  Jerrytimes Member Username: Jerrytimes Post Number: 183 Registered: 04-2007 |
So my father decided to go to where his '2nd home' was when he was a kid (in the 50's and 60's) It was my great grandfathers old neighborhood on Westphalia off of Gratiot Ave. The pictures blew my mind. I'd been to the neighbor hood before to see the old house, and about 8 years ago we drove by and saw that it had burned, but even eight years ago, the neighborhood looked bad, but it's shockingly worse. Sometimes I can't believe what areas of this city look like. The first pic is where the house used to be. <img> <img> <img> | ||
Optima Member Username: Optima Post Number: 68 Registered: 12-2006 |
Wow. I was raised on Joann, 2 blocks south of 8 Mile, west of Schoenherr. I stopped going by the old neighborhood many years ago for reasons similar to what you've posted... | ||
Sumas Member Username: Sumas Post Number: 855 Registered: 01-2008 |
I am still in Detroit and happy with my neighborhood. Only once did I do a drive by of a home we owed for ten years over by Denby High School. The new garage we built was gone, the expensive privacy fencing was gone, the trim on the brick home was painted pink. You can't go home for charming old memories, just hold them close in your minds eye. | ||
Bobl Member Username: Bobl Post Number: 721 Registered: 07-2008 |
My uncle, aunt, and cousins lived on Westphalia in the 1950s through 1970s, near St Raymond's Church. At my aunt's funeral mass about ten years ago there were many changes. The most memorable to me were the bail bond and attorney ads in the church paper, which had replaced the old ads for plumbers, electricians, and home improvement firms. Noticed the same thing later at another relative's funeral mass at Lady Of Good Council Church. | ||
Kathleen Member Username: Kathleen Post Number: 2251 Registered: 10-2003 |
Jerrytimes: Many similar thoughts posted in this The House I Grew Up In Is Gone thread https://www.atdetroit.net/forum/mes sages/5/174402.html?1237961291 | ||
Fury13 Member Username: Fury13 Post Number: 2145 Registered: 10-2003 |
Sad. That part of the eastside has to be one of the worst areas of Detroit these days. My grandparents lived not far from there, on Eastwood off Gratiot. | ||
Eriedearie Member Username: Eriedearie Post Number: 3961 Registered: 08-2007 |
Shocking pictures. That neighborhood used to be really nice. One of my friends lived on Westphalia not far off Lappin as I recall. Her home was beautiful inside and out. | ||
Newport1128 Member Username: Newport1128 Post Number: 278 Registered: 05-2007 |
Jerrytimes, you've experienced what many posters on this and similar threads have felt: a sense of loss for the Detroit of our memories, the Detroit that is no more. Some people blames "us" (or our parents or grandparents) for "abandoning" the city. In some ways, I can see their point, but I have to ask in return: What about the people who came after "us" ? Why couldn't they have maintained the homes and the businesses? Several generations of families built and maintained those neighborhoods from 1900 to the late 1960's or early 1970's. Then the homes, the stores, the neighborhoods began falling apart. I can visit the small town where my parents grew up and, although the names on the stores have changed, many of the old places are still there, and there have been a lot of changes and even improvements over the last sixty years. Why can't we say the same about Detroit? Can anyone honestly look at the neighborhoods today and say they are more desirable places to live in 2009 than they were in 1949 or 1959? Very true, you can't go home again. | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 1367 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote:There weren't as many of them, for one thing. When a city goes from 1.8 million to 900,000 in 50 years, it's gonna come out the other side the worse for wear. Especially if many of the people left are extremely poor. The point people make isn't exactly that it's your fault the neighborhood declined, but that you gave up control when you moved away. Had you not done that, you and your peers could dictate how that area looks today, instead of leaving it up to others to take care of an area that you profess to care more about than they do. | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 1698 Registered: 07-2004 |
I have repeated this in previous threads about the decline of neighborhoods in Detroit. A large part of the destruction of homes in Detroit neighborhoods stems from old-time home owners renting instead of selling their properties when they moved. The renters do not take care of the property because it isn't theirs. The property owner in many cases doesn't keep the house maintained. As a result, the home becomes dilapidated, the owner decides not to repair it, and the city is forced to tear it down because it becomes an eye-sore. In the late 80s until today many vacant houses have been stripped, further making repairs prohibitive. In another thread I suggested that the city create an ordinance that says that in certain areas of the city homes must be sold and not rented out. This would create a condition where those who just rent couldn't occupy a house and run it into to the ground and leave the landlord hanging. Also, it would force those thinking about becoming slumlords to sell their property out right before "slumming" could happen. The owner might not be able to sell his home at the price he wants, but at least, in theory, the new owners(not renters) will take a vested interest in the house and take good care of it. (Message edited by royce on April 01, 2009) | ||
Fury13 Member Username: Fury13 Post Number: 2155 Registered: 10-2003 |
"A large part of the destruction of homes in Detroit neighborhoods stems from old-time home owners renting instead of selling their properties when they moved." I would say that in some cases, that's true, but not for "a large part." No, the problem was that the old-time homeowners sold to people who simply weren't as interested in upkeep (or couldn't afford it). There is a socioeconomic correlation: middle-class neighborhoods became working-class or poor... and working-class neighborhoods became slums. Neighborhoods changed -- and I don't mean strictly racially. I know a white family who lived in a (then) nice middle-class, integrated neighborhood in Detroit in the '60s and early '70s and were warned by their middle-class, African-American neighbors to "move out to Southfield like we are planning to do" because a lower-class, "bad element" was slowly taking over the area. This happened across the board in Detroit. Busing didn't help -- families had no reason anymore to choose to live in a particular neighborhood, since their kids would be shipped across town anyway. Families could no longer send their kids to their neighborhood schools -- which was (and still is) one of the main reasons for living in a certain area. |
