 
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 96
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 1:48 pm: |    |
Anyone (older than 50) remember a restaurant by the name if DiMambro's, right beside a small steel mill, on Grand River - west of Schaefer?
My older brother once told me...that someone told him - DiMambro's was a mob hangout.
PS But....ah, youz did not hear dat from me. |
Gazhekwe
Member
Username: Gazhekwe
Post Number: 658
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 1:54 pm: | |
I remember DiMambro's but I don't know if it was a mob hangout. We used to go there in the early 70s. |
Brougham
Member
Username: Brougham
Post Number: 42
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 2:18 pm: | |
I lived just a few blocks away on Strathmoor. I'm 53 so I guess I qualify for this one. I recall a restaurant right on the corner of Grand River and Schaefer (SW corner), small place not fancy. The steel mill was right down the street at Ardmore. A couple blocks down on Grd River there was a restaurant bar called "Snacks", they had great roast beef sandwiches, lot's of neighborhood people went there, mobsters too ? |
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 100
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 2:23 pm: | |
Broughham....yes, I know the place you're talking about (c/o Grand River and Schaefer); mostly made of glass, more or less a burger joint - great fries!
Remember the car dealership across the street, always had a car on a turntable. |
Gazhekwe
Member
Username: Gazhekwe
Post Number: 660
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 2:26 pm: | |
Mistele's was the place on the corner. |
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 101
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 2:41 pm: | |
Gaz...that is awesome!
I'd have given 50-1 odds that no one could remember the name, Mistele's.
Here's one for you and the crowd: please name the tiny restaurant across the street from Crest Lanes, on Grand River near Meyers.
And....
For extra shekels: name the former movie theatre that would become the Holland-Dozier-Holland music studios; it stood near Steel and Grand River - You will go into the Hall of Fame, if you can tell our readers the title of the very last movie to play at that particular theatre. |
Brougham
Member
Username: Brougham
Post Number: 43
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 2:45 pm: | |
Chuckjav, Yes I remember the car lot with the turnstile. We used to walk down south of there on schaefer to a fenced in area to play pickup ball. I think it may have been an edison station or something ? And the big field east side of schaefer and between fullerton and tyler we called CopCo, dont remember what that stood for ? |
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 103
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 3:00 pm: | |
Brougham....Hell-Yes; we played football all the time on that field you mentioned (Schaefer, just north of Fullerton - beside the hardware store); roughly fall of '69 through fall of '73.
We had a ball field right beside our house, a little further east on Fullerton (c/o Ward & Foley). That field on Schaefer was where we played "road games"; good group of kids - never any fist fights during or after the game.
PS I'm pretty sure that Cop-Co was the name of the Steel Mill beside DiMambro's Restaurant.
PPS Brougham, did you go to Cooley? |
Expat
Member
Username: Expat
Post Number: 48
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 3:08 pm: | |
And let's not forget the fabulous Ardmore's Fish and Chips. My Catholic family clocked many a Friday night at that wonderful place. |
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 105
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 3:12 pm: | |
Expat...you just made up my mind about what to have for dinner. Please tell me where Ardmore's was. |
Brougham
Member
Username: Brougham
Post Number: 44
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 3:14 pm: | |
yep, Cooley Cardinal 69-71. Sounds like we traveled common ground back then. Yeah CopCo must have been that steel plant. We used to go down to the fields(as 13/14 yr olds) adjacent to the steel place and that warehouse and railroad tracks on fullerton with our bb guns for some cops and robbbers or cowboys and indians. Dont think anyone lost an eye, no small miracle, as some of those sessions got rowdy with pump action bb guns or co2 pistols. |
Brougham
Member
Username: Brougham
Post Number: 45
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 3:16 pm: | |
yes-yes Ardmore fish and Chips ! a family favorite at our house as well. |
Craig
Member
Username: Craig
Post Number: 371
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 3:17 pm: | |
I remember the greazey-spoon place on the SW corner. There was a bum who lived in a cardboard box in the back. Then there was Chinese carry-out place by the tracks.
Ray '36 - was that #12 or 14 across from the dive? |
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 106
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 3:24 pm: | |
Brougham....that is pretty cool; I would see pheasant and rabbit in the fields you mentioned.
During the summer of '71, I would head over to the railroad yard with friends - try our luck at breaking into freight cars; we were set-straight by a gun-toting railroad detective. No criminality on my part ever since....don't believe I can say the same for my hoodlum friends. |
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 107
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 3:32 pm: | |
OK...now I am really getting esoteric, perhaps a little arcane; does anyone remember a real tiny textbook "greasy spoon" truck stop - straight out of "Grapes of Wrath - on Fullerton, just east of Hubbell? |
Michmeister
Member
Username: Michmeister
Post Number: 252
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 3:54 pm: | |
Wasn`t DiMambros the italian restaurant off of Greenfield near the Jeffries overpass? It seems to me a daughter, Linda, was at Cass Tech around the same time as I was. |
56packman
Member
Username: 56packman
Post Number: 1797
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 4:12 pm: | |
Was this DiMambro's later the chinese place in front of the Copco steel warehouse?, the restaurant was/is right on Grand River. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 5549
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 4:13 pm: | |
jjaba remembering Rina's, his first pizza.
It was on Schaefer around the Library and tiny Police Station, before the Police gobbled up all that land.
jjaba learned to put red hot peppper seeds on the pizza and had heartburn for 3 days.
