  Detroitman Member Username: Detroitman Post Number: 1080 Registered: 06-2004 |
TIME TO SHINE Efforts to revitalize blighted residential areas in Detroit's Brightmoor neighborhood are paying off BY MARGARITA BAUZA • FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER • April 20, 2008 http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs .dll/article?AID=/20080420/BUS INESS04/804200503 | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 6260 Registered: 10-2003 |
Great article, thanks for that. | ||
Craig Member Username: Craig Post Number: 740 Registered: 02-2007 |
"I think it's important to know and understand that Brightmoor real estate was not developed in an organized fashion," Warfield said. "This neighborhood was planned as a ghetto. Now we're seeing a strategic organized plan to get Brightmoor to what it should be. We are putting plans in place that will change the neighborhood's original intent." Planned as ghetto? Maybe. But the area only became a ghetto within recent memory. | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 6262 Registered: 10-2003 |
I believe they are using the denotation of ghetto, whereas you are referring to the connotation. | ||
Crawford Member Username: Crawford Post Number: 218 Registered: 10-2006 |
This is all money and time wasted. It's all a game of musical chairs. Every house that is renovated just means a currently occupied house is abandoned. This is what happens when you subsidize the construction of new homes in an area with a declining population and no market demand. | ||
Ggores Member Username: Ggores Post Number: 57 Registered: 10-2007 |
the new houses aren't that great, many already showing definite signs of meltdown, the picture in the paper is not correct I can tell you that, go there and see for yourself, optimism is fine, being blinded by rainbows isn't good for the eyes. and btw that is the FIRST time in my entire life ever heard that the hood was "ghetto" by design. anyone else familiar with this part of the history? (Message edited by ggores on April 22, 2008) | ||
Mackinaw Member Username: Mackinaw Post Number: 4657 Registered: 02-2005 |
Johnlodge is right. It was basically Ford-planned low income housing for factory workers. Kind of a suburb in the European sense of the word, which people from nice neighborhoods might call a "ghetto," even in its heyday. The homes are not high quality, but I'm all for restoring them and keeping Brightmoor a decent place for low-income working people to live. In the 2008 metro Detroit scheme, it is really well-located in terms of accessing jobs in Detroit, Southfield, Livonia, Dearborn, etc. | ||
Rooms222 Member Username: Rooms222 Post Number: 106 Registered: 04-2005 |
>>>>Kind of a suburb in the European sense of the word, which people from nice neighborhoods might call a "ghetto," even in its heyday. The neighborhoods of Brightmoor were developed in the booming 1920's as lower middle class housing in a semi planned community fashion, with lots of little features in the neighborhood to attract buyers, but perhaps not practicality or sustainability over the long term, especially during the Great Depression (perhaps like some of the complexes built during this recently ended housing boom). Annexed to Detroit, with the promises of paved streets and city sewers you can find lots of info in the book, A History of Redford Township at the Redford Township Library. (Brightmoor was part of Redford Twp. before annexation). (Message edited by rooms222 on April 22, 2008) | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 5938 Registered: 10-2003 |
It most definitely was planned as a ghetto in the very sense of the word. As others have mentioned, it was a planned town geared toward a specific poor demographic. It's reason for existence in its originally planned state dried up with that of the nearby industry. | ||
Jjaba Member Username: Jjaba Post Number: 6376 Registered: 11-2003 |
Brightmoor never looked like Detroit. You drove along W. Outer Drive and in Brightmoor, it looked like an absence of zoning. Houses were scattered here and there, some of very poor workmanship. With white flight, people came in and realy trashed what was a working class, blue collar neighborhood. Pride of place was gone, and that's when it became Ghetto. Building anew for lower income people is tough without market forces behind the scheme of things. In-fill Habitat houses is one thing, a whole neighborhood of them with other low-income estates isn't a good idea. jjaba, Westsider. | ||
Barnesfoto Member Username: Barnesfoto Post Number: 5004 Registered: 10-2003 |
"It most definitely was planned as a ghetto in the very sense of the word". No it wasn't. It was planned as a place where people with little money could get a start by building a small house at the back of a cheap lot. The developer, Mr. Smith, had a lot of optimism about people building up the neighborhood as their incomes rose. The Great Depression changed a lot of plans. Ever seen the original plans for the Fisher Building? Still, people didn't want to live south of Puritan in the seventies...(10-15 years BC) Most of Brightmoor would be better off as farmland. Jjaba, tells it like it is. Barnesfoto, Sneaking a sip of a beer on the swings at Hope Park. | ||
