Long_in_the_tooth Member Username: Long_in_the_tooth
Post Number: 31 Registered: 01-2007
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 8:43 am: | |
Anyone have information on these warehouses. My great grandfather worked at them. He was Irish and his wife was French. They were some where around the Chene park area I believe. |
Keystone Member Username: Keystone
Post Number: 245 Registered: 10-2003
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 9:27 am: | |
The Marquette Building, on the corner of Washington and Congress, was originally built as an ice plant and cold storage building. The entire west half of the building was for massive boilers, refrigeration machinery, etc. The east half was the 'ice house'. It was in operation from around 1904 - 1917, at which time it was converted to an office building. |
Bob_cosgrove Member Username: Bob_cosgrove
Post Number: 492 Registered: 03-2005
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 9:37 pm: | |
In the 1890's and before and probably later there were ice houses at the foot of Burns Drive where The Whittier apartment hotel has been since the mid-1920's. Ice was cut on the portion of the Detroit River between the mainland and Belle Isle. Bob Cosgrove |
Psip Member Username: Psip
Post Number: 1719 Registered: 04-2005
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 10:02 pm: | |
Ice harvesting was a big business on Belle Isle.
What appears to be the interior of an ice house.
VMC WSU |
Psip Member Username: Psip
Post Number: 1720 Registered: 04-2005
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 10:17 pm: | |
forgot one Cutting the ice, (not sure if this is in Detroit)
VMC WSU |
Craggy Member Username: Craggy
Post Number: 249 Registered: 10-2003
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 10:21 pm: | |
That looks like a crappy job. |
Bulletmagnet Member Username: Bulletmagnet
Post Number: 185 Registered: 01-2007
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 10:27 pm: | |
There was an ice house in the rear of the Sheldon Estate on Lake Shore Dr. in GPF. The walls were about a foot thick with sawdust as insulation, much like your 4th photo. The ice was harvested and hauled up from the lake out front. The house is gone and the estate is now Briarwood Pl. I will try to locate photos. (Message edited by Bulletmagnet on April 02, 2007) |
Psip Member Username: Psip
Post Number: 1721 Registered: 04-2005
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 10:31 pm: | |
Free home delivery by Absopure:
is that a young Jjaba looking on? This IS hard work!
VMC WSU |
Blueidone Member Username: Blueidone
Post Number: 20 Registered: 03-2007
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 10:52 pm: | |
Please forgive my lack of knowledge...but could someone please explain to me how they kept these blocks of ice from melting once they were harvested. And also..how did they have ice in the summer? And thanks for the great pictures..and the education! |
Lowell Board Administrator Username: Lowell
Post Number: 3760 Registered: 10-2003
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 11:22 pm: | |
It is sometime startling to realize there was a lengthy non-electrical refrigeration era base on ice with regularized delivery to houses. One of the luxury items that greeted the first dwellers of my Highland Park house in 1913 was a built in ice box. Outlined in the picture below, it jutted out 3 feet from the door wall. The arrow points to the handle of the ice door. The ice box had long been gutted when I got the house but it was conveniently big enough to fit a 13 cu ft refrigerator.
