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Viziondetroit
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Post Number: 1231
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 12:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"mom's are scared to shop where they might be mugged, BOTTOM LINE."

Was there a mugging outbreak downtown in it's shopping hay day? Is there still a mugging epidemic or it is the old stereotype that Detroit is the wild wild midwest and we rob and shoot everyone we see prevailing again?
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Burnsie
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Post Number: 1180
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Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 2:50 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It is far too simplistic to simply blame Hudson's. Just as much blame goes with the shoppers. Nobody was forcing them to shop at the branches, but they did.

How about blaming the city of Detroit-- it could have built a huge FREE parking garage for shoppers on the Kern block.

Miketoronto-- Joe Hudson Jr. was not the one who made the decision to build Northland and Eastland-- one of the Webbers still ran the company at that point. Ramcharger-- Hudson's DID try to modernize the building in the '60s. It combined the old restaurants into the sleeker Riverview Room and modernized the decor and selection in the departments.

Jean Madern Pitrone's (sp?) book mentions that Downtown Hudson's water bill circa 1977 was more than all of its branch stores combined-- with sales that were sinking year by year.

What's ultimately most disappointing is not that Hudson's closed its store, but that it sold the building to an incompetent "developer" which stripped and gutted it, basically sealing its fate.
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Ramcharger
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Post Number: 479
Registered: 05-2006
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 3:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Burnsie, a couple of remodeled restaurants and some new fixtures on the sales floor was not the level of investment that was necessary. They needed to gut the building and rebuild a new, cost efficient, store in a portion of the old building. Then they needed to find an adaptive reuse for the rest of the building.
quote:

,Just as much blame goes with the shoppers. Nobody was forcing them to shop at the branches, but they did.


I made many, many trips downtown to shop at Hudson’s in the years before it closed. I can’t remember how often I was told that the merchandise I wanted wasn’t available at this location and that I should try the Northland store, but it was a lot! There seemed to be a conscious effort to drive shoppers away. They could then point to their declining sales figures as a justification for closing the downtown store.
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Miketoronto
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Username: Miketoronto

Post Number: 682
Registered: 07-2004
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 5:58 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The store did not need to re downsized. That is the reason they failed. The downtown stores downsized so much they offered no better selection or worse then the suburban stores.

The suburban stores offer nothing compared to the selection these old stores use to offer.

If the downtown store was the flagship, then the suburban stores sould not have been carrying half the stuff they were, or been as large.

Eastland MACY'S(Hudson's) for example is the same size as most downtown department store. Something like 500,000 sq feet.
Most suburban department stores are 150,000-200,000 sq feet at most.
But it seems Hudson's went all out on the branch stores, and totally undermined the downtown store by doing it.
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Salvadordelmundo
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Post Number: 98
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Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 6:09 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

They were just trying to protect their market share. There was clearly a suburban retail market waiting to be tapped by companies which opened suburban outlets. That market was going to be satisfied one way or another.
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Burnsie
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Post Number: 1181
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Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 6:10 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Ramcharger-- Hudson's did try to lease space in unused portions of the building, but nobody was interested.

If Hudson's had focused all its efforts on the downtown store and had built none or few branches, the downtown store still would have closed-- and probably earlier than it did. People still would have been moving into the suburbs. If Hudson's hadn't built branch locations, some other department store would have.

Sales at Downtown Hudson's were already down some 20% in 1959 from their peak in 1953-- and at least at that point, it wasn't because of a decline in service or quality of merchandise.
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Krapug
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Post Number: 69
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Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 6:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hudson's was a very good corporate citizen, and frankly any other company would have closed that store years before January of '83.
Crowley's gave it up in July of '77, and admittely they did not want to loose their flagship, but they simply had no choice it was either close downtown or loose the entire company.

With Hudson's they fought a good fight. In the 1970's despite shrinking selling space they continued to hold their runway shows ONLY downtown in the 12 floor auditorium, until finally many of the vendors insisted that they add shows at Somerset. Also in the 70's they attempted to draw middle income Black shoppers with the Black Hair Is Salon, a Black Santa, and other Afro-Centric touches, however as many of us know, middle income shoppers of ANY race started to avoid downtown in the 1970's.

Further Hudson's kept it's Holidays traditions right up to the end, including the Parade, Toy Town, Fantasy Forest, and the Little Peoples
Shop. Hudson's also maintained Display Windows along Woodward Avenue in '83 and '84 after the store was closed.