Thoswolfe Member Username: Thoswolfe Post Number: 51 Registered: 11-2007 |
Many of those older Brightmoor houses had additions added on as soon as the owners could afford the upgrades. Those houses were indeed built for the working class, some $100-$500 down, $50 per month. The additions to those houses- indoor plumbing. I doubt anyone who built their family a house in Brightmoor expected their house to last 60-70 years. | ||
El_jimbo Member Username: El_jimbo Post Number: 643 Registered: 12-2006 |
People are confusing the word ghetto with the word slum. Ghetto implies a community of a similar ethnic or socio-economic status (see neighborhoods like Greektown, Little Italy, Chinatown, and Little Havana). A slum is a run-down neighborhood that is poorly maintained and has a high crime rate. They are two independent terms. A neighborhood can be one without being the other. So if you go by the true definition of these words, yes, Brightmoor was built as a ghetto. It was designed to be low-income housing for immigrants moving to the area. However, it wasn't designed to be a slum. It became one over time. | ||
Jjaba Member Username: Jjaba Post Number: 6378 Registered: 11-2003 |
El jimbo, you can make your point as you wish, as long as you don't say Brightmoor ever looked very good, even in the boom boom years of so-called full employment in the 1950s. Ghetto, slum, workforce housing, Appalachian transplants, home of the KKK, rallies by Nazis, white power, none of that made the neighborhood very nice. Many other Detroit neighborhoods looked good, and they were also built as factory worker workforce neighborhoods. As Barnesfoto who tells it like it tis points out, this wasn't exactly the unbuilt part of the Fisher Bldg. jjaba, a History of Brightmoor driving on W. Outer Drive. | ||
Barnesfoto Member Username: Barnesfoto Post Number: 5005 Registered: 10-2003 |
well, if we are using "ghetto" to mean "designated area for certain people" than Rosedale Park, built on a place once called "Robber's Woods" was the Upper Middle Class WASP Ghetto...But I don't ever recall hearing it called a ghetto. Barnesfoto, ex Pizza Handbill Delivery Boy, from Fenkell to 7 Mile, apologies to all those who didn't want Harvey's Pizza coupons in their mailbox. | ||
Urbanoutdoors Member Username: Urbanoutdoors Post Number: 797 Registered: 11-2005 |
John Obrien and NWND have done great things in the past 20 years, I am glad they are getting recognition for what they do over there. They deserve it! They helped acquire the land for the new post office, so that the post office didn't take out part of Stoepel Park, and the houses that are currently being built are wonderful compared to past housing stock. | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 5939 Registered: 10-2003 |
Barn, any place built solely or mostly for any one socio-economic group can be (and is) a ghetto regardless of whether or not you or I call it one. Hell, you've got all types of ghettos. You've got student ghettos. What was once called ghettos now use the euphemism of "enclave." At the end of the day, they are all ghettos. If people want to attach the negative connotation of the word to its actual definition that's their own problem. | ||
Jjaba Member Username: Jjaba Post Number: 6380 Registered: 11-2003 |
"Shtetl" is a Yiddish word for a small town in rural Eastern Europe populated by Orthodox Jews. Shtetl culture is a traditional way of life, socially stable, and unchanging. Czarist pogroms and the Nazi holocaust broke up this lifestyle in the 19th and 20th Centuries. From Shtetl, we evolve the term, Ghetto. Ghetto, a fenced off, densely populated area, was where Jews were forced to live in European cities, under the force of Nazis. Many died of starvation, disease, or resistance. Now if you want to make the transition from these constructs to Brightmoor, Detroit, have at it. The word, ghetto, doesn't seem to fit here. When cities like Detroit were highly segregated, perhaps you could call the segregated sections ghetto, placing many Poles, many Blacks, many Jews, Italians, Chinese, Ukrainians, Germans, in separate neighborhoods. Tis hard for jjaba to view Brightmoor in that context, either as housing when it was white or Black. "Cass Corridor West"? Maybe. jjaba, Westsider. | ||
Gianni Member Username: Gianni Post Number: 354 Registered: 05-2004 |
