 
Caldogven
Member
Username: Caldogven
Post Number: 30
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 02, 2007 - 2:49 pm: |    |
Gtat
The name of the book is HI...GOOD-BYE,DETROIT! by Robert E. Beckwell. I lived in the area he writes about and he has it nailed just the way I remember it. |
Billybbrew
Member
Username: Billybbrew
Post Number: 282
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, May 03, 2007 - 12:36 am: | |
I second "The Detroit Almanac" for non-fiction and "Whiskey River" and the rest of the series by Estleman for non-fiction. Don't forget the Father Koesler mysteries by William X. Kienzle for fiction as well. |
Barnesfoto
Member
Username: Barnesfoto
Post Number: 3445
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 03, 2007 - 12:45 am: | |
Land of Opportunity: One Family's Quest for the American Dream in the Age of Crack by William M. Adler |
Irvine_laird
Member
Username: Irvine_laird
Post Number: 34
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, May 03, 2007 - 9:49 am: | |
Thank you for the recommendations and for the links to past threads on this topic. I also put a bookmark on the Marygrove bibliography. It all adds up to a Detroiter's dream reading list. I've been talking to some colleagues and we're going to start a Detroit reading/discussion club this summer. Stay tuned. |
Parkguy
Member
Username: Parkguy
Post Number: 17
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Friday, May 04, 2007 - 6:20 pm: | |
A newish (last year) architecture book is "American City" by Sheroff and Zbaren. Absolutely beautiful. It will make you proud of our buildings. |
Gtat44
Member
Username: Gtat44
Post Number: 131
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, May 10, 2007 - 3:21 pm: | |
Caldogven,
Sorry it took so long to respond Yes that is it! But for the love of God I can't find it on Amazon or any of the other sites even tried Kings downtown. I live in Indiana and there is no way it's any book store down here. It was a great read TO ME. One you would want to read again after finishing. Makes you to have grown up in that era. I'll keep searching thanks again.
Also, might I throw out the front pages of the Detroit Free Press book. Excellent book but you need a magnifying glass to read the articles. |
Kronprinz
Member
Username: Kronprinz
Post Number: 411
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, May 10, 2007 - 4:36 pm: | |
http://www.abebooks.com/servle t/SearchResults?tn=good-bye+de troit&sts=t&y=0&x=0
here you go Gtat |
Caldogven
Member
Username: Caldogven
Post Number: 32
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, May 10, 2007 - 9:02 pm: | |
Gtat....
Your right I have read it two or three times.
It was great growing up in Detroit in the 40's and 50's!. Did you come from that area? |
Lilpup
Member
Username: Lilpup
Post Number: 2113
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 10, 2007 - 11:30 pm: | |
quote:No one liked Devil's Night by Ze'ev Chafets
hated it - very slanted
don't like Johannes Spreen's book either (Who Killed Detroit?) |
Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok
Post Number: 4297
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 10, 2007 - 11:53 pm: | |
A few other books:
"Detroit - The Renaissance City" (1986) - A pictoral book by the esteemed photographer Balthasar Korab. 104 pages.
"Detroit - American Urban Renaissance" (1979) - by Arthur M. Woodford. This historical book shows many old photographs, maps, diagrams and diaramas of Detroit from 1701 to modern times. 240 pages.
"Atlas of Michigan" - (1977) MSU Department of Geography. Statistics, Maps, Charts and more Maps. 242 pages.