Many cities, large and small lost their Department Stores through the years, but many were shells in their final years with no special events, Holiday attractions and the like, Hudson's was a class act to the end.

Ken
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Ray
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Post Number: 1035
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Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 7:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I guess we have an answer to the question of who told the evil big business to build in the suburbs. Why, according to Taubman it was the city government:

In Detroit, prior to the nineteen-fifties, the large department stores, like Hudson's, controlled everything, like zoning," Taubman said. "They were generous to local politicians. They had enormous clout, and that's why when Sears wanted to locate in downtown Detroit they were told they couldn't. So Sears put a store in Highland Park and on Oakland Boulevard, and built a store on the East Side, and it was able to get some other stores to come with them, and before long there were three mini-downtowns in the suburbs. They used to call them hot spots." This happened more than half a century ago. But it was clear that Taubman has never quite got over how irrational the world outside the mall can be: downtown Detroit chased away traffic.
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Lowell
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Post Number: 4263
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 8:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Great observation and choice quote Ray.

Downtown fell for a whole lot of reasons. No one of its problems would have taken it down alone, not crime, not lack of parking, not lack of mass transit, not suburban mall competition, not racism... Instead they all combined to bring downtown down.

How great it is to see it come back maybe not as a retail center but certainly as an entertainment capitol.
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Detroitbill
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Post Number: 353
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Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 9:00 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think its time to move on ,, the store is long gone,, whats done is done, many cities are also losing their department stores also or they are becoming so antiseptic looking they all carry the same thing, Reminds me of Moscow in the 1970s, every store has the same stuff, Retail has become very very boring today. It seems like our society fights originality today,
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Detroitrise
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Post Number: 315
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Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 9:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"It seems like our society fights originality today"

Which is one sure sign that we won't be on this Earth for much longer. We can't think for ourselves and when we do, we always come up with crap.
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Mikem
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Post Number: 3500
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Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 10:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

An excerpt from Gruen's biography "Mall Maker" by M. Jeffrey Hardwick, which I posted on a thread we had several years ago about this same topic:
quote:

...Employed by the J. L. Hudson department store, Gruen announced his design to the public on June 4, 1950. Years later, he fondly recounted how he came to convince Hudson’s to undertake the project. In 1948, a snowstorm had cancelled all flights out of Detroit and Gruen was stranded. Like any good commercial architect, he headed straight to the largest department store in town, J. L. Hudson’s. (Only Manhattan’s Macy’s topped Hudson’s in sales or size.) Gruen took a tour of the downtown store with its architect, who stressed to Gruen that Hudson’s was dead set against branch stores. While Hudson’s deeply impressed Gruen, especially in it’s size, selection, and displays, he found Detroit’s downtown shabby and wanting. As he later recalled, it “was showing all the signs of deterioration which had started to appear in all American cities.” For the next part of his tour, Gruen left downtown and drove out to look over the new suburbs. As in other American cites, he found “sprawling suburbs” with “miles of retail strip development.” It was a scene Gruen knew all too well and found appalling. Low-priced department stores clogged the major intersections; lower-end stores lined the roadside; and automobiles, not surprising in Detroit, dominated. The strip, unappealing as it was aesthetically to Gruen, obviously worked economically; it was stealing downtown’s customers. There, in Detroit’s seemingly endless commercial strips, Gruen saw Hudson’s nemesis and savior. The nemesis was suburban retailing; the savior was suburban residents.

When Gruen returned to New York City, he quickly jotted down his impressions and sent off a ten-page letter to Hudson’s president. Gruen told Hudson’s that if downtown deteriorated, so would their business. Drawing on his recent Milliron’s success [an LA department store that built a stand alone store in the suburbs], he recommended that the department store consider opening “superior” branch stores to fight off suburbia’s “strangling ring of competitive stores.” Though Gruen's theory was not earth-shattering, it did convince Hudson’s to take action by hiring him as a real estate consultant. Gruen was asked to scout out a suitable shopping center for a Hudson’s branch. He readily agreed.

