 
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5787
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 6:26 pm: |    |
Thanks for reminding us Ray1936.
jjaba thought only Eastsiders knew about Johnny Pfeiffer.
jjaba. |
Hornwrecker
Member
Username: Hornwrecker
Post Number: 1953
Registered: 04-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 6:33 pm: | |
Pfeiffer Beer Tribute Page
GRPL |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 2432
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 7:04 pm: | |
Ah, me. Pfeiffers, Goebel's, Altes Golden Lager, Koppitz.....this thread sure turned nice..... |
Kathleen
Member
Username: Kathleen
Post Number: 2664
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 7:19 pm: | |
An update on Robert Oakman's final resting place...
I've been in touch with Mount Elliott Cemetery where there is a Moross-Oakman Mausoleum; they've checked their records and tell me that neither Robert Oakman nor his wife Mamie Moross are interred there.
My contact at Woodmere Cemetery will be checking the records there this weekend.
Stay tuned! |
Mccarch
Member
Username: Mccarch
Post Number: 145
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 7:40 pm: | |
Jjaba, when you went to services at the Veterans' Memorial, was that Charles Agree, the architect, who ran the services? |
Dodgemain
Member
Username: Dodgemain
Post Number: 184
Registered: 04-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 9:10 pm: | |
Ray, ever had one of these?
|
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 2436
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 9:14 pm: | |
I think that one was even before MY time, Dodgemain! Nice looking classic can, though. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5789
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 9:50 pm: | |
jjaba will do some research about Downtown Synagogue.
jjaba. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5790
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 10:09 pm: | |
The Issac Agree Downtown Synagogue was founded in 1925 and moved to the current location about 1939. Issac Agree was very involved in this congregation. He was a lay leader. I'm don't know the relation of Charles to Issac.
jjaba. |
Bc_n_dtown
Member
Username: Bc_n_dtown
Post Number: 44
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:03 am: | |
Good work Kathleen, I'm curious to see what you come up with. Like I mentioned earlier in this thread, my source (although I can't remember the name of that book) had the year of Oakman's passing at 1942, which differed from online sources. It's odd that for a man who left such a mark on this city that it would be so difficult to uncover the year of his death. |
Leob
Member
Username: Leob
Post Number: 104
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 10:42 pm: | |
JJaba,
I'd have to double check, but I am reasonably sure Issac was Grandfather to Charles N. Architect - Grande Ballroom, Whittier Apts etc.
Msamslex
Planes would have been operating out of aviation field. c.1920 ish. I have seen realtors maps outlining the transverse runways. Any of the pilots on the forum will tell you that airfields worldwide are oriented this way to take advantage of the prevailing winds for flight operations.
Leo B |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5797
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 11:05 pm: | |
Loeb, thanks. I'm not sure of relations of the Agrees but in the 1940-50s, that family was running the show on High Holidays at Downtown Synagogue. I remember the Torah and Ark moved from the shul to the Veteran's Memorial for services.
jjaba. |
Kathleen
Member
Username: Kathleen
Post Number: 2666
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 5:26 pm: | |
My contact at Woodmere Cemetery tells me that neither Robert Oakman nor Charles Oakman is buried there.
I did confirm that Robert's nephew Charles G(ibb) Oakman is interred in Roseland Park Cemetery at Woodward and 12 Mile Rd. in Berkley; no Robert Oakman in the family plot there.
As soon as I get a chance, I will make a visit to the Burton Collection to see if they have the death notices and other relevant information on file for Robert Oakman. |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 2451
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 5:28 pm: | |
Strange. Thanks for the update, Kathleen. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5807
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 7:19 pm: | |
Charles N. Agree, April 18,1897-March 10,1982.
Graduated from Detroit YMCA Technical School.
Opened pratice in 1917.
One of Detroit's most important architects.
3 Projects on Detroit's National Register of Historic Places.
1. Vanity Ballroom, E. Jefferson Ave.
2. Belcrest Apartments, Cass Avenue.
3. Whitier Hotel, E. Jefferson Ave.
Other important projects completed.
Beverly Theater, Grande Ballroom, Royal Theater, Hollywood Theater, Westown Theater, Lincoln Theater, Cliff Bell's Bar, Barclay Apartments.
Many other projects built in Detroit suburbs, and Flint.
jjaba. |
Kathleen
Member
Username: Kathleen
Post Number: 2674
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2007 - 10:32 am: | |
From The Detroit News, Saturday, October 3, 1942:
Robert Oakman Dies After Long Illness: Took Lead in Building of Detroit: Made Fortune in Real Estate
"Robert Oakman, veteran real estate operator and developer, died at his home, 22 Milwaukee avenue west, at 4:30 a. m. today. ... He was 82 years old.
