  Bussey Member Username: Bussey Post Number: 125 Registered: 12-2003 Posted From: 68.255.236.69 |
So far most of my knowledge regarding Detroit has been based on authors writing about economic disinvestment, racial inequities, and political ramifications. (Kenneth Jackson, Thomas Sugrue, etc etc ) I have yet to come across any good books regarding the 1980's crack epidemic. As mentioned in a different thread "Most Barren Sections of the City", this really had quite a severe effect on the cities neighborhoods and can account for most of the desolation you see today. I am only 26 and have no real recollection of when this took place since I was only a child at the time. Any insight you might have would be greatly appreciated. My current understanding comes from a collection of bad movies such as New Jack City. Also, can anyone recommend any good books on the subject. And have any been written about Detroit in particular? I'm no longer a full time student so my ability to get to the library is limited and word of mouth is great when you have access to Amazon.com, thanks for the help. | ||
Barnesfoto Member Username: Barnesfoto Post Number: 1609 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 66.2.149.85 |
"Land of Opportunity", a book about the Chambers Brothers. Excellent Book. | ||
Lilpup Member Username: Lilpup Post Number: 771 Registered: 06-2004 Posted From: 152.163.100.195 |
http://64.233.161.104/search?q =cache:JASCHD49GqUJ:post.econo mics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer /papers/fryer_heaton_levitt_mu rphy.pdf found this online - get the .pdf version if you want to see all the charts notice that based on the indices used here Detroit and Michigan aren't even in the top 10 for crack prevalence | ||
Erobtheone Member Username: Erobtheone Post Number: 6 Registered: 07-2005 Posted From: 68.21.12.226 |
Get that YBI book by Butch Jones. That will thoroughly explain what happen to the dexter/linwood - he started the YBIs. Erob chicago by way of detroit | ||
Jimaz Member Username: Jimaz Post Number: 12 Registered: 12-2005 Posted From: 68.2.191.57 |
You might want to take a peek at the Iran-Contra Affair: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I ran-Contra (Message edited by Jimaz on December 31, 2005) | ||
Erikto Member Username: Erikto Post Number: 291 Registered: 11-2003 Posted From: 64.228.108.86 |
I think I read earlier this year that federal prosecutors asked for the death penalty for Butch Jones, maybe it was in a MetroTimes on one of my visits to Detroit as I doubt local press mentioned him. It was an article about the federal government interceding in states without the death penalty (was MI the first to drop the death penalty?) to try and kill offenders. I swear I'm not trying to hijack the this thread, just trying to recollect where and what I read about the YBI founder. Isn't there also a movie in the works? In 1986 I was in grade 10 in Montreal and a cop came to our school to tell us the vigilence of Montreal cops resulted in there being no crack scene in Montreal... it got there a little later than NYC but boy was that cop ever out to lunch... | ||
Citylover Member Username: Citylover Post Number: 1486 Registered: 07-2004 Posted From: 4.229.123.211 |
The young boys and chambers bros and I believe Butch Jones all precede the crack years in Detroit.Those outfits dealt in heroin and were active in the '70s. White boy Rick as he was known was perhaps the most notorious of the crack dealers and I believe he is currently serving a life no parole sentence. Wikepedia is NOT a credible source btw. | ||
Crash_nyc Member Username: Crash_nyc Post Number: 489 Registered: 08-2004 Posted From: 24.193.38.47 |
"Chambers Bros", "Young Boys", "Best Friends" -- they were all key players. White Boy Rick's boys were active for another year or two after he was busted, even while Rick was blowing the whistle on every other major drug operation in the city. It's an unfortunate "blast from the past" that I'd rather forget. Here's a story from the periphery: I worked as a valet parking attendant in Rivertown from the late '80's through the mid 90's. One of my regular gigs during 1987/88 was working Monday nights at Club Taboo on Woodbridge. Monday night was "WJLB NIght", and at the time it was the club night to "see & be seen" for every homie & drug dealer across the cty. The thing that struck me about that period was the ostentatious out-and-out flaunting of drug wealth, with little or no regard for the police. Lots of ankle-length minks and sables in the middle of summer, pockets bulging with wads of $100's tightly wrapped in rubber bands, and 1-inch-thick (real) gold ropes were the norm among the players. One of our Monday night regulars had a completely blinged-out Saleen Mustang 5.0 convertible (drop-kit, gold rims, $20,000 sound system, car phone, etc). Emblazoned across the rear bumper in cursive gold leaf: "Crackheadz Bought Me Dis". Another one of our regulars drove a Mercedes and would pay us out of a lock-box that he kept stashed under the front seat, stuffed with $100-bills. He'd peel out a C-note, "Park my shit up front!" For a few months I remember there being a friendly competition among some of the top players, as to who could keep their car in the #1 spot next to the