  Mikeg Member Username: Mikeg Post Number: 1951 Registered: 12-2005 |
Three photos of the Chicago Blvd. & Dexter Ave. neighborhood, all taken on July 17, 1956. Southeast corner of W. Chicago Blvd. and Dexter Ave. (full size)  Looking east down W. Chicago Blvd. from Dexter Ave. (full size)  Apartment building at the corner of W. Chicago Blvd. and Genessee St., three blocks east of Dexter Ave. (full size)  | ||
Crash_nyc Member Username: Crash_nyc Post Number: 1100 Registered: 08-2004 |
AMAZING pics, Mike! Do you have any Kodachrome pics of Downtown during the same period? In contrast, here are some current-day Google Maps street views:   | ||
Bulletmagnet Member Username: Bulletmagnet Post Number: 1578 Registered: 01-2007 |
What contrast, can this be the same city? The full size view really brings out the detail of the ordinary, every day life of 1950's Detroit. | ||
Luckycar Member Username: Luckycar Post Number: 107 Registered: 02-2007 |
Great pics.Love to look and see what Detroiters were driving back then.The coral,pink,55 Chevy.The red and white 55 Pontiac a little too close to the fire hydrant.The colors of the hydrant and the colors of the mail box.Those green collection boxes in front of the apt. building.The old style street light.My jewish grandparents would have lived in this type of apartment building,in this very neighborhood. | ||
Budb Member Username: Budb Post Number: 1 Registered: 10-2008 |
too bad the city couldn't stay the way it was. such a shame. | ||
Mikeg Member Username: Mikeg Post Number: 1953 Registered: 12-2005 |
quote: Watch for a new thread with photos of the streets surrounding Crowley's Department store. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 7833 Registered: 02-2004 |
I miss the old Detroit neighborhoods. When people gave up the city for greener pastures, an instant ghost town ghetto will fill the void. | ||
Shorthook Member Username: Shorthook Post Number: 3 Registered: 10-2008 |
These 50's pictures look like an area here in NYC called Kew Gardens. 20's and 30's type apartment buildings on tree lined streets. In that neighborhood, most of the makeup is Jewish, Greek, Indian. Eastern European I guess you could call it. As a frequenter of Detroit, I have been down this block. I wasn't around in the 50's to see this beautiful setting, but I do enjoy the pics. I hope like all of you that Detroit returns to its former glory, but I just don't see it with buildings of this type. Building apartment houses with this kind of architecture, and using the types of stone they used then to line the hallways and floors would cost millions for one building. Unfortunately, that era has passed. | ||
Xd_brklyn Member Username: Xd_brklyn Post Number: 444 Registered: 10-2003 |
Unbelievable. Lived in Detroit during the Ghost Town era, where many of these buildings were still standing but vacant. If there was a time these buildings were going to be rehabbed, it was then, but the movement in that direction at that time was next to nil. Seeing these photos and the downtown photos really fill out a time frame I had only heard stories of. Thanks so much for taking the time to post them. | ||
Goat Member Username: Goat Post Number: 10432 Registered: 10-2003 |
Imagine that! Grass is cut, bushes trimmed little garbage in the streets and awnings on bulidings to keep them cooler. Now contrast that with today and any city city for that matter. Sprawl, low density, air conditioners hanging out every window, weeds and garbage everywhere, crumbling infrastructure. Fuck! What a mess we live in today. It just bores me to tears how ugly most developments are today. Progress? Hardly... | ||
Wanderinglady Member Username: Wanderinglady Post Number: 144 Registered: 10-2007 |
These pictures are beautiful! Isn't this Jjaba's old stomping ground (or close to it)? I'm surprised he hasn't posted yet. At least Detroit still has a lot of the old trees left, like in the Google street view of W. Chicago at Genessee. | ||
Digitalvision Member Username: Digitalvision Post Number: 1387 Registered: 11-2003 |
Economics is a big part of this. You make a lot more money with new construction - a lot of people got rich through sprawl, and continue to this day even in a down economy. There is way more money in abandonment in the short term than there is in rebuilding. It's also easier to make money that way. Until which time doing sprawl is no longer a financially viable and low-resistance way to make money as a developer, it will continue. | ||
Goat Member Username: Goat Post Number: 10436 Registered: 10-2003 |