As in so many instances, Gruen seized on this small opportunity and transformed it into a much grander possibility. After spending days driving around and surveying Detroit, he informed Hudson’s that the city held no sites worthy of the venerable department store. Poorly planned layouts or proximity to downtown rendered all available shopping centers ineligible. According to Gruen, Hudson’s would do itself more harm than good by opening a branch in one of these shopping centers, so he offered another plan of action, one that was quite self-serving. “We found only one way out of the dilemma,” Gruen recalled. “The J. L. Hudson Company had to build its own shopping centers in such locations as were sufficiently distant from the core area.” The Hudson-owned centers (as designed by Gruen, of course) would be “of such design quality that the image of the downtown store would be properly reflected not only in the branch store but in the entire arrangement of the center.” Moreover by controlling the development of its own shopping center, Hudson’s could detail its exact location, appearance, and tone. Gruen, ever the bold optimist, recommended that Hudson’s build not one but four shopping centers, which would ensure that the department store dominated the new suburban marketplace around Detroit. Gruen advised Hudson’s to act quickly and buy the sites immediately. Oscar Webber, the president of Hudson’s, reacted perfectly.

Gruen, a cagey salesman, had played to Webber’s ego. The president also thought that Detroit’s existing shopping centers did not approach Hudson’s standards. Webber detested “the sordid shopping strips…[and] refused steadfastly to have the proud Hudson company be any part of them.” With its own shopping center, the retailer could compete in the suburbs and expand its market share. It could also transform itself from a large retailer into a real estate speculator, developer, and landlord. The whole concept lit Webber’s imagination. He hired Gruen to prepare a twenty-year development plan.

Although he flattered Webber with his initial concept, at first Gruen found it difficult to work for Webber. The architect remembered the Hudson’s executive as being an “authoritarian” and a “conservative.” He ran his business “like a Prussian general.” Webber insisted that Gruen brief him every morning at 9 A.M. sharp. If he was a minute late, Webber exploded. Gruen also remembered Webber was a fiercely anti-Semitic man who was “harboring more prejudices against Jews, Germans, and non Republicans.” He later claimed that Webber became more tolerant toward Jews, eventually even hiring them at Hudson’s, because of his and Webber’s close working relationship. At the start of their association, however, Gruen felt under the gun to produce plans for this demanding man.

Under great secrecy, Gruen and a newly hired junior partner, Karl Van Leuven, began to plan from a Hudson’s boardroom. They made surreptitious trips out into Detroit’s suburbs to examine possible sites. A mere three weeks later, they emerged with a plan calling for four regional shopping centers: Northland, Eastland, Westland, and Southland. They proposed that Hudson’s locate its shopping centers “along the fringe of the now existing built up residential area” to guarantee “further decentralization beyond that area. Gruen maintained that the farthest fringes of Detroit were appealing for three reasons. First, land farther from the city would be cheaper, and branches located there would not cannibalize Hudson’s downtown sales. Second, Gruen imagined that the residential suburbs would eventually expand beyond the shopping center, creating a larger potential market. Third, by building on the fringes, Hudson’s would be able to guard against any unwanted developments.

Gruen wanted all future Hudson’s development to “be planfully developed in harmony with the centers.” He recommended purchasing at least 100 acres of land (and up to 300 acres) to guard against “future disturbing development.” This prescription – that owning acres of land would stave off other development – was crucial to shopping center promoters’ arguments. Prohibiting other retail developments, especially pirate stores that could steal Hudson’s business, was key to Gruen’s shopping center strategy. He had already picked out prime acreage for the first two shopping centers on Eight Mile Road – ten miles from the downtown store.

In his decentralization proposal Gruen was at his most confident and grandiloquent. He had been dreaming of a large shopping center since his Architectural Forum project of 1943. But the architect who proposed shopping centers for Hudson’s in 1950 was not the same architect as in 1943. In the intervening years, while working for Grayson’s, Gruen had become quite adept in the tricks of commercial architecture. The work also gave him more confidence in his abilities to design for a variety of settings, and he managed to visit many American cities. He had also become passionate about shopping centers. He promoted them tirelessly. The concept, he believed, could give him the power to shape large swaths of the American metropolis, hundreds and hundreds of acres. When Hudson’s purchased 460 acres of land for Northland, for instance, the company gave Gruen a free hand to layout the entire tract. Using Hudson’s capital, Gruen could reshape and reform gigantic pieces of property.

After Gruen and Van Leuven outlined their plan, Hudson’s went to work. In addition to the 460 acres for Northland, the department store purchased 116 acres for Eastland. The architects hoped to start with Northland, which had a larger potential market, but a zoning snafu forced them to begin with Eastland. Eastland was not the ideal starting place. Its audience was small and wealthy, and because of the site’s proximity to the Detroit River and Lake St. Claire [sic], the stores could not pull clientele from all sides. Upper-class neighborhoods (like Grosse Pointe) meant a lower population density, and Gruen worried that the wealthy would always prefer shopping downtown. Despite his worries, for the most part, statistics were in Gruen’s favor. In one report, Gruen explained that Eastland would succeed because of the recent suburban boom around Detroit. The city of Detroit had grown by 13 percent, while the suburbs had expanded by 25 percent. The suburbs near Eastland’s site, Gruen continued, had exploded: Gratiot 952 percent, Grosse Pointe Village 271 percent, and East Detroit City 149 percent. He situated Eastland to cater to and capture that growing suburban population of working and middle-class residents.

