DRIVING DETROIT PART 5 OF 5
Whether areas are flashy or rundown, residents are committed to staying put
December 20, 2007
BY BILL MCGRAW
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Since he took office, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has called Detroit "God's city" and "a mosaic of dynamism." He once predicted Detroit would be "a major force in this new millennium."
In driving down all the streets in Detroit this spring, summer and fall, I failed to find the city the mayor was talking about. But I did find the neighborhood around Lenox and Averhill in the Jefferson-Chalmers area on the lower east side.
No one would mistake this neighborhood for a major force in the new millennium, but it seemed like a Detroit in miniature: Partly broken, partly palatial, partly imposing and partly being reborn.
And, like many neighborhoods in the city, it seems filled with people who revel in all of its funkiness and promise.
"I never want to live anywhere else," said Derrick Paden, 47, who moved to the Jeff-Chalmers area when he was 10 and lives on Eastlawn.
This neighborhood is a bit off the beaten track. It borders Grosse Pointe Park, south of East Jefferson, and the Detroit River. Residents live closer to Canada than to City Hall.
On one corner of Lenox and Averhill is St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church, which sits empty, its masonry cracking and windows breaking. "Jesus Christ is alive and well and living in Jefferson-Chalmers," proclaims a sign hanging behind the church's locked doors.
On another corner, across from St. Martin's boarded-up rectory, is Grayhaven Marina Village, a gated community that consists of middle-income townhouses, apartments and a harbor. The old Fisher Mansion is next door.
Before and after World War II, when Catholics dominated Detroit and jobs were plentiful, St. Martin anchored a thriving community of working-class and middle-class families. Former residents speak of their old neighborhood with a passion you rarely hear from people who grew up in the suburbs.
Anne White-O'Hara, a history professor at Marygrove College, lived on Marlborough -- which is partly paved with red bricks -- as a young girl. She recalled the foghorns of passing freighters lulling her to sleep. She called the neighborhood of her youth a "magical kingdom."
The neighborhood went from mostly white to mostly black in the 1970s and '80s. It also was hit hard by the heroin and crack cocaine epidemics, as well as unemployment, crime and the scandal surrounding the buying and selling of low-income Housing and Urban Development houses.
But former and current residents say the area has made positive strides in the past several years.
A lot of new housing at various prices has been built nearby. Most developments have received significant government subsidies, and some residents benefit from tax breaks, too.
Blight and luxury
In the neighborhood near the river, Lenox serves as a dividing line.
To the east, along Marlborough, Eastlawn, Newport, Drexel, Piper, Philip, Manistique, Lakewood and Ashland, you notice the well-tended colonials, bungalows and flats. You also notice every street has houses with a sagging front porch, or broken gutters, or a collapsing garage. Each street also has vacant homes, plus homes that have imploded from abandonment, fire, or both. There were large piles of garbage this fall at Avondale and Newport, Korte and Eastlawn, and in the 500 block of Marlborough.
In the city playground across from St. Martin, future pro Ralph Simpson shot hoops and future major-leaguer Jim Essian learned to hit a curve. This fall, the fence was broken, the grass was long and the kiddie swings had no seats.
Despite the scruffiness, there are numerous havens, such as Riverside Drive, a short street that dead-ends into a park along the river. It is covered in shade from silver and red maples and lined with a variety of well-kept homes.
Bennie Kemp, 68, who moved to Jeff-Chalmers in 1975, stood in front of her immaculate home on Riverside and said: "I have no complaints. I wouldn't go anywhere else."
Her friend, Annie Mason, 75, a 30-year resident who lives down the street, agreed. "I love it here," she said.
Turn the corner, though, and you enter a different world: A frayed garage on Scripps has a weed-like tree growing from its roof, and there was a disabled pickup in the driveway across the street. An abandoned house sits next door, on Lenox.
