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Mikem
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Username: Mikem

Post Number: 2711
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 68.43.15.105
Posted on Monday, August 14, 2006 - 12:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Anyone heard of them? I found this (race?) track on a ~1921 map, just northwest of the Gratiot - 7 Mile intersection. Is there a subdivision in the area called "Dexter Park"?

Dexter Park

Gratiot is the diagonal road starting from the lower left. The yellow shading defines the city limits at that time.

(Message edited by MikeM on August 14, 2006)
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Bvos
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Username: Bvos

Post Number: 1815
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 134.215.223.211
Posted on Monday, August 14, 2006 - 1:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I seem to remember reading about Henry Ford racing cars in the pre-Ford and very early Ford days out on the eastside in what was then considered part of Grosse Pointe. I don't know what was considered part of Grosse Pointe back then, but apparently race car tracks were rather common on the eastside.
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Danny
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Username: Danny

Post Number: 4813
Registered: 02-2004
Posted From: 141.217.174.229
Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 12:59 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Bvos, that are nothern area of 7 Mile and Gratiot was part of Gratiot TWP. Until Detroit bits and pieces of it from Harper Rd. to Kelly Rd. from E. 8 Mile Rd. to the R.R. track that used to bordered Hamtramck TWP.

Dexter Park Ford Proving Grounds was sold to Detroit neighborhood development authorties to build new homes, and a sizeable shopping district with a Montgomery Wards, Federals, Cunningham's Drugs and Woolworths. The area was once a fast growing Little Italy until the Italians started to move to the suburban cities of East Detroit ( Now Eastpointe), St, Clair Shores, Roseville, parts of Warren, Sterling Hieghts, Clinton TWP. Harrison TWP. Macomb TWP, Fraser, Utica, Shelby TWP. and parts the snobbyvilles ( Grosse Pointe Park, Grosse Pointe , Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe Woods, Grosse Pointe Shores.) and Harper Woods. Black folks quickly move into the 7 Mile and Gratiot area since the 1970s including the Hmongs, but the blacks quickly filled up the area in 1990s the ghettotized it and alond came the crackheads, drug dealers and blockbusting from slumlords tore up a few pieces of the ghettohoods but other homes north of E. State Fair Rd. are a excellent shape.

Today 65% of the once super retail buildings are gone. Including the once Fretter Appliance store. The Wards' building along with other retail strips are torn down to build a corner Walgreens, McDonalds, New Retail strips and proposed Kroger's Supermarket. 3 years later Kroger's screw Detroit again by selling its building a Arab owner and it called Mike's Supermarket. next to supermarket an old Federal's Dept Store Building was torn down to build more future retail stips. Other older retail strips along Gratiot are being remodeled for future use. There was Movie theather on the corner of E. 7 Mile and Chalmers now a big black baptist church called Little Rock Baptist Church.

Where ever you all get a chance there was a golf corse on E. 8 Mile Rd. between Unversal St. and Kelly called Ridgemont Golf Corse. It was town down in the 1950s to builda cookie cutter prost WWII brick ranch homes. The Eastpointe neighborhood is very diverse with a little bit of Hmongs. However there is a fast growing of blacks from Detroit that are quickly moving over there.

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