The house also had that other little door that was standard on early 20th C houses, the coal chute. |
Psip Member Username: Psip
Post Number: 1722 Registered: 04-2005
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 11:32 pm: | |
It wasn't until the 1930s that safe refrigeration systems were developed. Previous mechanical systems used Refrigerants like sulfur dioxide and methylchloride that were causing people to die. Ammonia had an equally serious toxic effect if it leaked. Frigidaire discovered a new class of synthetic refrigerants called halocarbons or CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) in 1928. An interesting page about the history of refrigeration can be found here. http://www.history-magazine.co m/refrig.html Thanks Lowell, I wondered what those large doors were for. |
Lowell Board Administrator Username: Lowell
Post Number: 3761 Registered: 10-2003
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 11:36 pm: | |
Blueidone, I long had that curiosity too. Then one day my father casually mentioned that ice if packed together and blanketed will last all summer and he used to do it. His family had a business on Bois Blanc Island [the big one next to Mackinac] servicing summer tourists who came up to summer homes from Detroit and Chicago in the Great Lakes steamer days. One of their services was ice which they sawed out from the Straits in the winter, stored in an ice house and delivered in the summer. They insulated it with sawdust which was abundant as the island had recently been 'harvested'. |
Blueidone Member Username: Blueidone
Post Number: 23 Registered: 03-2007
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 11:39 pm: | |
Thank you for the information. I can't express how much I enjoy "Discuss Detroit" I have learned so much in the very short time I've been looking on! |
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 2943 Registered: 10-2004
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 11:40 pm: | |
Ice harvesting continued through the 1930s. This type of ice fishing didn't require a license. Later mechanical ice was produced and sold in blocks and delivered to homes up to about 1950--often by horse wagons in/near the inner cities of the Midwest. |
Psip Member Username: Psip
Post Number: 1723 Registered: 04-2005
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 11:44 pm: | |
The 1918 Book of Knowledge (Ice Harvesting) http://www.iceharvestingusa.co m/1918bookofknowledge/1918book ofknowledge.html More then you want to know about Ice Harvesting and storage http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny /county/allegany/Ice%20Harvest ing%20&%20History/Ice%20-%20HO ME%20PAGE.htm |
Lowell Board Administrator Username: Lowell
Post Number: 3762 Registered: 10-2003
| Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 11:51 pm: | |
Nice finds Psip. I always wondered about the process of using sawdust. I never got that part of the story. But, wonder of wonders that the web is, there it is: "Before the ice is put into the ice house the floor is covered with several inches of sawdust, then a layer of ice is put on the sawdust with the blocks about six inches from the side and an inch space between each block. Then an inch or two of sawdust is used to cover the first layer of ice and so on for each subsequent layer of ice until the building is filled. Then the top layer is covered with six or more inches of sawdust to keep the heat from penetrating the ice and thawing it. When some ice is removed, the remainder is carefully covered." |
Bob_cosgrove Member Username: Bob_cosgrove
Post Number: 493 Registered: 03-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 12:24 am: | |
As already mentioned the ice houses such as those on the foot of Burns Drive (today's The Whittier apartment hotel) were insulated with sawdust in their walls as well as between the layers of ice to keep them from sticking together. Ice is still available today in up to 200 lbs. or more blocks. Some of the Canadian National pasenger cars in the Royal Oak and Saginaw (car shops) based Bluewater Michigan Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society are ice air conditioned. Despite the heavy handling - you slide the 200 lb. blocks from the ice company delivery truck into the bunkers underneath the cars on long 2x6 inch boards carried on the truck. One advantage of ice-activated railroad cars over mechanical refrigeration is the only thing that can fail is the blower motor, but not the cooling mechanism. One thing I've wondered about, is all the photos I've seen of ice houses they're covered with black tar paper on the outside - see the photo above. I wonder why black, since that color absorbs heat from the sun versus a light reflective color. Who knows the answer? Bob Cosgrove |
Psip Member Username: Psip
Post Number: 1725 Registered: 04-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 12:40 am: | |