Being Jewish, pepperoni was not on the household diet. Never had pizza until jjaba went on dates.
jjaba lived on Northlawn and Schoolcraft, growing up and proudly Westside.
jjaba, Westside Bar Mitzvah Bukkor on the Dexter bus. |
Paulmcall
Member
Username: Paulmcall
Post Number: 433
Registered: 05-2004
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 4:42 pm: | |
I went to grade school with Mary Ann the daughter. I really don't think they had anything to do with the mob. Urban legend only.
We always thought they were pretty well off. Owning a business was a big deal.
She still owes me a nickle.
Ardmore Fish and Chips was awesome.
The restaurant was definitely on Grand River! |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 1987
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 4:58 pm: | |
Theatre at Steel and Grand River was the Tower. What the last flick shown might have been is beyond me. Probably around early 70s.
When the 14th precinct station at Schaefer just north of Grand River was deemed an antique, the city bought the old Monaghan K of C hall right behind it (on Leisure) and converted it to a new police station. Then they grabbed up some oddball lots adjacent to it for more parking spaces. |
Sportsfan
Member
Username: Sportsfan
Post Number: 8
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 5:36 pm: | |
Burns Elementary,Cadillac Jr.High,Cooley High.Need i say more?Life as I grew up beginning about 42 years ago.Great times! |
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 109
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 5:44 pm: | |
Thanks again Ray....last picture show (pun intended) at the Tower was "Hang 'em High" - in the spring of '69, they shut the Tower down.
56packman....seems to make sense, owing to Michmeister's recollection of a DiMambro's on Greenfield. The DiMambro's of my youth was directly in front of CopCo..."the steel center".
Jjaba...Shalom, my friend - I too a Jew
PS the little diner near Crest Lanes was called "SkyCar".
PPS Anyone remember name of car dealership at confluence of Fullerton, Meyers, and Grand River?
PPPS Anyone remember name of store on NW corner of Meyers and Grand River? The long time owner of that place shot and killed five would-be robbers, between 1952 and 1976.
Incredible! |
Gazhekwe
Member
Username: Gazhekwe
Post Number: 661
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 5:50 pm: | |
I remember the greasy spooon on Fullerton, was it Murph's? |
Passion
Member
Username: Passion
Post Number: 2
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 5:51 pm: | |
What is a \"Bar Mitzvah Bukkor\"? |
Gazhekwe
Member
Username: Gazhekwe
Post Number: 662
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 5:57 pm: | |
Murph's might have been on W. Chicago. Maybe the Fullerton one was Art's. Some name like that. Yes, DiMambro's turned into a Chinese restaurant, was it Golden Dragon?
I have been trying to remember the name of that steel company forever, what a relief. Does anyone remember Fox Pasties, it used to be on the NE corner of Grand River and Schaefer. The best pasties ever! |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 1992
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 7:43 pm: | |
Dealer at Grand River and Meyers was Frost-Avis Ford. Bought my first car from them off of their used car lot, a powder blue 1951 Ford. Still have the license plate that came with it (back then, plates stayed with the cars when sold and new owner 'inherited' them).
Warren Avis, half-owner of the dealership, had an idea in 1946, and started a new business at Willow Run Airport.....renting cars. The company became Avis Rent-A-Car. Avis sold out in 1954, but the company retains his name today.
But you knew that. Didn't you????
Up the street two blocks was Northwest Chevrolet, and next to that was a billboard in 1947 advertising "Future Home of the new Tucker Dealership". It never came to be. It was between the Chevvy dealer and the Fire Station.
That's the '54 plate that came with my '51 Ford. I don't throw anything away........ |
Durango
Member
Username: Durango
Post Number: 31
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 9:41 pm: | |
Chuckjav,
I am only thirty-nine but I remember my father taking me to the Stu Evans Lincoln Mercury Dealership at the intersection Fullerton/Grand River/Meyers. The building was shaped like a triangle and the the service area was on the Fullerton side of the building. The showroom was full of brand new Mercuries and Lincolns that I played in while my father signed the papers for his new car. It was the summer of 1973 and he purchased a white two-door Mercury Montego with a blue landeau top with opera windows. |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 1995
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 10:23 pm: | |
Absolutely right, Durango, but before Stu Evans took it over it was Skiffington Kaiser-Frazer. Until '53, anyway, when K-F went belly-up.
Those cars of theirs were tanks. |
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 111
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 11:51 pm: | |
Gaz, Ray & Durango....Man - that entire area was hustle & bustle; I mean....Grand River, from 12th Street all the way west to the setting sun!
My first wife is Finnish and I am pretty sure that her mom would stop by the pastie shop on a regular basis (love the rutabagas); I know it was very close by.
I also remember a barber shop and a bakery very close to Ward and Grand River; I am fairly certain that both businesses hit the road during the summer of '69. Of course, across the street was Rollie Barrett Chrysler Plymouth; all the cool ice hockey trophies and pictures in the front window.
Thanks for the memories about the Avis dealership, Stu Evans, and that truck stop/roadhouse on Fullerton.
New Question.....There once was a steel mill near Fullerton and Hubbell - was it J&L Steel?
I really wish that the Jeffries Freeway was never built; it wrecked a lot of really cool stuff...dang-it-all |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 1996
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, September 29, 2007 - 12:07 am: | |
I also remember a barber shop and a bakery very close to Ward and Grand River;
Wasn't that one of the Awrey Bakeries stores? They had super eclairs and cream puffs. Then just down the street from them (towards town) was Upchurch Collision. I used to snitch nice pieces of broken chrome from their storage lot for my bike. |