(If anyone is interested in these, let me know at istokg@earthlink.net)
(Message edited by Gistok on May 10, 2007) |
Gtat44
Member
Username: Gtat44
Post Number: 134
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Friday, May 11, 2007 - 2:27 pm: | |
Caldogven,
No sorry to say I grew up in the 70's and 80's. Graduated 82'
Don't call me McFly, but, if there were two places I would want to go in a time machine........it would be Detroit in the late 40's early 50's and Detroit during prohibition. My grandfather was a cable guy during that time, pulling cables loaded with cases of whiskey from Canada. I wish he were alive now (lived to be 94) so I could tell you all in detail how it worked. |
Gtat44
Member
Username: Gtat44
Post Number: 135
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Friday, May 11, 2007 - 2:30 pm: | |
Thank you Kronprinz
I am on it |
Kathleen
Member
Username: Kathleen
Post Number: 2333
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 07, 2007 - 10:53 pm: | |
Jeffrey Eugenides' Pulitzer-Prize winning novel Middlesex has been selected as Oprah's latest Book Club book!! This should breath new life into the this book, as all Oprah selections become bestsellers. http://www2.oprah.com/obc_clas sic/featbook/middlesex/obc_fea tbook_middlesex_main.jhtml
And maybe this will generate some action toward a movie version!! |
Lilpup
Member
Username: Lilpup
Post Number: 2296
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, June 07, 2007 - 11:22 pm: | |
Also take a look at Frontier Metropolis: Picturing Early Detroit, 1701-1838 by Brian Dunnigan - it's pricey so check libraries |
Terryh
Member
Username: Terryh
Post Number: 354
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, June 09, 2007 - 4:33 pm: | |
Who Killed Detroit? By former Detroit police commissioner Johaness Spreen. |
Tkangas_23
Member
Username: Tkangas_23
Post Number: 19
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, June 09, 2007 - 10:40 pm: | |
"Devil's Night" by Jaques Chafet
Not exactly positive, but many interesting thoughts and viewpoints, whether you may agree with them or not |
Lizaanne
Member
Username: Lizaanne
Post Number: 53
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, June 10, 2007 - 10:27 pm: | |
I just bought this one for my dad for father's day. It looks really good, but it's shrink wrapped, so I can't peek just yet. But I plan to take a good look at it when he opens it.
Rockin' Down the Dial - The Detroit Sound of Radio, by David Carson
http://www.amazon.com/Rockin-D own-Dial-Detroit-Bellboy/dp/18 79094622/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-8 183937-1192118?ie=UTF8&s=books &qid=1181528152&sr=8-1
(Sorry - don't know how to make pretty links here.)
~Liza |
Jimaz
Member
Username: Jimaz
Post Number: 2271
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, June 10, 2007 - 10:48 pm: | |
Ugly works fine. Nice book. Here's the FAQ if you want to make pretty links: https://www.atdetroit.net/cgi-bin/f oroum/discus.cgi?pg=formatting. (Sorry about the ugly link. ) |
Lukabottle
Member
Username: Lukabottle
Post Number: 62
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, June 10, 2007 - 11:27 pm: | |
Barnesfoto,
Great book! I have already lost two copies off it lending it out to people.
I am butchering the name but:
Detroit, I do Mind Dying.
There was also a book about Detroit figures. I lost that lending it to some one. It had short biographies of influential people including Jimmy Boggs |
Lukabottle
Member
Username: Lukabottle
Post Number: 63
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, June 10, 2007 - 11:43 pm: | |
Them, Joyce Carolyn Oates |
Tponetom
Member
Username: Tponetom
Post Number: 11
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 12:05 pm: | |
Caldogven
Re: "Hi,,,Goodby Detroit" by Robert Beckwell.
Bob was two years behind me In Nativity Grade School. His modest story speaks volumes for that era in Detroit. Every kid alive at that time can easily identify with the action of his book. Bob passed away on June 6, 2007 in St. Clair Shores. |
Vetalalumni
Member
Username: Vetalalumni
Post Number: 466
Registered: 05-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 12:38 pm: | |
The Autobiography of Butch Jones Y.B.I. (Youngs Boys Inc) by Ray Canty. |
Exmotowner
Member
Username: Exmotowner
Post Number: 321
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 1:07 pm: | |
Quozl, I got the FreePress almanac when I was up there as a gift from my old boss in Palmer Park. It has just about everything you want to know about detroit and more. Excellent reference book too! |
Warrenite84
Member
Username: Warrenite84
Post Number: 126
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 3:12 am: | |
I am now reading a book called, "Downtown-Its Rise and Fall, 1880-1950", by Robert M. Fogelson.