Bob, this is only a guess, I would suspect it was to keep rain water out. Water causes the ice to melt especially if its warm summer rain. Perhaps the tar paper was white washed? That would keep the heat from building up. That could be slopped on and was cheep. In one photo in the above links, it looked like one of the building was white. |
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 2946 Registered: 10-2004
| Posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 12:47 am: | |
Those buildings were often only opened in the cooler times of the day. Madison shipped much of its ice by rail to St. Louis--which paid top dollar for it. Those cars were insulated well and got speedy handling by the railroads. The wyes off the Michigan Line at Schaefer had ice houses (and coal dumps), and there was another railroad ice house not far from the former Schaefer tower. |
Harsensis Member Username: Harsensis
Post Number: 217 Registered: 07-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 12:56 am: | |
A little farther north on Lake St Clair, past Fairhaven on Anchor Bay you can see a bunch of pilings from an old ice house that was over the water. You can see them in the water just before you get to Palms Road. FarEastsider, do you have any pics of that? |
Bob_cosgrove Member Username: Bob_cosgrove
Post Number: 497 Registered: 03-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 1:19 am: | |
I'm not sure, but I believe the light colored buildings on the right are not ice storage houses, but the end of the one with the black roof on the left appears to be - I'm judging manly by size, but I have other photos of the ice houses on what is now the Whittier and they are definitely all black and quite large. Bob Cosgrove |
Bob_cosgrove Member Username: Bob_cosgrove
Post Number: 498 Registered: 03-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 1:21 am: | |
Regarding ice doors on homes, don't all homes have them? - Mine does. Bob Cosgrove - Indian Village 1905 Albert Kahn designed home |
Rhymeswithrawk Member Username: Rhymeswithrawk
Post Number: 615 Registered: 11-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 3:32 am: | |
Holy crap, Bob. You live in a Kahn home?! What's the address, if you don't mind me asking. I'd love to drive by it. I've seen Kahn's homes in Boston-Edison, but I didn't know he had any in I.V. (not that I'm surprised, of course). |
Bob_cosgrove Member Username: Bob_cosgrove
Post Number: 499 Registered: 03-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 1:50 pm: | |
Kahn designed 18 homes in Indian Village and the old Liggett School, now The Detroit Waldorf School, at 2555 Burns. Among the Kahn homes, on Burns are: 996,1007, Iroquois: 1037, 1040,1410, 1411, 1424, 1453, 1597,1762, 1783, Seminole: 1022, 1032 1042, 1059, 1091,3000. That totals only 17, since Lewis Henry Jones c.1932 dismantled his Kahn home at 8191 East Jefferson on the northwest corner of Seminole and re-erected it at 41 Provencal in Grosse Pointe Farms. This was the Junior League of Detroit Show House several years ago. Be sure to attend the Historic Indian Village Home & Garden Tour on June 2nd. Bob Cosgrove |
Jjaba Member Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5157 Registered: 11-2003
| Posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 6:43 pm: | |
The owner of 714 Parker claims she lives in a Kahn-designed house. Can Bob Cosgrove confirm please? jjaba, has been in the house. |
Jjaba Member Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5158 Registered: 11-2003
| Posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 6:46 pm: | |
Psip, that IS jjaba looking up at the ice wagon but he forgets the corner. Can you ID the location, gimme your 10-20? jjaba, Proudly Westside. |
Bob_cosgrove Member Username: Bob_cosgrove
Post Number: 503 Registered: 03-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 10:09 pm: | |
Jjaba, Since 714 Parker is outside Indian Village (West Village), I don't have building permit data on it. You can get that from the City of Detroit, but unlike when we developed the Indian Village (Burns, Iroquois & Seminole between East Jefferson and Mack) some 30 years ago, I blieve there is a charge for it now and not an inexpensive one - correct me if you find I'm wrong on this. Often, but not so in the case of Albert Kahn, the homeowner, builder or developer took out the building permit. It's not impossible to find out who the architect was, if any, by going to The Detroit News and other the daily newspapers about the time the building permit would have been taken out, since the artilces on the house were sometimes in the architecture section. Another source would be the Albert Kahn archives that have been at The University of Michigan Bentley Library for about 6 or 7 years. Bob Cosgrove |
Jjaba Member Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5163 Registered: 11-2003
| Posted on Wednesday, April 04, 2007 - 12:40 am: | |
Thanks for the answer Bob. jjaba forgot that said house was Indian Village adjacent. Another question: Did they repair the Cadillac coach drop at the DHSM? jjaba. |