In an article analyzing Eastland, architectural forum counted people as well, using the term “pulling power” to encapsulate the advantage a shopping center had over a branch store. The ability to comparison shop in a densely developed area had made downtown popular. People would brave traffic jams and parking problems in order to compare prices. But suburban department stores were often too isolated for this advantage, the magazine complained. Suburban shopping centers, on the other hand, would usurp downtown’s “pulling power” through their own density of stores. Shopping centers that were “big enough to hold all the stores required for a family’s buying need – from high-priced apparel to a toothbrush, from furniture to shoe repair shops” – would create “planned competition”. “When this cumulative pull is transferred to the suburbs,” architectural forum predicted, “downtown can expect to lose some business.” Gruen hoped that the magazine’s glowing predictions were at least partially right.

When the architects completed their preliminary drawings for Eastland, Hudson’s was thrilled. With great fanfare, the store announced the plan on June 4, 1950; the drawings of the space-age shopping center appeared on the front page of the Detroit Free Press. Inside, the paper featured more illustrations showing a circular Hudson store, colonnaded sidewalks, and a central parking plaza.


[A few paragraphs here go into detail on the layout of Eastland, a plan that was eventually scrapped]


…Eastland would be an automobile lover’s dream. Six thousand cars could easily park there (compared to 15,000 downtown, where an estimated 100,000 autos entered daily). The Architectural Forum article on Eastland observed that “widespread automobile ownership” had “liberated the customer.” Since people could travel anywhere in their cars, the most important feature to offer them at a shopping center was “a place to park the car.”

This shopping center was an improvement on, not a replacement for, downtown – so Gruen gave it the allure of downtown’s density and commercialism without its parking problems. He wanted to use downtown’s lights, color, sidewalks, even crowds to re-create a hustle and bustle for business.

For all the grand designs and good press, Eastland was mothballed by April 1951. In a press release, Oscar Webber blamed the material shortages due to the Korean War for halting the plan. Webber went on to explain that, “the government has taken steps to curtail commercial buildings of all types through curbs on means and methods of financing, as well as controls on materials used in construction.” Undaunted, he declared that he still believed in the goal of Hudson’s building shopping centers around Detroit. And he promised to “push the program to completion as soon as conditions permit.” The forced delay of Eastland turned out to be a blessing in disguise. “We almost laid an egg,” Gruen later remembered. Although never mentioned in the press swirling about the project, the shopping center’s design was an odd mixture of many competing elements. With parking on both sides, parking in the courtyard, and a road dividing it in half, the shopping center became a large traffic hub.

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Burnsie
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Post Number: 1182
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 9:48 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks for posting those excerpts, Mikem! One comment: the book mentioned that Gruen was stranded in Detroit because the planes couldn't take off in a snowstorm. What about trains? I suppose that detail might be a bit lost for the sake of a good story.
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Iheartthed
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 10:51 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Sales at Downtown Hudson's were already down some 20% in 1959 from their peak in 1953-- and at least at that point, it wasn't because of a decline in service or quality of merchandise.

Didn't Hudson's in Southfield open in 1954?
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Focusonthed
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 12:12 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It's not that they opened branches. It's that they opened branches, which they stocked and maintained BETTER than the flagship. That's what doesn't make sense.
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Johnlodge
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 3:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Now Hudson's is to blame for the fall of downtown?



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Miketoronto
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 4:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My point was not just about department stores. My main point is that all these business leaders could be blamed.

If Hudson's did not built branch stores you can be sure people would still have gone downtown, because downtown would have things not found in other parts of the region like say Hudson's.

This goes for other things. Sure the city is going to go down if business decides to move their head offices out, etc.

We can blame suburbanization, etc all we want. But if business from Hudson's, down to head offices, etc had decided to keep the city the centre of their commerce, then the city would not have fallen.

There are plenty of stores that maintain downtown only locations to this day, and they do fine and are destinations.

