt. is also a Kosher Poultry butcher named EDS. The guy in the cardigan sweater is jjaba's father, just out for a stroll and checking it out. jjaba loves that long cop raincoat.
jjaba, thanks Durango. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5738
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 9:38 pm: | |
If anybody has photos or anything about The Club Minor Key at Dexter and Burlingame, please post. That's where jjaba saw the greatest jazz players of the late 1950s, Miles Davis, Maynard Ferguson, George Shearing, Slide Hampton, Don Menza, Ramsey Lewis, Cannonball and Nate Adderly, Yousef Lateef, Gerry Mulligan and many more. It was a storefront converted into a jazz venue in jjaba's neighborhood.
jjaba, jazz fan. |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 2406
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 10:20 pm: | |
Those long cop raincoats were solid rubber. Despite three vent holes in the armpits, they were hotter than blazes in any kind of warm weather.
Apologies to Jjaba about the Saunder's employees. Obviously, I never was in the store where his family worked. But I stick to my statement for the stores I was in, mostly on Michigan and Schaefer in Dearborn. U-G-L-Y. |
Ravine
Member
Username: Ravine
Post Number: 1694
Registered: 01-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 11:06 pm: | |
Ravine is extremely envious of Jjaba for seeing all those profoundly fabulous jazz performers in that place and in that time. Cripes!! |
Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg
Post Number: 1320
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 11:32 pm: | |
Here are some April 1945 photos of the Kroger Super Market on Van Dyke, north of 10 Mile Road. Back then, it was the newest addition to the neighborhood commercial district, being directly across the street from Dismore's Meat Market, Buechel's General Store and Teich's Bakery.
I know this was in Center Line, not Detroit, but I thought some of you might appreciate seeing these photos, including the prices of the Easter time specials that were advertised in the store windows.
(Message edited by Mikeg on December 14, 2007) |
Reddog289
Member
Username: Reddog289
Post Number: 138
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007 - 2:38 am: | |
a carton of smokes cheaper then what i pay now for a bottle of coca-cola, wow. my folks would love this but my dad [step] is 83 and he has no use for a damn computer, he,d tell ya,ll about shopping. as with most old time detroiters it,s always that was here, that was there, oh but thats gone now. pretty sad when i think about it. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5740
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007 - 4:33 am: | |
jjaba worked at Wrigley's, W. Davison and Greenlawn, bldg. extant but vacant.
Once a week the sign guys would arrive and paper over the front windows, leaving jjaba to pick up the old signs and dispose of them.
As a cartryout boy, wages were 60 cents/hr. plus tips which ran about a quarter a load out in the slush and snow, wind and rainstorms to the side parking lot. Later as a cashier, jjaba got 80 cents/hr. so he went backwards without the tips.
The Retail Clerks Union didn't care about part-time students working there.
jjaba. |
56packman
Member
Username: 56packman
Post Number: 1938
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007 - 7:06 am: | |
Jjaba-- your statement re:"Kids could go get things, and merchants even extended credit until the parents came in. jjaba certainly remembers that on the northwest side of Detroit" gave me memories of being handed a handwritten note and some cash by my mom to ride my bike up to O'Brien's Drugstore on 7 Mile (bet. Evergreen and Lahser) to get her a pack of Taryton 100s, occasionally a carton. The O'Brien boys knew my folks, and they sure knew us kids. |
Papermoon
Member
Username: Papermoon
Post Number: 23
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007 - 11:34 am: | |
"From here they moved to Meyers Rd. and Curtis, but again, when they arrived Jews were moving again."
Jjaba,on other threads you gave a fascinating account of the Jewish migration across the city. My question is, and forgive me for asking if you answered this elsewhere, is why? Why would a people pull up stakes before they're really settled in and move on over and over again?
Thanks, Papermoon |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 2407
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007 - 12:43 pm: | |
Boy, I gotta jump on that before Jjaba comments, Moon.
I think it's the American way. My family has moved all over in the last 130 years. The line was in Pennsylvania for 150 years when they came from England, but then made moves to Kansas, homesteading in Indian Territory (Oklahoma), up to Chicago, over to Rochester, NY, to other burgs in NY, to Detroit, back to Chicago, back to Detroit, and finally me out to Nevada.
In my lifetime, was born in Detroit, moved to Grand Rapids, back to Dearborn, back to Detroit, then married and lived in three homes in Detroit widely apart. Never really felt any one neighborhood was "mine".