During the last several weeks he went to Belle Isle every day possible in the big family car, usually accompanied by his brother-in-law Edward Moross, and Robert H. Clancy, a friend of many years, to sit and watch the Detroit River, which he deeply loved, drinking in the view first on one side of the James Scott Fountain, then on the other, from the car.
Mr. Oakman's last public appearance was at the eightieth birthday of John C. Lodge, Detroit councilman, Aug. 12, at the Detroit Athletic Club. ... "
The Detroit Free Press, October 4, 1942, reported that "Funeral services will be held at 2 p. m. Tuesday at St. Paul's Cathedral, the body lying in state at the Cathedral from noon until the time of services. Burial will be White Chapel Memorial Park."
Both newspapers ran lengthy stories about Robert Oakman and his legacy as "one of the men most closely identified with the huge growth of Detroit during the days of its greatest real estate expansion." I will post additional info about Robert Oakman and that legacy when time permits.
In 1958 when his widow Mamie Moross Oakman died, according to the death notice, she also was buried in White Chapel Memorial Park following a funeral mass at Shrine of the Little Flower, Royal Oak.
As soon as possible, I will visit White Chapel to confirm. |
Carptrash
Member
Username: Carptrash
Post Number: 1504
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2007 - 12:13 pm: | |
Thanks to both jjaba and Kathleen ("Age before beauty") for their insights into the career of Marcus Burrows. I think the fellow deserves his own thread, but I have work to do before I'm ready for it. K, when you get out to White Chapel be sure and check out - well perhaps White Chapel needs to be it's own thread too? eeek |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 2486
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2007 - 12:57 pm: | |
Great thread! Funny, we got the paper on October 3, 1942, and I don't recall reading that article...... |
Kathleen
Member
Username: Kathleen
Post Number: 2675
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2007 - 4:13 pm: | |
Ray1936: How could you miss the headline? Yes, the news of Mr. Oakman's death was actually above the headline in that Sunday morning's edition.
Carptrash: Check out the HOF thread entitled Architect Marcus Burrowes Appreciation Thread
https://www.atdetroit.net/forum/mes sages/6790/88471.html?11806688 30.
Thanks also for the White Chapel Memorial Park Cemetery thread. I will check out the sculptures and buildings. And I want to know more about the entrance gate designer and artisans. |
Carptrash
Member
Username: Carptrash
Post Number: 1506
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2007 - 5:06 pm: | |
"And I want to know more about the entrance gate designer and artisans."
Me too. I believe that it was designed by Alvin Harley of Harley, Ellington & Day (and still going, but with Stirton and Yee and a whole pack more). As far as the artisans go, well I can tell you who probably did NOT do it, but . . .................. eeeeeeeeeek |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5867
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2007 - 5:48 pm: | |
Kathleen, thanks for the hotlink to the Burrows thread. There is a lot there. Thanks to Patrick and Dream for their great research.
jjaba. |
English
Member
Username: English
Post Number: 639
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2007 - 5:53 pm: | |
Thanks SO much for this thread! I grew up on a street very close to Oakman Boulevard. Even during the 1980s, Oakman was still a quiet street -- I learned how to drive on Oakman, from my home down into Dearborn.
I'm only sorry that I knew it after its glory days. :-( |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5869
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2007 - 6:17 pm: | |
English, what makes it so inglorius now?
jjaba, Proudly Westside. |
Carptrash
Member
Username: Carptrash
Post Number: 1507
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2007 - 6:45 pm: | |
ditto for the Burrowes thread. Saved me . . .... just a lot. eeek |
Bc_n_dtown
Member
Username: Bc_n_dtown
Post Number: 45
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2007 - 7:09 pm: | |
Thanks Kathleen, great researching done on Oakman's date of passing. So the News states he was 82 when he passed in 1942? ...which would place his birth year at around 1860. |
Kathleen
Member
Username: Kathleen
Post Number: 2676
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007 - 3:14 am: | |
Robert Oakman "was born on Howard street, in old Corktown, August 21, 1860, of parents who emigrated from Ireland."
Source: The Detroit News, October 3, 1942 |
Royce
Member
Username: Royce
Post Number: 2472
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007 - 3:33 am: | |
Thanks, Bc, for the info on the streetcar. Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. I forgot that I had posted something here. And let me concur with others that this is a great thread.
