  Miken123 Member Username: Miken123 Post Number: 9 Registered: 06-2007 |
Hey everyone! So what's the story on the City of River Rouge? I didn't know there was such thing! I thought in the movie Robocop when they said the "old sludge plant" was in "River Rouge"... i assumed they were talking about the Rouge Plant (FORD) itself! Not some plant in a city called River Rouge!! Very fun to randomly drive through the city today! p.s. with regards to Robocop - I know the movie was NOT filmed in the Detroit area at all - and that includes the city of River Rouge. Still fun tho! | ||
Civilprotectionunit4346 Member Username: Civilprotectionunit4346 Post Number: 79 Registered: 06-2007 |
Let's go for a swim in the river....it smells great right down by where it's by where the bridge is by the city of rouge river. I have heard of people kyaking in those waters, i'd be afraid the chemicals in the water would eat the hull of the kyak. | ||
Savannahsmiles Member Username: Savannahsmiles Post Number: 60 Registered: 05-2005 |
Eeeewww! My brother used to inner tube in the water down by the end of Medina Street. Talk about NASTY! It was right there by where the intake was to the water treatment plant. I didn't know there was such a place as River Rouge either, until I met someone from there. Then it kind of made me think of Village of the Damned. It seemed like people from there avoided Detroit like the plague. One woman I met was actually terrified to cross the bridge back into Delray. Literally! It was like she was afraid she couldn't get back in or something. That was a long time ago. Hopefully, things are better now... | ||
Civilprotectionunit4346 Member Username: Civilprotectionunit4346 Post Number: 86 Registered: 06-2007 |
I drove thru some of the neighborhoods in Delray a few months back & was at the one fire department on Jefferson's 100yr Aniverisery. Me and friends walked away from the firehouse and where walking down the street a little. We noticed this gang of guys 2 blocks down and didn't pay much attention to them, we all of sudden noticed they slowly where starting to walk there way towards us. We acted as we didn't see them and walked back to the firehouse and low and behold they stopped and started walking back the other way. The few months ago I drove thru one of the neighborhoods in Delray, we drove down this back street and this guy came out and yelled at us for driving down the street and his dog chased my car for the rest of the block. We left that are, guy looked like he was gonna go deliverance on us or something. | ||
Sailor_rick Member Username: Sailor_rick Post Number: 188 Registered: 02-2004 |
A bud and I recently kayaked down the mighty Rouge from the end of Rouge Park in Dearborn to the Detroit River. The ten miles took about five hours. We took out at River Rouge’s Belanger Park on the Detroit River-a sweet little park with a pair of launching ramps. It’s a prideful city like a lot of downriver, that’s hanging tough with a mixture of beaters amongst the well kept homes, very similar to Hamtramck minus the polkas and curries. Yeah, there were some very “pungent” stretches, especially by Zug Island. If we capsized, we probably could have walked on the oil/chemical sheen to shore. | ||
Civilprotectionunit4346 Member Username: Civilprotectionunit4346 Post Number: 94 Registered: 06-2007 |
That's some crazy stuff. Be carefull you don't notice something growing...like a 3rd arm or leg. | ||
Hornwrecker Member Username: Hornwrecker Post Number: 1817 Registered: 04-2005 |
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Savannahsmiles Member Username: Savannahsmiles Post Number: 61 Registered: 05-2005 |
Civil, sounds like it very well could have been Medina Street. The McCracken's are very territorial that way. LOL. That wasn't a Pit Bull after you, was it? Mike M. used to raise them. | ||
Rfban Member Username: Rfban Post Number: 103 Registered: 02-2004 |
My Grandfather used to swim across the Rouge from Medina St. to play on the coal piles on Zug--he is now 94. I don't encourage this. | ||
Civilprotectionunit4346 Member Username: Civilprotectionunit4346 Post Number: 99 Registered: 06-2007 |
Na' it was a golden retriever that was chasing my car. | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 5710 Registered: 10-2003 |
Does anyone know the history of the actual city, though, like was asked at the beginning of this thread? | ||
Hornwrecker Member Username: Hornwrecker Post Number: 1818 Registered: 04-2005 |
The area around Medina in Delray From 1927 nautical chart of Rouge River | ||
Fareastsider Member Username: Fareastsider Post Number: 464 Registered: 08-2006 |
I took out a book 6 months ago about the history of River Rouge. I know it was at one time known as Anchorville because of an Anchor making company. Hence Anchor street. The city is a classical industrial city of the turn of the century. Its riverfront is dominated by industry except for Belanger Park which has a narrow access through industrial area. Most homes are on narrow 30ft wide lots. I believe it was incorporated in 1909 +/-. It basically sprung up due to its location for industry along the rouge and the Detroit River. Many homes were modest small homes built for workers. The book I checked out was from Wayne State and covered everything but I just skimmed through it. | ||
Fareastsider Member Username: Fareastsider Post Number: 466 Registered: 08-2006 |