front door for the longest (ideally still there at 2:AM when the "honeys" would come piling out). One might give us a $50 on his way in, another would pull up and give us $100 to move the first guy's car, the first guy would come out later and give us $200 to move the second guy's car, and later a third & fourth would pull up, pay-up, and so on.... I remember another one whom, upon leaving the club, sometimes got a big kick out of taking a bunch of C-notes out of his pocket and throwing them into the wind. He was thrilled by watching the mini-riot he'd create with people chasing his money down Woodbridge (he and his boys laughing & yelling "Chase them rocks, muthafuckas!!"). Some of this extreme-flaunting obviously still exists today, but it's not nearly as prevalant as it was in the '80's. The vast majority of our flashiest regulars were in their early 20's. Whenever we'd notice that someone hadn't shown up for a couple of Mondays in a row, we'd usually discover that they'd been killed. The general reaction among the club staff was "That sucks..He was a good tipper!" We cleaned-up working there. There were four of us running cars there, and every Monday we'd regulary walk with at least $600/night, each. I'll admit, drug money bought my first car. I was 18 and stupid...but not stupid enough to start dealing drugs. Just stupid enough to accept their money with a smile and without any moral difficulty. Those days came to an end after I was nearly killed one night when a low-rider pick-up rolled up in front of Taboo. It sat there for maybe a minute, then the rear tarp peeled-open and a guy popped up with a TEC-9, spraying the front of the club with bullets. At first he pointed the barrel in the air, then aimed lower. It was enough time for most people to get out of the way, but 2 people were still hit (no fatalities, thankfully). I dove under a Cherokee, and didn't come out until they were loooong gone (I had to be talked-out). When I came up, I saw 3 bullet holes in the side of the car I was hiding under. That was my last Monday night at Taboo. Apparently, the head of a drug gang was inside the club at the time, and a rival gang sprayed the place to put a scare into him. The people who were hit were innocent bystanders. Many more stories where that came from, but I don't want to turn this post into any more of a novel than it's already become. | ||
Treelock Member Username: Treelock Post Number: 77 Registered: 03-2005 Posted From: 68.77.166.98 |
That's a fucked-up story, Crash_nyc. I wasn't around here in Detroit during the crack epidemic's heyday, but I recall its affect on my native Ann Arbor. There, as a skate punk who spent a lot of nights downtown, I regularly encountered instances of violence or near violence involving malevolent black dudes. It took me a long time to realize why this was happening, aside from the fact that racist skinheads had begun to infiltrate the city's punk scene and were stirring up trouble themselves, but I finally understood it after being threatened by an obviously wasted former classmate of mine. While I can't remember the particulars of the situation, he was trying to goad me into fighting while I was trying to get through his glazed eyes to tell him we were classmates since grade school. There was a lot of trouble down there in those days, believe it or not. | ||
Sharmaal Member Username: Sharmaal Post Number: 503 Registered: 09-2004 Posted From: 69.14.76.187 |
Crash_nyc - As scary as that must have been for you, (and frankly saddening) your recollection of the story was exciting and well written. What is your ocupation? | ||
Erobtheone Member Username: Erobtheone Post Number: 9 Registered: 07-2005 Posted From: 68.21.12.226 |
i used to frequent Monday nights at Taboo. i knew duane "in the mix" bradley, who was the dj back then. i was always on the guest list and well under age. it was an exciting time and the scene were right out of a hollywood movie. i also was there the night the ford limo pulled up (from a previous post) and i remember saying at the time - that is a nice limo <smile>. detroit's drug trade was wide open and a lot of the hustlers seemed to be older to me? it tighten down quite a bit after that. Erob chicago by way of detroit | ||
Ddaydave Member Username: Ddaydave Post Number: 218 Registered: 04-2005 Posted From: 67.149.185.244 |
The thing I found amazing was how it was almost a neighborhood event burning down a crack house after it got raided a few times ..I never did crack but I had a few friends that got into it and were addicted and would spends days in those houses.. they were very open about being addicted and what went on at the crack houses ..it would be common to hear a stories of a totally hot girls from school that seemed to have there acts together turn to crack doing multiple guys at a crack house for rocks.. lets hope the Goverment local and federal does a better job with the meth problem heading this way | ||
Blondy Member Username: Blondy Post Number: 909 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 68.42.176.44 |
There's a meth problem headed this way?!? | ||
Ddaydave Member Username: Ddaydave Post Number: 221 Registered: 04-2005 Posted From: 67.149.185.244 |
meth used to be only in the western states it has has been moving east for years its already a major problem in western michigan and its moving east | ||
