 
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 1201
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 9:57 am: |    |
And we thought there were big crowds for Obama, when he visited Detroit.
Feast your eyes upon the throng that welcomed John Kennedy to Detroit, in 1960
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Detroitchef
Member
Username: Detroitchef
Post Number: 43
Registered: 09-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 6:37 pm: | |
That's racist... (ducking)
Seriously, look at the businesses, the signs and the people.
Weird to look at the Obama turnout compared to this. Thanks for digging this up! |
Rjk
Member
Username: Rjk
Post Number: 1326
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 6:45 pm: | |
Anyone know what kind of business the SAMS sign was advertising. |
Detroitej72
Member
Username: Detroitej72
Post Number: 761
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 6:52 pm: | |
Sam's Cut Rate Drugs. Located I believe in the old Detroit Opera House. |
Daddeeo
Member
Username: Daddeeo
Post Number: 325
Registered: 09-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 10:15 pm: | |
They had a trick of blocking all traffic off at lunch time. You'd be stuck in the crowd whether you wanted to be there or not. |
Bobl
Member
Username: Bobl
Post Number: 242
Registered: 07-2008
| | Posted on Friday, December 05, 2008 - 6:28 am: | |
Anyone have a photo of the crowd viewing the implosion of Hudson's? |
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 1205
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Friday, December 05, 2008 - 7:05 am: | |
The landscape of downtown Detroit changed dramatically, and quickly...at least, in the mind of a seven year-old knucklehead from Mount Pleasant.
So much of what I gawked at, in 1965, was long gone by 1967 |
The_rock
Member
Username: The_rock
Post Number: 2478
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 05, 2008 - 8:24 am: | |
And not a bad shot of the old Gregory, Meyer and Thom building on Campus Martius. My uncle Bill Gregory told me it would take forever to finally tear that huge structure down, and he sure was right.
"Oh the Humanity"-a phrase now imbedded in American history as spoken by anguished announcer Herb Morrison describing the Hindenberg and the crowds when she went up ( actually, down) in flames in 1937.
Fine photo,Chuckjav. Was that photo taken when Kennedy flew in to Detroit for the big Labor Day celebration? And if memory serves me right, he was back again in October for a speech from the steps of the University of Michigan Mens'Union when he proposed the Peace Corp. |
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 1207
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Friday, December 05, 2008 - 2:29 pm: | |
The_rock...with regard to chronology, I'm fairly certain that you are correct; the photograph comes to us from the good people at Wayne State University. |
Eastsideal
Member
Username: Eastsideal
Post Number: 98
Registered: 10-2007
| | Posted on Friday, December 05, 2008 - 6:07 pm: | |
Democratic presidential candidates used to always kick off their campaigns with a Detroit Labor Day rally from the steps of City Hall.
Sam's Cut Rate was a discount department store (not a drug store - I think you're mixing it up with Paul's Cut Rate Drugs on Broadway) for clothing, toys, bedding, etc. At the time of this picture it was in the old Detroit Opera House building on Campus Martius. When that building was torn down in 1966, along with the rest of what was known as the Kern block (after the defunct Kern's department store at the northwest corner of the block), the store moved into a building on the east side of Randolph for several years before it closed. |
Tkshreve
Member
Username: Tkshreve
Post Number: 699
Registered: 07-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, December 06, 2008 - 1:22 am: | |
If you look close,
the sign right below SAMS explains what the acronym stands for. I can't quite read it, but maybe chuckyjav has a bigger pic. |
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 1220
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, December 06, 2008 - 1:13 pm: | |
Sam's Always Means Savings
(At least that's what my feeble mind remembers from 43 years ago) |