Although it doesn't cover Detroit exclusively, it shows how various American cities grew and decayed in this period.
The book covers the business district, subways, height limits, CBD, decentralization, the auto revolution, urban redevelopment, etc.
Quote from pg. 218
"By the mid 1930's the owners of Detroit's Temple Theatre, a nine-story office building that had once been the home of the city's most successful vaudeville house, had had enough. In a city reeling from the Great Depression, the vacancy rate for office buildings was running between 35 and 40 percent. With tenants hard to find-and rents, which had been falling steadily, hard to collect-the Temple Theatre no longer paid. In an attempt to lower property taxes and operating expenses, its owners did what other downtown property owners in Detroit and other cities had done. They demolished the building and turned the site into a parking lot. The demolition of office buildings, even nine-story ones, was nothing new, though never before had so many of them been demolished in so short a time. But hitherto these buildings had been torn down to make room for taller, more up-to-date buildings, which it was assumed, would make more money. Now, in the depths of the worst depression in the nation's history, the owners were facing a unique situation, in which said one real estate appraiser in 1934,'there is no demand for tall buildings representing the theoretical highest and best use of the site.' It was 'only natural,' he added, that they should look for ways to reduce costs and 'cast about for some means of securing the maximum income from a modest improvement until the lot is ripe for maximum development.' Hence the demolition of buildings like the Temple Theatre and their replacement by parking lots or one- and two-story garages, which where commonly referred to as "taxpayers." |
Bits
Member
Username: Bits
Post Number: 11
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 2:22 pm: | |
"Redevelopment and Race; Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit"
June Manning Thomas
1997 John Hopkins press
Best book by far to understand the growth, decline, development and redevelopment in Detroit throughout the 20th century. |
Bits
Member
Username: Bits
Post Number: 12
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 2:24 pm: | |
"Redevelopment and Race; Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit"
June Manning Thomas
1997 John Hopkins press
Best book by far to understand the growth, decline, development and redevelopment in Detroit throughout the 20th century. |
Timmym
Member
Username: Timmym
Post Number: 18
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - 10:52 pm: | |
The origins of the urban crisis - By Thomas J. Sugrue
I can't say this is the best book, but, it's a very good one to understand post industrial Detroit and the reasons why it's in the shape it's in... |
Ferntruth
Member
Username: Ferntruth
Post Number: 154
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Friday, September 14, 2007 - 4:49 pm: | |
""Devil's Night" by Jaques Chafet
Not exactly positive, but many interesting thoughts and viewpoints, whether you may agree with them or not"
Agree completely. The book, while not perfect does make some good points. I thought it was worth the time to read it. |
Clermont
Member
Username: Clermont
Post Number: 2
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Monday, September 24, 2007 - 2:28 pm: | |
city primeval: high noon in detroit
by elmore leonard |
Hauntedbeat
Member
Username: Hauntedbeat
Post Number: 6
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Monday, September 24, 2007 - 2:32 pm: | |
Masquerade by Lowell Cauffiel. Best true crime book I've ever read. Gripping, utterly. |
Gnome
Member
Username: Gnome
Post Number: 94
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Monday, September 24, 2007 - 2:55 pm: | |
HI...GOOD-BYE,DETROIT! by Robert E. Beckwell is a great book that should be on everyone's reading list.
Yes, it was sad when Bob passed in June. He was buried in his tam with a beer and a pack on smokes in his vest pocket.
At least 300 folks jammed the Peters funeral home in GP. His wife Donna is a sweetie is a thousand ways. She's the editor for the Detroit PD newsletter.
Mr. Bob will be missed at the Amvets in St. Clair Shores, and to all his friends. |
Vanessam
Member
Username: Vanessam
Post Number: 2
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Monday, September 24, 2007 - 3:05 pm: | |
stalking detroit is an awesome book, as well as the detroit almanac..
and for more up to date information check out the essays from the shrinking cities exhibitions. |
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