Moves were largely for new opportunities. The religious factor did not exist for me as it might have for Jjaba, so his response will likely be more interesting. But a home is a home until you move, and then it's just a house. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5744
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007 - 1:42 pm: | |
Ray1936's journeys are much more interesting than Detroit Jewry. Obviously, Ray1936 talks of economic mobility, freedom in a large country, and adventure.
Detroit Jews move every generation, 25 years. This has been a consistent pattern since we lived along the Detroit River with Antoine de la mothe Cadillac. They like to live together and now number about 80,000.
The onliest deterrent to this flight is the Orthodox who have staked out N. Oak Park and have been more stable there. They like to walk alot and have anchors with JCC, shules, Mikvah, Jewish schools and retail shops.
The reasons are part economic opportunties, part tradition, part Jewish liberalism. When the signal is given that the neighborhood is "played out", they sell to anybody. A great example is Southfield, Michigan today. It changed in a short time.
In Detroit itself, it is the same pattern from Lower Eastside, up Hastings and Woodward to about Clarimont, crossing over to the Westside to 12th St., Linwood, Dexter, Livernois then out to 6 Mile Rd. and Wyoming, Curtis, W. Seven Mile Rd., then West to Lasher, then to suburbs such as Oak Park, Southfield, Farmington Hills, W. Bloomfield, Novi.
Jewish businesses remain in Detroit, and all over the city, even the challenges of the Eastside today, but residential is mostly suburban. The are Jewsih communities in Grosse Pointe, Troy, Rochester Hills, but they are smaller. Those communities more resemble living in a small Michigan town like Kalamazoo, Jackson, Traverse City Pontiac, Flint, etc.
jjaba hopes this is helpful. Although jjaba describes Jewish settlement patterns, these patterns also reflect Detroit Eastside, Northend, etc. where other ethnic groups have moved out and up away from Detroit in the same fashion. Chinatown in Madison Heights, Italians bolting to the suburbs, and the huge German community gone from the Eastside. Delray had Hungarians and Jews too. So it's a common pattern in Detroit.
jjaba, Westside Bar Mitzvah Bukkor. |
Papermoon
Member
Username: Papermoon
Post Number: 25
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007 - 2:09 pm: | |
Thanks for your insights, Ray. Your explanation helps and gives me some interesting food for thought.
My own family settled in New York from Holland in the 1630s. They stayed there. They're still there. My dad was the only one in his branch of the family that ever moved west of the New York state line. Even my sisters and I have not ventured far from where we were raised, so this whole moving around thing is a mystery to me.
I sense something different about the Jewish migration patterns, though, because they seemed to have done it en masse, and like clockwork.
Papermoon, baffled |
Oldredfordette
Member
Username: Oldredfordette
Post Number: 3471
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007 - 2:18 pm: | |
Durango, I used to take the Grand River bus to my job downtown in 1977, I just got a deep cold chill looking at that picture! |
Papermoon
Member
Username: Papermoon
Post Number: 26
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007 - 2:21 pm: | |
Thanks, Jjaba, for a thorough explanation. Your post must have went live while I was still typing my response to Ray.
Yes, that does help. It is a fascinating history.
Please excuse the threadjack.
Papermoon |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5748
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007 - 2:53 pm: | |
Papermoon, welcome to Forum. jjaba refers you to previous "Jews in Detroit" threads, where jjaba explains even more. Also, take the synagoues tour that Lowell prepared with some jjaba notes.
Ravine, yes, The Minor Key, and other jazz clubs presented wonderful music, pre-Motown. The Minor Key was a jazz coffee house, no alcohol. It was typical Dexter Blvd. storefront, 25 ft. wide frontage and a full lot in length. The vacant lot is in the block at Burlingame and Dexter.
jjaba has a lot of sweet memories there. |
Reddog289
Member
Username: Reddog289
Post Number: 142
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, December 15, 2007 - 3:52 am: | |
Jjaba, i heard from my uncle that 7/evergreen had a large jewish population? and from what you wrote he sounds like he,s right, my mom say,s she used to go to sock hops at the bonnie brook golf club back in the 50,s. now every thing is making sense. was the dexter chevrolet dealer on 8mi the same one as on dexter? |
Sec106
Member
Username: Sec106
Post Number: 15
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, December 15, 2007 - 11:26 am: | |
Wow, I spent tons of time on the corner of Dex-Davison in the early 60's. My aunts lived in a beuatiful apartment just a block from the intersection. I loved that place, we would go around the corner to the deli and get great sandwiches and talk to everybody. They went to church at Visitation and we would help do the alter. We would go over to Woodward Ave in Highland Park for breakfast on Sundays.
