 
gb (68.41.72.236 - 68.41.72.236)
| | Posted on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 6:07 pm: |    |
Drove by ther again today and saw that the building between the rectory and the church had been demolished. Just a pile of rubble. I wonder when the other ones go; someone mentioned on this thread before it got put in the archives that Feb. 15 was the date for demolition to start.. Here is what the neighborhood---if it can be called that---looks like before the "industrial park" is built to replace it. Does anyone know what this so-called industrial park is supposed to contain and whether there are any commitments to it yet?
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Andy Avery (64.31.6.20 - 64.31.6.20)
| | Posted on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 8:51 pm: | |
The accessory building was demolished around February 15 as scheduled. The church and rectory demolitions are pending asbestos removal and are likely several weeks away. |
dEmolitionZ (68.41.224.89 - 68.41.224.89)
| | Posted on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 11:41 pm: | |
Andy, is this the accessory bldg? (pic dated 2-13-03)
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The Ghettoman (64.12.96.230 - 64.12.96.230)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 8:01 am: | |
What a totally blighted Detroit ghettohood at the Lodge Park area. no homes, no schools and no churches to go. Nature is reclaiming her area and turning it into a future deciduous forest unless development it in the works. |
WMG (67.38.21.95 - 67.38.21.95)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 8:12 am: | |
extry points for 'decidous'! |
WMG (67.38.21.95 - 67.38.21.95)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 8:12 am: | |
(ugh - can't spell this early. Going away now) |
Andrew in Windsor (64.228.147.122 - 64.228.147.122)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 9:29 am: | |
WMG - I was thinking the same thing.
Props to Ghettoman... |
Andrew Avery (64.31.6.210 - 64.31.6.210)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 9:33 am: | |
EZ, that's the one. |
Lowell (69.3.251.122 - 69.3.251.122)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 11:53 am: | |
I was by Monday afternoon and the modernist style rectory had been almost completely scooped up. Unfortunately, I overwrote my picture of it, but there was nothing left to indicate what it was. So not big loss. I would like to get some pictures of the exposed interior when the demolition gets to that point and will watch this thread for status updates.
The area behind the church is certainly one of the bleakest areas of the urban prairie. But there are two schools in very good condition and the tragic leveling of the St. Cyril's will have the benefit of kids attending the school across from it of not having a glaring and now threatening reminder of their impoverished community staring them in the face. Only the name of the street will remain.
Best time to shoot is definitely a sun bathed morning.
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cornErZ (68.41.224.89 - 68.41.224.89)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 5:44 pm: | |
Here's what was left of the rectory on 2-13-03:
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gb (68.41.72.236 - 68.41.72.236)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 5:53 pm: | |
A view of where that in-between building was, now a pile of rubble. The rectory and church were standing yesterday.
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The Aram (68.41.161.129 - 68.41.161.129)
| | Posted on Friday, March 21, 2003 - 5:06 pm: | |
Any update on St. Cyril's? Does anyone have any pictures of it from when it was in use (inside and outside)? I've seen pictures of it abandoned, what a structure. Very Byzantine in design, very appealing. Can't believe people would abandon such an amazing structure. But when you equate the neighborhood, I guess it's justified. |
ex-Deeetroiter (24.30.96.64 - 24.30.96.64)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 2:52 am: | |
gb, while studying the picture that you inquired about, I don't think it was the accessory building. It has the look of a convent to it. It looks built much later than the church.
Usually, the accessory building was the first building put up by the fledgling parish. It served initially as the "temporary church." Until the priests got busy and started collecting building pledges for the main church. Later when the Church was built, the accessory building would have been turned into either a gym, or kept as an accessory building for such solid Catholic practices as the Knights of Columbus meetings or Bingo Nights.
The rectory would have probably gone up before the Church--although not necessarily. Sometimes a neighborhood house would have been purchased --but usually that was just temporarily. The goal would have been to get the rectory on the parish grounds.
The school would have gone up next. And St Cyril also had a high school. Funny but I can't recall if it had an elementary school--although it would have been extremely unusual to have one without the other.
And last in the pecking order would have been the Convent. Sometimes, as the school was growing, and before the convent went up, the second floor of the school would have been used as the convent.
Often, the very last structure to be built would have been the permanent Church. But it didn't have to be. An aging pastor might have had a dream of a beautiful church and the good sisters would capitulate. And they wondered why vocations were down.
The building you questioned has a look that is inconsistent with the age of the Church. Looks newer. Although I could just as easily be wrong.
Since I knew St Cyril's as a working parish, had family members who were parishioners, knew friends who attended the high school, I find the death throes of St Cyril's haunting.
But please keep up the great photos of it. |
ex-Deeetroiter (24.30.96.64 - 24.30.96.64)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 3:06 am: | |
Another thought. Is the Jewish cemetary on
St Cyril and Van Dyke going to be moved? Or since it is bordered on Van Dyke, will it be still open? I can't imagine anyone still using it. |
(141.217.1.98 - 141.217.1.98)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 12:57 pm: | |
I went into St. C's recently. It's really atmospheric. Great place for human sacrifices and other blood rituals.
Me? I just got some great photos.
BTW, beware of Jewish vampires. Crucifixes don't work on them. I suggest you double up on the garlic.