Bussey Member Username: Bussey Post Number: 126 Registered: 12-2003 Posted From: 68.255.236.69 |
These recollections are amazing. Thanks everyone. While this is very interesting, I do realize that real people were severly harmed by the crack epidemic. I just cannot believe what a role it played as a contributing factor to Detroit's further demise. Pertaining to the Meth discussion, go into the CVS on Warren and Brush and the drugs containing pseudophedrine are not on the shelf. You have to pull off a paper tab describing the drug and go get it from behind the counter. Is crack legal in Amsterdam too? I really hope not. | ||
Erikto Member Username: Erikto Post Number: 292 Registered: 11-2003 Posted From: 64.228.108.175 |
I don't think it's legal there, but it's the only place where I had to wait for a gal to 'beam up' in a phone booth (to use the phone, not to beam up with her!) Can anyone confirm or deny whether me recollection of the federal government interceding in "Butch's" case to get a crack (couldn't resisit the pun) at executing him, regardless of Michigan state laws? Crack really took off coast to coast; I remember police visiting my school in '86 proudly claiming Montreal had been passed over by the crack wave due to the cops' vigilence. I suppose the cops knew grade 10 would be the oldest crowd they could boast to without being laughed off stage, Montreal cops have a longstanding reputation for being lazy, corrupt and racist, roughly in that order. | ||
Crash_nyc Member Username: Crash_nyc Post Number: 490 Registered: 08-2004 Posted From: 24.193.162.237 |
Sharmaal: "As scary as that must have been for you, (and frankly saddening) your recollection of the story was exciting and well written. What is your ocupation?" I'm an Editor at A&E/History Channel in NYC these days. As for the 'excitement' of the Taboo incident, well it was just flat-out scary when it happened, and I didn't know any better (I shouldn't have put myself in that situation to begin with). It seems like a scene out of 'New Jack City' when I look back on it, but I can't glamorize it. It was purely fucked-up. Erobtheone: "i used to frequent Monday nights at Taboo...it was an exciting time and the scene were right out of a hollywood movie" DAMN! If you were a Monday night regular, you must share some more stories from that time. That was the bling-heyday of Rivertown back in the day. I don't look back on those days with bright memories, rather just some sort of warped nostalgia. Bussey: "Is crack legal in Amsterdam too? " Not at all. The Netherlands, in some cases, has even more severe penalties for drugs that it has deemed 'harmful', than in the US (cocaine & heroin among them). I've been to Amsterdam three times, and in spite of the stiff penalties, coke & smack are still very openly dealt on the streets throughout the Red Light District (late at night). However, your run-of-the-mill "hippie" drugs such as weed and 'shrooms, can still be purchased in "coffee shops" and specialty stores. Overall, the world has a lot to learn from the Dutch. | ||
Jt1 Member Username: Jt1 Post Number: 6332 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 198.208.159.19 |
I thought that was either a State or Federal law now. I know that some off the shelf products used to make meth now must be behind the counter. ANyone know the details and jurisdiction that put that in place. | ||
Sharmaal Member Username: Sharmaal Post Number: 515 Registered: 09-2004 Posted From: 136.2.1.103 |
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll /article?AID=/20060106/NEWS05/ 601060423 | ||
My2cents Member Username: My2cents Post Number: 114 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 24.253.67.62 |
Hey Crash_nyc, Are you familiar with Donald Goines? Black Girl Lost Crime Partners Whoreson Never Die Alone Dopefiend | ||
Cozmikdebris Member Username: Cozmikdebris Post Number: 83 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 69.14.153.177 |
From early '87 to late '89, I worked for a cut flower wholesaler ("Hill's Roses") at the corner of John R. and Winder. I used to go out with some of the packers driving through the neighboring streets near City Cab, etc, to get crack (I never smoked it myself (though I snorted ~ '82-'84), but since we all smoked pot we all hung out during lunch). The projects were nearby, and thinking back about some of the places we went just makes me wonder what I was thinking. There was a neighborhood in Inkster some of my friends used to get their rocks, called "Little Saigon," that was infested, too. One of them got his dad's rear window shot out during a buy. Cocaine seemed to be everywhere in the '80s, though I don't hear that much about crack any more today. | ||
Drankin21 Member Username: Drankin21 Post Number: 19 Registered: 12-2003 Posted From: 84.168.92.30 |
wow....what a thread | ||
Lilpup Member Username: Lilpup Post Number: 793 Registered: 06-2004 Posted From: 152.163.100.195 |
Have been told by the drivers where I work that they won't go into Little Saigon. They tell me even the police won't go in after dark. Then there was the lovely chap we hired who, instead of doing his work runs, swapped one of our company trucks for a few rocks. |