"Ghetto" is a word of Italian origin. It refers to the part of of Venice where the Jews were forced to live. So it basically means a segregated neighborhood. Not sure how the word ended up in American English as a synonym for slum. I remember reading some of the most vile, hateful and revolting words in my life, ever, from a Nazi group that tried to set up shop in Brightmoor in the late 70's. These people were not Holocaust deniers. They were advocating for another Holocaust here in Detroit. Although the Nazi scum thought they would have a fertile recruiting ground among the poor whites in Brightmoor, as I recall, the Nazi coward scum were asked to "get out of Dodge" in no uncertain terms by some biker gang members. In any event I'm hopeful about any progress in this odd but interesting enclave. | ||
Jimaz Member Username: Jimaz Post Number: 5179 Registered: 12-2005 |
For me, the distinction between "enclave" and "ghetto" is that "ghetto" carries with it the additional idea that the exit of its inhabitants is restricted. For me this would be a truly horrifying concept. "Don't fence me in." | ||
Frank_c Member Username: Frank_c Post Number: 1522 Registered: 10-2003 |
Brightmoor was a ghetto and is now a slum. Was never very nice. But it sure housed some hard working folks that took pride of ownership interspersed with a bunch of crazy MFer's......kid you not. | ||
Craig Member Username: Craig Post Number: 741 Registered: 02-2007 |
More on Brightmoor: 1) Within recent memory there was evidence of East European roots, e.g. Latvian (or was it Estonian?) church on Outer Drive at Stout, families celebrating 'first communions', etc. 2) Delineation of Brightmoor is inexact. South of Puritan but north of Fenkell and there are streets upon streets of fine brick homes. Today's borders do not compute with one who grew up in the area 3) The Fenkell commercial strip had almost everything - no funeral parlor, but you could buy a new car, see a doctor, shop for furniture, bowl, etc. At Patton there were two competing fresh fruit markets - how's that for density? 4) After the frenzy of white-flight Brightmoor remained mostly white 5) The Nazi "bookstore" on Fenkell was ordered out by one of the local motorcycle gangs (I've forgotten if it was the Scorpions or Forbidden Wheels) 6) In the early 80s there was a kind of Children's Crusade where young locals would, with apparent spontaneity, tear down abandoned shacks. This made the local news. | ||
Mackinaw Member Username: Mackinaw Post Number: 4659 Registered: 02-2005 |
Ghetto may not be far off from the truth, in it's real sense, but I think, as some who's studied history, that it is too loaded with connotations to use responsibly in this case, Anyway, Craid makes some interesting observations. I have noticed that it's diverse in the racial sense. I have also noticed towards its east side (Stoepel Park) and toward Grand River are some higher quality homes (I just don't know what the technical boundaries of Brightmoor are). Detroit Project Day (a huge event put on by UM's Detroit Project-- now "Partnership") focuses on Brightmoor every year for cleanups, demos, rebuilding. There are some very active community organization there, indeed, and ambitious plans to put vacant land to use. | ||
Jjaba Member Username: Jjaba Post Number: 6383 Registered: 11-2003 |
Jimaz, good fences make good neighbors. Damn, I keep humming your tune. After I finish two-on-one with a Vernor's at my Coney Island, I'll be burping it next. jjaba, enjoying this excellent discussion. HOF thread. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 7306 Registered: 02-2004 |
It's a good start for the Brightmoor ghettohood. Next the planning commission needs to do is add some retail along Fenkell Rd. | ||
Ggores Member Username: Ggores Post Number: 58 Registered: 10-2007 |
that nazi youth bookstore was not "ordered out" by anybody. it was blown up, and not by any Wheels or Scorpions either. just a brief correction, Craig, nothing more. (Message edited by ggores on April 23, 2008) | ||
Busterwmu Member Username: Busterwmu Post Number: 472 Registered: 09-2004 |
terrific! | ||
Craig Member Username: Craig Post Number: 746 Registered: 02-2007 |
Ggores - re: Nazi bookstore... the father of a friend was Sergeant with TMU, the DPD unit charged with keeping order on Fenkell during the brief run of the bookstore. He told me about the unofficial delegation. But it was 30+ years ago, and today... who knows? That Brightmoor didn't embrace the Nazi outpost still must stand as one of the area's finest moments. | ||
Parkguy Member Username: Parkguy Post Number: 264 Registered: 04-2007 |
I moved to Detroit the weekend the Nazi bookstore opened, and drove down Fenkell (totally ignorant of what was going on). Brownshirts on the south side of the street, and bikers, hippies, Jewish groups, priests on the north side, signs waving and voices raised. Police in the middle. That was a memorable sight. | ||
Reddog289 Member Username: Reddog289 Post Number: 245 Registered: 08-2007 |
while driving through brightmoor on the day the UofM kids were trying to clean up the place, i thought to myself "i live in a suburban Brightmoor". the lines between Detroit and the inner burbs is becoming non existant. don,t think i,ll ever see a Honda dealership on Fenkell again, but that would be a step ahead. |