To the west, less than 100 feet away, just beyond the fence and the berm along Lenox, is another world: Workers are preparing Lenox Waterfront Estates, a gated subdivision of 7,500-square-foot homes that will start at $1.3 million. The developer is Jerome Morgan, whose other luxury neighborhood, Morgan Waterfront Estates, is several blocks to the west.
This is the real Detroit of the new millennium: Luxury homes built within sight of a tree growing on a roof. Proud homeowners on exquisite blocks. And proud homeowners on broken-down blocks, working to keep their neighborhood strong despite unlit streetlights, uncollected trash and calls for help to a revenue-starved city that often go unheeded.
True turnaround?
Driving the uneven streets east of Lenox, you wonder when the trickledown will arrive from the casinos and stadiums. You wonder why Roger Penske's privately financed cleaning crews couldn't take time off from the basically spotless streets downtown to tidy up the 500 block of Marlborough. You wonder if the $1-million downtown condos and new housing that has sprung up in many city neighborhoods is a harbinger of a real turnaround, or more of what has been happening in Detroit for half a century -- flashy development amid subtle decay.
Since the early 1950s, parts of the city have flourished while Detroit itself has been shrinking incessantly. Between 1950 and 1970, for example, Detroit tore down slums and built much of the freeway system, Medical Center, Cultural Center, Civic Center, Wayne State University campus, Lafayette Park and Cobo Hall. Yet the population dropped by more than 338,000, hundreds of factories shut down or moved and a devastating riot broke out.
New attraction
The global economic forces that are battering Detroit seem far away from the quiet corner of the city where the Detroit River funnels into the brackish canals that have become the home of high-end cabin cruisers.
Across a canal from Lenox Waterfront Estates is Shore Pointe Village. It's a several-year-old development that continues to grow. Homes start at nearly $600,000. It's a joint venture of the Blake Co. of Grosse Pointe Farms and Pulte Homes Inc. of Bloomfield Hills and is reached by driving through two gates, or by boat.
Set on and around the former site of the famous Gar Wood mansion, it has 38 homes to date. The homes have hardwood floors, stainless steel double ovens, two furnaces, two fireplaces, thick granite countertops and an elegant, airy feel. Each home has a boat slip on the canal; some sit right on the river, across from Peche Island and the tip of Belle Isle.
One resident of the new neighborhood is Michael Dinwiddie, a Detroit native, playwright and associate professor of dramatic writing at New York University. He said he bought the home at Shore Pointe Village because he loves cities -- and Detroit.
"I've lived in Los Angeles, and I teach in Buenos Aires and New York. But Detroit is so special because of its spirit and its people," Dinwiddie said. "Living on the Detroit River is magical."
Dinwiddie's scenic street -- Keelson Drive -- is a long way from the downtown dream zone. The emergence of Shore Pointe Village, as well as those other upscale havens nearby, is evidence the city is spawning neighborhoods for people who once might have looked elsewhere.
Detroit needs a lot. Jeff-Chalmers needs a lot. It helps to have residents like Prof. Dinwiddie.
"I plan to retire there," he said. "And now that I have a dock, I have to learn to sail."
And it helps to have residents like Walt Williams, 50, a factory worker who moved to a modest bungalow on the corner of Lenox and Averhill when he was 16 and still calls Jeff-Chalmers home.
"This was a great neighborhood to grow up in," he said. "And we still love this neighborhood. We're not going to let it go down."
Whether areas are flashy or rundown, residents are committed to staying put
December 20, 2007
BY BILL MCGRAW
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Since he took office, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has called Detroit "God's city" and "a mosaic of dynamism." He once predicted Detroit would be "a major force in this new millennium."
In driving down all the streets in Detroit this spring, summer and fall, I failed to find the city the mayor was talking about. But I did find the neighborhood around Lenox and Averhill in the Jefferson-Chalmers area on the lower east side.
No one would mistake this neighborhood for a major force in the new millennium, but it seemed like a Detroit in miniature: Partly broken, partly palatial, partly imposing and partly being reborn.
And, like many neighborhoods in the city, it seems filled with people who revel in all of its funkiness and promise.