For example my dad's city in Italy. If you want the big stores, etc you still have to go downtown. No malls. And people do just fine. The city is still a destination. That is infact how most of Europe is. Paris' famous department stores do not have any branch stores. They just run really great store downtown. If you want their stuff you will go there.


Infact it can be said that all this expansion into the suburbs is what killed many stores in the long run, because they had to many locations to make money.

But overall my point was more then just about Hudson. It is about all the leaders who had business in the city.

Joburg is a great example of this. The city centre was doing fine right till the 1990's. when business leaders decided they wanted to flee to the suburbs to get away from black people. Overnight almost skyscrapers were emptied. You don't think the business is to blame for that? Who told them to move?
And it is the same business now that complain the city is a hellish place. Well you are the ones that ruined it.
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Sstashmoo
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 7:02 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

MikeinT, I see where you're trying to go with this argument, but you aren't getting there. There isn't a list of retailers like in some SIMS game. "Other" retailers were tapping into the lucrative suburb trade, it was over for the downtown stores. It still is, there won't be any retail going in anytime soon. As someone else suggested recently, If anyone thinks it's so surefire, take your plan to some investors and see what they say.

Blaming people that left the city for less crime and a better existence is just ridiculous. And blaming businesses that went out of business is even moreso. It takes huge capital and strong sales to make a retail business pop. It ain't happening.
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Thecarl
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 7:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

seriously, think about a city like new york. if macy's were to close its operations, would the viability of the big apple be threatened? in chicago, if marshall fields moved out, would that be a death knell for the windy city? is shopping in l.a. a make-or-break proposition for people planning to visit, or to do business there? do they even *have* a major retail department store in los angeles? i don't know, but it doesn't matter.

hudson's cannot be looked at as the disease. hudson's was a *symptom* of a disease that caused widespread disruption of merchants throughout the city that tried to provide goods and services to its residents and visitors.

it's been said before: what detroit calls "decentralization" or "sprawl," other cities call "expansion." the intention of hudson's opening stores outside detroit was to expand. if some stores had "better" or "worse" product lines, well - i'm sure the managers did their best to market products befitting the clientele. i've been in metro detroit retail chain stores where the products on the shelves clearly identify who does the shopping there - while presumably, a chain store should have an identical product mix in every location.

so, the answer is no. hudson's is not to blame.
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Citylover
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 7:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Ah the canadian side of you comes out mike.If the world ran the way paris and ital ran we would still be on rotary phones and using our carrier pigeons to conduct the detroit yes forum. That is a bad comparison.

However it is a romantic notion and in some ways I think our society would perhaps benefit from a slowdown of the 24 hr rat race.............unfortunately reality is europe is becoming more of a 24 hr society than vice versa.
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Miketoronto
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 8:32 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Sstashmoo, I am not just talking about stores. I used Hudson's as the example because it is the most famous landmark for many Detroit residents.
But it goes for more then just retail downtown or in the city.

Thecarl, you can bet Marshall Fields(now Macy's) would have a dramatic effect on State Street in the Chicago LOOP. The MACY'S on State is really the only destination left on State Street. The street while better then before is still not what it use to be, and if MACY'S closed, State would fall, as there is nothing else to draw people to that area.
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Mikeg
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 10:42 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

My point was not just about department stores. My main point is that all these business leaders could be blamed.... Sure the city is going to go down if business decides to move their head offices out, etc.


The leaders of one of the largest employers in the city of Detroit decided to not only stay, they replaced their old obsolete plants with a new modern assembly plant, plus they relocated their HQ from the New Center to the CBD.

Nonetheless, blame the business community if it makes you feel better.
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Miketoronto
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 10:53 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

You bring up a good point. GM has done a lot for the central city. But other business have not. Why is Ford not downtown? Why is Chrysler not downtown? Where are the other leaders?

(Message edited by miketoronto on October 23, 2007)
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Detroitrise
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 11:09 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"You bring up a good point. GM has done a lot for the central city. But other business have not. Why is Ford not downtown? Why is Chrysler downtown? Where are the other leaders?"

Obviously Ford isn't in downtown because they invested too heavenly in Dearborn to jump a move into Detroit. It's still a regional HQ though and they do sponsor and present about as much stuff as GM does in the city.

Chrysler is another story. They moved all the way out in Pontiac just to have their own piece of land like Ford has. However, they have also done their fair share of investment for Downtown as well in the past.

It was those 2 company's choices to do that like it was GM's choice to stick with Detroit. However, they're are all still considered regional HQ's, despite their locations.