(Imaging a convoy of displaced spirits walking with their cardboard suitcases to their new resting place-atcha!) |
gb (68.40.109.140 - 68.40.109.140)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 2:09 pm: | |
ex-Deeetroiter:
I drove by again today: the rectory looks a bit worse but demolition hasn't started. The church stands, with more windows out and more of the decorative material having been removed, leaving big 2 foot diameter holes in the outside wall. The back wall of the church presents some very pretty and colorful weathered red brick that you would hope gets put to good use. There is a huge pile of rubble sitting there between church and rectory where the other building was. Added to it now are numerous tires and a broken baby buggy. From behind the Burroughs middle school across the street the view of the church is still good, but you can see light through the missing windows. I had wondered about that cemetery and hadn't stopped to look more closely until today. It is chained shut, of course; there is no sign I could see indicating its name. Almost all the names on the grave stones are Jewish. One wonders when the last burial might have been. Do you know the name of the cemetery? It reminds me of another Jewish cemetery I have read about---the one that is said to be in the middle of the big GM Hamtramck plant.
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(141.217.1.98 - 141.217.1.98)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 2:14 pm: | |
The style of those markers looks fairly contemporary, and the picture suggests that it is being maintained. Doesn't look "abandoned". |
jjaba (198.81.26.237 - 198.81.26.237)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 2:40 pm: | |
gb is correct. There are many historical Jewish cemeteries in Detroit. This website has described the cemetery in the middle of the Poletown GM plant, usurped by GM when Coleman Young cleared the neighborhood for them. Jews lived in the near Eastside, Hastings, Westminster, Oakland, and Hamtramck areas for many years. As I recall, the cemetery is called Beth Olem, and is only available for visitation when GM allows it, typically during Passover and Yom Kippur, but not much more than that.
Yes, there are other cemeteries on the Eastside including Elmwood Cemetery and the one up on Van Dyke, east Seven Mile Rd. area. The onliest thing that keeps such older cemeteries nice are the hard work of the families whose ancesters are buried there. It is the same urban disinvestment as in any other religion.
My family are mostly buried in Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, West of Chicago in a very large unitary cemetery where hundreds of burial societies and congregations bought land together. It is a rural unified operation which maintains an entire cemetery made up of many little parts.
The cemetery on the Eastside near St. Cyrill has a caretaker who opens the gates and a committee of some sort to maintain the property. The Eastside Jewry have long left their homes, stores, businesses, schools, and synagogues for the NW suburbs. They left around about the 1950s or earlier.
jjaba doesn't go on the Eastside so what I'm giving you is not first hand. I've never actually seen the sites described.
jjaba, Westsider, hopes this is helpful. A check of the Jewish community directories do not include any info. about that cemetery. |
gb (68.40.109.140 - 68.40.109.140)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 5:54 pm: | |
The Jewish cemetery is B'nai David. Many of the dates of burial that I could read were from the 40s and 50s. |
ex-Deeetroiter (24.30.96.64 - 24.30.96.64)
| | Posted on Sunday, March 23, 2003 - 1:46 am: | |
gb, I remember seeing activity at that cemetery during the 50s. A funeral procession going in. And my father explaining it to me since I was only used to Catholic burials. So it is very conceivable that people would still take care of graves of relatives. I suspect that there is an inadequate trust fund left. Almost unbelievable how a small cemetery could survive intact.
The large Catholic Cemetery, Mt. Olivet, on Van Dyke and Six Mile (Main Gate) used to have very interesting grave markers from the 1880s and 90s. Used to. Believe it or not, you don't get to stay in the ground forever. Usually, you lease a grave for 100 years. At the end of the time, the cemetery,if it is still operational, disinters you, is supposed to place the bones in an ostuary along with others until they turn to dust. Somehow I think a local crematorium gets involved.
But the old tombstones had a local flavor that in the case of Mt Olivet, was very Eastern European,specifically Polish. Carved angels. Ornate Crucifexes. But from what I've heard, they're all gone. And the plots are being resold. And like all other modern cemeteries, ornate tombstones are not allowed. Makes grass cutting all that much harder.
Actually, the idea of cemeteries as we know them are a modern concept. And one of the first creators of a modern burial ground was Frederick Olmsted. The guy who created the modern park as we know it. Seems he created a cemetery in New York (Brooklyn?) that looked like a modern one as we know them. People flocked to it on Sunday. Had picnics. Carriage rides. And it hit on Mr. O to take the concept further. Thus was born the modern American park, and Central Park being one of the first built. So the story goes anyway.
Oh well, that leaves only one other certainty in life: April 15th. |
jjaba (198.81.26.237 - 198.81.26.237)
| | Posted on Sunday, March 23, 2003 - 3:47 pm: | |
Death and taxes. That's right.
As you cruise up and down Woodward Ave. you'll see Jewish cemeteries. We were always asked why the graves are so close together and would say,
"Well, Jews bury their dead standing up and that keeps the change from falling out of their pockets." The goyim would take us seriously. We bury our bodies in a prayer shawls (Talit), without embalming, in wooden caskets. Funerals are done quickly, usually the next day.
jjaba |
Erin (141.217.214.238 - 141.217.214.238)
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 3:37 pm: | |
Just found this thread. Nice to see we have a shared interest.
check out my pic's
http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/mypeak/church.html
http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/mypeak/images/Untitled22-vi.jpg |