Discuss Detroit » Archives - Beginning January 2007 » Mt. Clemens architecture thread « Previous Next »
Top of pageBottom of page

Patrick
Member
Username: Patrick

Post Number: 4485
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:52 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Mount Clemens has a great array of architecture if you know where to look. Has anyone ever been in the neighborhood south of Cass and West of Gratiot? There are a number of beautiful homes that would fit right into Palmer Woods or any historical neighborhood for that matter. There are a number of massive Tudors as well as some larger colonials along the north side of the Clinton River.

I just discovered this gem not long ago. I had no idea that this area even existed. Downtown Mt. Clemens has some neat buildings as well. Anyone have any favorite buildings in the Clem?
Top of pageBottom of page

Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider

Post Number: 403
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 11:06 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The old county building is nice
Top of pageBottom of page

Stryker81
Member
Username: Stryker81

Post Number: 42
Registered: 10-2006
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 12:11 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think the county building is nice too. Those heads carved near the top are cool. Here is a link to the history of the Macomb county building......
http://www.libcoop.net/mountcl emens/countybuilding.htm

There are many homes right off of Gratiot that were built in the the 1880's that still look great and are well maintained. Sort of reminds me of Corktown a little bit. A guy that I know lives in one. It has a coal chamber and everything. The Emerald theater is nicely restored and looks good, but it is not nearly as refined as the Fox or the Fisher; then again these two theaters are not used as dance clubs on Fridays either.
Top of pageBottom of page

Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok

Post Number: 4446
Registered: 08-2004
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 12:27 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Sadly none of Mt. Clemens great old Mineral Spa Hotels survive today. I remember back as a kid in the 60's seeing the last of the grand old dames... along S. Gratiot south of downtown. It was a beauty, with a nice columned facade, but was razed later.
Top of pageBottom of page

Chitaku
Member
Username: Chitaku

Post Number: 1376
Registered: 03-2006
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 12:38 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

grew up in the clem, always loved those faces on the county building. They have tried hard for a long time to make Mt. Clemens the royal oak of macomb but instead it has become Wrif headquarters
Top of pageBottom of page

Patrick
Member
Username: Patrick

Post Number: 4490
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 1:01 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I feel that Mt. Clemens has a ton of potential. There is a charm about it that Royal Oak doesn't have. It seems slower paced and older. There is almost a small-town feel to it.
Top of pageBottom of page

Mauser765
Member
Username: Mauser765

Post Number: 1408
Registered: 01-2004
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 7:44 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

This ones in the AIA book:
http://www.detroitfunk.com/200 7/05/22/meet_george_jetson.htm

There are some great Joseph Wesner sculptures in two places downtown - this one is by Joseph and also Jim Storm:

http://www.detroitfunk.com/200 6/05/15/galileos_night_vision. htm

This is the original County Building:

http://www.detroitfunk.com/200 6/12/21/macomb_county_building .htm

The Clem rocks - go Battling Bathers ...Hahahah !
Top of pageBottom of page

Mauser765
Member
Username: Mauser765

Post Number: 1409
Registered: 01-2004
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 7:46 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Oops, and how could I forget the Edison Depot ?

http://www.detroitfunk.com/200 6/12/18/thomas_alva_edison.htm
Top of pageBottom of page

Islandman
Member
Username: Islandman

Post Number: 449
Registered: 08-2004
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 10:10 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Stryker81,

You must have not been around when Fox was Club X, a huge club night. It was always packed. I think it started in the early 90's. Don't remember when it stopped.
Top of pageBottom of page

Rb336
Member
Username: Rb336

Post Number: 94
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 10:51 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

is the Mount Clemens Federal Savings Bank still there?
Top of pageBottom of page

Ewo
Member
Username: Ewo

Post Number: 30
Registered: 05-2006
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 12:06 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

If you mean the bank with the Flying Nun roof, yes it's still there. In fact it's being converted into a martini bar.
Top of pageBottom of page

Mauser765
Member
Username: Mauser765

Post Number: 1420
Registered: 01-2004
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 1:13 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Yeah - thats the George Jetson link posted above

http://www.detroitfunk.com/200 7/05/22/meet_george_jetson.htm

Being rehabbed
Top of pageBottom of page

Aarne_frobom
Member
Username: Aarne_frobom

Post Number: 55
Registered: 10-2005
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 2:12 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Ahh . . . another nostalgia attack coming on. I grew up near 15 Mile and Gratiot, and spent a lot of time bicycling around Mount Clemens around 1968-70. I opened a kiddie savings account at the concrete-roof bank when it opened; it attracted a lot of attention at the time. There was a lot of fabulous and funky stuff there then that isn't around anymore, or is derelict. I remember being taken as an elementary schooler into the printing plant of the Macomb Daily in its multi-story tile-brick building on Cass, now empty but still imposing.

There were several large and small mineral-bath hotels still standing until the early 1970's, a very freakish piece of history to find in suburban Detroit. Until the 1960's several of these still had wooden drilling rigs and pumphouses standing behind them, giving the city a strange oil-field look. Also a strange smell of pure rotten-egg sulfur, until the last well was capped around 1965. Prieh's department store was a classic of the old-time small-city class of retailers. On my last trip to Mt. Clemens, I was shocked at how much of the downtown had been flattened for parking lots, which were filling up on a Saturday evening, so evidently it's a success as a club destination.

Cass Avenue is still an impressive strip of buildings, although the heavily-decorated gateman's tower at the GTW crossing has been gone since the late 1960's. I nosed around the GTW depot before its restoration by the Michigan Transit Museum. The railroad was financed by British capital in 1859, so the five stations on it were built to a British design - it's not American architecture at all. (Others survive at Port Huron and Greenfield Village; Fraser and Richmond are flattened.) The industrial area around the railroad south of Cass was fun to snoop around on on a bicycle.

Anyone else remember that smell? I can't imagine soaking in a marble bathtub full of that stuff, but that was the big attraction in the 1920's and before.
Top of pageBottom of page

Mauser765
Member
Username: Mauser765

Post Number: 1429
Registered: 01-2004
Posted on Saturday, June 02, 2007 - 7:39 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"British design"

Mt Clemens depot, the Depot Town depot (ypsi) and the Chelsea Depot are all of Italianite design.
Top of pageBottom of page

Ramcharger
Member
Username: Ramcharger

Post Number: 289
Registered: 05-2006
Posted on Saturday, June 02, 2007 - 11:01 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The Price Building
Top of pageBottom of page

Stryker81
Member
Username: Stryker81

Post Number: 43
Registered: 10-2006
Posted on Saturday, June 02, 2007 - 12:32 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Islandman,
Yeah I don't remember the Fox ever having a club like that. In the early 90's I was just entering my teen years, so I didn't spend any time around the city. Would have been interesting to check out though.
Top of pageBottom of page

Ookpik
Member
Username: Ookpik

Post Number: 250
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Saturday, June 02, 2007 - 1:19 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)





Prieh's Department Store - Downtown Mt. Clemens - 1950's

For a larger view:

http://www.geocities.com/detpixii/mtc.jpg

Ookpik

Add Your Message Here
Posting is currently disabled in this topic. Contact your discussion moderator for more information.