As for the leaders, they can only do much either in our economy. They do their best to attract the businesses in hopes that they will come. In the end, it's up to the Corporations how our country is run economically. If they choose a decentralized economy, then unfortunately so be it.
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Thecarl
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 11:17 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

Thecarl, you can bet Marshall Fields(now Macy's) would have a dramatic effect on State Street in the Chicago LOOP. The MACY'S on State is really the only destination left on State Street. The street while better then before is still not what it use to be, and if MACY'S closed, State would fall, as there is nothing else to draw people to that area.



funny! when i was thinking of "marshall fields" (yes, macy's) in chicago, i was thinking of the location at water tower place - not the legendary "111 state" site. i guess that just goes to show how crippling the loss of the store would be to downtown chicago. either something new would be built there, or chicagoans and its visitors would find somewhere else to go.

(btw, i have a wool coat with a 111 state label that i will hold onto well into its tattered lifetime!)
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Detroitrise
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 11:35 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Even if Chicago's Macy's closed, it still would hardly even affect the Magnificant Mile. They have well over 100,000 People living downtown and well over 1 Million workers there everyday. Not to mention that they are one of the largest tourist and convention attractions in the country
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Miketoronto
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 11:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Actually Michigan Ave has a heavy suburban shopping following. I read a stat once that showed a large percentage of shoppers came from the suburbs to shop there.

City residents alone can not support Michigan Ave.
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Sstashmoo
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Username: Sstashmoo

Post Number: 521
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 1:59 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Miket,
Crime and lack of adequate police protection killed the core retail. It could come back, but it's a long way off. I drove down Michigan today. I'm not seeing what you're saying. No bank is going to a back a retail venture in those areas. SBAM..maybe. The businesses were essentially ran out. I was here, I watched it happen. I don't know how many "we stayed as long as we could" stories I've heard. These businesses didn't want to leave, they had to. It was either stay and lose everything to poor sales and other issues or move to the suburbs with much better chances. What would you do?
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Danindc
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Username: Danindc

Post Number: 3539
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 9:20 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

Crime and lack of adequate police protection killed the core retail.



It was stated above that downtown Hudsons reached its sales peak in the 1950s. Have you plotted the historical crime rates versus Hudsons sales? Or are you guessing?
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Sstashmoo
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Username: Sstashmoo

Post Number: 522
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 10:09 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Guessing? No.. After 67, suburbia was done with downtown.
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Danindc
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Username: Danindc

Post Number: 3545
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 10:11 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

^^^Yes, everything was beautiful until that one magical night in 1967. After that, everything suddenly went into the shitter, and therefore we should write off Detroit forever.
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Sstashmoo
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Username: Sstashmoo

Post Number: 524
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 11:01 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

^ Never said that... It was an definite turning point. Prior to, few people ventured downtown, afterwards very few people went downtown. Maltov cocktails, assault weapons? Yeah grab the kids lets go shopping. I worked down in Detroit from the mid to late 70's. Quite an experience. Got thrown in jail once because I made an illegal left turn and didn't have my wallet. Fun day.

Detroit folks, Is that still the law in the D? No ID to jail you go?
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Focusonthed
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Username: Focusonthed

Post Number: 1387
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 12:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Sstashmoo, no, but it is still the law (and always has been) that you need a driver's license to drive. Detroit, and elsewhere.
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Missnmich
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Username: Missnmich

Post Number: 621
Registered: 11-2004
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 1:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Danindc
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Username: Danindc

Post Number: 3545
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 10:11 am:

------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------------------
^^^Yes, everything was beautiful until that one magical night in 1967. After that, everything suddenly went into the shitter, and therefore we should write off Detroit forever.



Dan, if you were not around in 1967, you are in no position to downplay the effect of those hot summer nights of 1967.
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Sstashmoo
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Username: Sstashmoo

Post Number: 526
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 1:44 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"Sstashmoo, no, but it is still the law"

They changed it then, after the riots and into the 70's I can say irrefutably, if you had no ID you went to jail. Everyone forgets their wallet or forgets to renew their license. That was actually my case, I got my license renewed and they clipped the expiration date off. They weren't even expired yet actually. But the two officers explained that the license was not valid, arrested me and took me to a station over by gratiot and like french rd. Threw me in the "tank" with some locals. Fun day. Boss came and bailed me out. I remember this one dude in the cell that kept chanting: "My name is playa and I will get out to-day" over and over.

I swore that day I'd move from Detroit and Michigan and I did.

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