My dad grew up near Grand River and Oakman on Cherrylawn. My dad's sister and I would go up to shop there all the time. When I was 8 or 9 I thought that was the best shopping place in the whole world. When I was 12, 13 in 1967 the intersection we haunted was Michigan and Schaefer. Eating at Sanders, buying stuff at the TWO Kresges they had there. Prowling around Mariannes and Alberts. We spent days, actually years on that corner. Go by there all the time and am always sad it has changed so much. But at least Alcamo's is still there. |
Karl_jr
Member
Username: Karl_jr
Post Number: 179
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, December 15, 2007 - 12:04 pm: | |
The Michigan and Junction shopping district (from a '05 HOF post of mine)- M&P restaurant 31st and michigan (hot roast beef sandwich), in between the Crystal theater and Serwers restaurant supply (5 alarm fire in the 70's) also being served a hotdog at SS Kresges soda fountain (near michigan and junction) by a lady named Blanche when the news came over the radio that JFK had been shot. WOW and a slew of other names - Kramer meat market, Kramer theater, The Main bar, Old warsaw bakery, Federals, Cunninghams, Jets coney island, green door bar, red door bar, dom polski hall, detroit barber college, kowalskis', stiegmans jewelry, Max's jewelry - so many stores gone with the ages. there used to be a sign on the kramer building that read "the michigan ave. business district over 100 stores to serve you"
Also Peoples restaurant was on the south side of michigan just west of livernois near the detroit Edison building where you could exchange your burned out lightbulbs and get free fuses.
(Message edited by karl jr. on December 15, 2007) |
Karl_jr
Member
Username: Karl_jr
Post Number: 180
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, December 15, 2007 - 2:28 pm: | |
Kramer Building from the wsu site. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5755
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 15, 2007 - 4:04 pm: | |
There were so many Jewish merchants at Michigan and Junction, and so many residents, there was a synagoue around the corner. Lowell has it on his synagogues tour. Pharmacies were called "Aptekas" for all the Polish that lived there. The whole thing is sad today. Ruins Central.
jjaba grew up on Northlawn and Schoolcraft, not far from Cherrylawn. Welcome to The Forum Sec106.
What's Sec106?
Reddog289, yes, W. Seven Mile and Evergreen was largely Jewish for one generation. When new, Ford HS was Jewish and many older Jews retired to apartments in the neighborhood. They would ride the Hamilton and Hamilton Express buses to downtown, a long ride, but it did go on the expressway as Imperial Express. At the same time, Mumford had Jewish students. Also, then, Jewish kids, and others from way out there rode buses to Cass Tech. Try that 5 days a week.
jjaba, Westside Torah Bukkor. |
Detroitplanner
Member
Username: Detroitplanner
Post Number: 1478
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, December 15, 2007 - 5:52 pm: | |
I remember the Kramer Theatre and the Market across the street from my youth. |
Reddog289
Member
Username: Reddog289
Post Number: 145
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, December 16, 2007 - 2:21 am: | |
thanks Jjaba for the info, while i did roam the streets round 7/evergreen & also joy/evergreen and remember the stores round there, it is finally good to see a picture of the kramer block. every time i went downtown with my mom, all i heard was " this place was so nice when i was growing up". having spent most every saturday this summer driving past the old kramer block i can now realize what a place that was. |
Reddog289
Member
Username: Reddog289
Post Number: 146
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, December 16, 2007 - 2:27 am: | |
Sec106, i also remember now bout those 2 kresge,s at mich/schaefer, wondered why they got 2? |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5766
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 17, 2007 - 1:37 am: | |
Reddog289, yes, Dexter Chevrolet relaocated from Dexter Blvd. out to W. Eight Mile Rd. just like Dexter-Davison Mkt. went to Curtis and Wyoming and then out to Oak Park on W. Nine Mile Rd.
Perhaps we can state other examples.
jjaba. |
D2dyeah
Member
Username: D2dyeah
Post Number: 86
Registered: 09-2005
| | Posted on Monday, December 17, 2007 - 9:08 pm: | |
Karl Jr/ Thank you for that photo of the Kramer theater. My Grandparents lived on Military and that neighborhood was a terrific stomping ground for my brother and me and our cousins. |
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