(Message edited by royce on December 31, 2007) |
Kathleen
Member
Username: Kathleen
Post Number: 2679
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007 - 3:46 pm: | |
"Robert Oakman is properly catalogued as one of the builders of Detroit, a real estate developer and a capitalist. But it is nearer the essential truth to say he was a "grand man." He was a mighty politician glorying in battle, a lusty fighter in the political business world of Detroit and its environs where he did his real estate developing on the grand scale.
From a radical champion of the labor union and a single tax enthusiast, an owner of broad sweeps of farmland on the outskirts of the city that he developed into home sites; from a $450 a week printer's devil to one of Pingree's swordsmen against "tax-dodging interests" to franchise agent for the Detroit United Railway--so ran the gamut of his life."
Source: Detroit News, October 3, 1942 |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5878
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 01, 2008 - 3:03 am: | |
Excellent report,Kathleen.
jjaba. |
Kathleen
Member
Username: Kathleen
Post Number: 2683
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 01, 2008 - 10:55 am: | |
"Born in colorful Corktown, as Irish as the rest of the residents, but Protestant where more of his playmates were Catholic, [Robert Oakman] early learned the boyhood necessity of self-defense. He had five brothers and four sisters and his father operated a popular grocery store at Eighth and Howard. Bob attended the old Houghton and Tappan public schools. He gained his first business experience by selling copies of the Free Press, and when he was 15 years old, became a printer's devil at $4.50 a week.
When Oakman was born on Aug. 21, 1860, Detroit had a population of 50,000 and was a center of the "Underground Railway" through which Negro refugees secretly were helped across the border into Canada. Its industries were few--but growing.
Detroit was then "Detroit Beautiful," and Woodward was a wide thoroughfare shaded by beautiful trees.
Impressed with the labor union movement, Bob began business for himself by publishing for more than a year a journal devoted to the cause of organized labor and Henry George's "single tax." Selling real estate at a profit was then an unpardonable sin to Robert Oakman."
Source: Detroit Free Press, October 4, 1942 |
Kathleen
Member
Username: Kathleen
Post Number: 2722
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 5:44 am: | |
I made a visit to White Chapel Cemetery in Troy yesterday afternoon and located the final resting place of Robert Oakman and wife Mamie.
Mr. Oakman is interred in the mausoleum building; his crypt is inscribed as follows:
ROBERT OAKMAN
1860 - 1942
He visioned, builded, and bequeathed
to realize his ideal of a great and beautiful metropolis,
for the city of his birth Detroit
Nicely and simply stated! |
Kathleen
Member
Username: Kathleen
Post Number: 2726
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 9:31 am: | |
Here's a couple of photos from the White Chapel Cemetery mausoleum:
|
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 2615
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 12:29 pm: | |
Nice. Thx for the photos. |
Carptrash
Member
Username: Carptrash
Post Number: 1566
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 12:32 pm: | |
"Builded?" eeeeeek |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 6020
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 12:46 pm: | |
Thanks Kathleen. Your research on each subject is so thorough. We really appreciate your legwork in getting to the scenes.
jjaba, waiting on the platform for the Oakman Streetcar. |
Bc_n_dtown
Member
Username: Bc_n_dtown
Post Number: 47
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 05, 2008 - 6:29 am: | |
Kathleen, great research you've done on Robert Oakman. It'll prove quite helpful when I finally get my web-page together on the start-up of the Oakman streetcar line.
Thanks! |
Kathleen
Member
Username: Kathleen
Post Number: 2777
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 6:16 pm: | |
Yesterday was so nice that I had to head over to Oakman Blvd. at Grand River to take photos of the Robert Oakman Building...
Erected in 1929, it stands on the "southeast" corner of the intersection.
And the street sign...
|
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 2744
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 7:36 pm: | |
Wish I had a buck for every time I passed that building. Good photos....thx! |
Clayton
Member
Username: Clayton
Post Number: 19
Registered: 02-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 7:59 pm: | |
Kathleen, good work! |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 827
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 9:50 pm: | |
I wonder what is upstairs in all those covered windows? |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 2746
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 11:26 pm: | |
I would bet that it used to be office space that is now vacant. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 6130
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 12:08 am: | |
Thanks Kathleen. jjaba was on that corner quite often in the 1940s and 1950s. Thanks. Pure Detroit with the complete brickover of windows, up and down.
jjaba, Westsider. |
Reddog289
Member
Username: Reddog289
Post Number: 259
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2008 - 4:12 am: | |
a little late as usual, but hey i was once a printers devil, and i,m part irish. almost got killed off oakman blvd in the 80,s. got no hard feelings |
New threads cannot be started on this page. The threads above are previous posts made to this thread.