DV you are right and that is where the city and State must step in. We all know how much sprawl really costs but unless the city and/or the state starts to campaign why these are not decent developments we will continue to see more of the same. I'm glad no one has said that because Detroit is poor that is why the neighbourhoods have failed. It doesn't take money to cut grass and trim bushes just as it doesn't take money to bend over and pick up garbage. If everyone was willing to look after their property or where they live and clean up the street in front then teh city as whole would be more welcoming and a nicer place to live. | ||
Ray1936 Member Username: Ray1936 Post Number: 3761 Registered: 01-2005 |
Sigh. All of which proves.....  | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 6043 Registered: 10-2004 |
That's the very same intersection as the one in the mystery thread from 1942. | ||
Bulletmagnet Member Username: Bulletmagnet Post Number: 1580 Registered: 01-2007 |
Livernoisyard, I linked over to the thread from the provided linkage. It was a lot to read, and I was left with the impression that the location wasn't positively ID'ed. Mikeg: is there any way you can confirm the likeliness of this location being one in the same? (Message edited by Bulletmagnet on October 15, 2008) | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 6045 Registered: 10-2004 |
How many Chicago and Dexters are there? That area is fast approaching the East Side prairies in appearance and purpose. That was at the western edge of a major apartment district between Linwood and Dexter. Notice that the once major Jewish commercial district on Dexter is virtually all gone, if not all gone already. There were maybe a dozen Jewish temples in those few blocks near there. [Being Catholic, that's no big deal to me... The Catholic churches fared even worse in Detroit, both types becoming virtually nonexistent.] And the traffic signal lights at that intersection are probably now gone too, due to the lack of any real vehicular traffic there anymore. In that respect, it resembles downtown Detroit, away from the ball parks or the casinos. Meaning--totally dead. | ||
Detroitrise Member Username: Detroitrise Post Number: 3773 Registered: 09-2007 |
quote: Nah, it couldn't be. There's no way a city on this planet could die off that fast & hard... | ||
Rfban Member Username: Rfban Post Number: 304 Registered: 02-2004 |
MikeG, I look forward to your photos--I just can't seem to get Paul Simon out of my head. Anyway thanks--I can't wait for the next ones. | ||
Detourdetroit Member Username: Detourdetroit Post Number: 410 Registered: 10-2003 |
So... | ||
Hutt Member Username: Hutt Post Number: 33 Registered: 10-2005 |
Awesome pictures! But in the recent ones, where did all the stuff go? | ||
Focusonthed Member Username: Focusonthed Post Number: 2075 Registered: 02-2006 |
Vacancy, arson and demolition. Not necessarily in that order, but sometimes. | ||
1kielsondrive Member Username: 1kielsondrive Post Number: 346 Registered: 08-2008 |
Thank you for posting these wonderful photos. | ||
Dan Member Username: Dan Post Number: 1579 Registered: 10-2003 |
heart breaking | ||
Crash_nyc Member Username: Crash_nyc Post Number: 1101 Registered: 08-2004 |
Another piece of visual history, lending to Detroit's 1950's moniker as "The Paris of the Midwest"...now so painful in contrast. It's so hard to look at those pics, and think that that's what Detroit used to be. That was the "Detroit" that my grandparents raised my parents in. Now I understand why they never had any desire to "go back to the old neighborhood" whenever they were in town for visits. They simply wanted to remember it the way it was. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 7837 Registered: 02-2004 |
MAMA, please don't take my Kodachrome away! | ||
Rfban Member Username: Rfban Post Number: 305 Registered: 02-2004 |
Makes you think all the worlds a sunny day--and it does. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 7842 Registered: 02-2004 |
Crash_nyc, You can still come back to the Detroit and see you fond memories and take some digital photos and tell your folks about you old hood before it became a big institutionized black ghetto. Detroit is still alive with homes, businesses, retail, entertainment and further development. One Day Detroit will come back as a next boomtown for the 21st Century. | ||
Jtf1972 Member Username: Jtf1972 Post Number: 59 Registered: 08-2008 |
These pictures make me want to cry. It is easy to see how Detroit was once referred to as the most beautiful city in the midwest. It is truly sad what people have done to it... not the people who live in Detroit, mind you. The people who didn't give a damn and ran the hell out for cookie-cutter homes and shopping malls (for various reasons,) leaving an economic vacuum. Thank you for posting these. | ||
Crystal Member Username: Crystal Post Number: 304 Registered: 05-2007 |
The lush trees are beautiful, too! The "Commercial Vehicles Keep Off" sign is interesting. Keep off the road? Keep off the lawn? |