 fullsize image here http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1247/633577483_5db27173c0_o.jpg | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 5712 Registered: 10-2003 |
I wonder how long it's going take to detox and reclaim Zug Island? lol | ||
Helpwanted Member Username: Helpwanted Post Number: 14 Registered: 02-2007 |
http://www.citytowninfo.com/pl aces/michigan/river-rouge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R iver_Rouge,_Michigan | ||
Civilprotectionunit4346 Member Username: Civilprotectionunit4346 Post Number: 105 Registered: 06-2007 |
Detox Zug Island???? When ever they shut it down they need to build a giant concrete dome over it just like Cherynobl(kidding)...That will be a major super fund site and while take alot of cleaning up to do. One thing is the water around that area that has probably seeped up some of the toxin's from it...so that will also be a issue is the mud there in the water as well. | ||
Lmr Member Username: Lmr Post Number: 59 Registered: 03-2007 |
I think Miken123's original statement about not knowing that the city of River Rouge exists is reflective of the somewhat isolation of the downriver area in general, as I've commented before on other threads. For me, I associate River Rouge with Great Lakes Steel, where my dad worked. As for Zug Island, believe it or not, in the days before the steel industry took over, it was a popular swimming spot. Also quite a few people drowned swimming out there due to the fast current. A teenage neighbor of my mother's died while swimming off Zug Island about 1930. | ||
Christos Member Username: Christos Post Number: 85 Registered: 12-2006 |
I used to live in River Rouge. I moved there from Greece when I was 4 and lived there for 4 years. My grandparents still lived there for some time, so I would spend a LOT of sumemrs there. I remember at night hearing Great Lakes Steel while I would lie in bed at night. You could hear the rustling of the plant, the trains coming in and out, etc. The smell in the summer was rough though. Anyways, its a very dense little town, pretty poor, with some older immigrant communities lingering here and there. There used to be a lot of Greeks there, and my grandparents owned a greek grocery store on Jefferson. Imagine Hamtrammick, but with a river and MASSIVE factory complex. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 6116 Registered: 02-2004 |
The City of River Rouge today is a demarcated community much like Ecorse. Blacks on the west end the Whites on the east end. White folks got the Delrayesque wood frame Pre-Victorian single family homes while the blacks got the cheap old wood to brick frame shacks and single family homes and its been like that for past 50 years. folks in either in the two areas of River Rouge do take pride of the neighborhoods. They not like the crazy folks who live up river Wayne County areas. They keep their houses intact and property values up. Most of the homes on both side are dirt cheap if like the stink. Most communities are mostly God-fearing black families with community churches in every block. Most of the white-folks who lived around W. Jefferson Ave. area are a mixture of Greeks, Hungarians, Germans, Polish, Albanians, Mexicans and Hispanics. Most Hillbillies from the Appalachian range started to fill up the housing stock and they most like to pass their homes to kids when their parents move away preventing Blacks, Mexicans and Hispanics from moving into their neighborhoods. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 6117 Registered: 02-2004 |
River Rouge and the rest of the Downriver area had experienced a growing number of Bi-racial couples. Most of the bi-racial couples are Blacks and Hillbillies. | ||
Ed_golick Member Username: Ed_golick Post Number: 687 Registered: 10-2003 |
Danny, Your second post contradicts your first post. Are you saying that the "Hillbillies" don't want African Americans moving into their neighborhoods, but they want to f*%k them??? | ||
Spaceboykelly Member Username: Spaceboykelly Post Number: 237 Registered: 04-2005 |
The city of River Rouge is interesting. The downtown appears to have potential (intact storefronts) but the businesses have mostly vacated (one will notice on a drive down Jefferson that many more storefronts are vacant than open and that the businesses that are open keep very few hours). I'm guessing this is probably because River Rouge is not a very pleasant place to hang out... giant flames and green smoke are visible from certain areas of the city (from the near by factories, of course). The storefronts seem like they would be useful for a first time business owner who had a destination-based clientele in mind who wouldn't mind the industrial backdrop. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 6118 Registered: 02-2004 |
Ed_golick, That's their way of life when I go over there. You go check it out and post some comments about them. | ||
Oldestuff Member Username: Oldestuff Post Number: 23 Registered: 01-2007 |
Now that you've driven through River Rouge, I recommend that you go down to Wyandotte and catch the Diamond Jack river cruise thru the downriver area. The boat leaves from Bishop Park and goes up and around Zug Island, River Rouge, Ecorse, and back down around Grosse Isle. It is a marvelous way to view what you've only seen from Jefferson Ave. |