"I never want to live anywhere else," said Derrick Paden, 47, who moved to the Jeff-Chalmers area when he was 10 and lives on Eastlawn.
This neighborhood is a bit off the beaten track. It borders Grosse Pointe Park, south of East Jefferson, and the Detroit River. Residents live closer to Canada than to City Hall.
On one corner of Lenox and Averhill is St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church, which sits empty, its masonry cracking and windows breaking. "Jesus Christ is alive and well and living in Jefferson-Chalmers," proclaims a sign hanging behind the church's locked doors.
On another corner, across from St. Martin's boarded-up rectory, is Grayhaven Marina Village, a gated community that consists of middle-income townhouses, apartments and a harbor. The old Fisher Mansion is next door.
Before and after World War II, when Catholics dominated Detroit and jobs were plentiful, St. Martin anchored a thriving community of working-class and middle-class families. Former residents speak of their old neighborhood with a passion you rarely hear from people who grew up in the suburbs.
Anne White-O'Hara, a history professor at Marygrove College, lived on Marlborough -- which is partly paved with red bricks -- as a young girl. She recalled the foghorns of passing freighters lulling her to sleep. She called the neighborhood of her youth a "magical kingdom."
The neighborhood went from mostly white to mostly black in the 1970s and '80s. It also was hit hard by the heroin and crack cocaine epidemics, as well as unemployment, crime and the scandal surrounding the buying and selling of low-income Housing and Urban Development houses.
But former and current residents say the area has made positive strides in the past several years.
A lot of new housing at various prices has been built nearby. Most developments have received significant government subsidies, and some residents benefit from tax breaks, too.
Blight and luxury
In the neighborhood near the river, Lenox serves as a dividing line.
To the east, along Marlborough, Eastlawn, Newport, Drexel, Piper, Philip, Manistique, Lakewood and Ashland, you notice the well-tended colonials, bungalows and flats. You also notice every street has houses with a sagging front porch, or broken gutters, or a collapsing garage. Each street also has vacant homes, plus homes that have imploded from abandonment, fire, or both. There were large piles of garbage this fall at Avondale and Newport, Korte and Eastlawn, and in the 500 block of Marlborough.
In the city playground across from St. Martin, future pro Ralph Simpson shot hoops and future major-leaguer Jim Essian learned to hit a curve. This fall, the fence was broken, the grass was long and the kiddie swings had no seats.
Despite the scruffiness, there are numerous havens, such as Riverside Drive, a short street that dead-ends into a park along the river. It is covered in shade from silver and red maples and lined with a variety of well-kept homes.
Bennie Kemp, 68, who moved to Jeff-Chalmers in 1975, stood in front of her immaculate home on Riverside and said: "I have no complaints. I wouldn't go anywhere else."
Her friend, Annie Mason, 75, a 30-year resident who lives down the street, agreed. "I love it here," she said.
Turn the corner, though, and you enter a different world: A frayed garage on Scripps has a weed-like tree growing from its roof, and there was a disabled pickup in the driveway across the street. An abandoned house sits next door, on Lenox.
To the west, less than 100 feet away, just beyond the fence and the berm along Lenox, is another world: Workers are preparing Lenox Waterfront Estates, a gated subdivision of 7,500-square-foot homes that will start at $1.3 million. The developer is Jerome Morgan, whose other luxury neighborhood, Morgan Waterfront Estates, is several blocks to the west.
This is the real Detroit of the new millennium: Luxury homes built within sight of a tree growing on a roof. Proud homeowners on exquisite blocks. And proud homeowners on broken-down blocks, working to keep their neighborhood strong despite unlit streetlights, uncollected trash and calls for help to a revenue-starved city that often go unheeded.
True turnaround?
Driving the uneven streets east of Lenox, you wonder when the trickledown will arrive from the casinos and stadiums. You wonder why Roger Penske's privately financed cleaning crews couldn't take time off from the basically spotless streets downtown to tidy up the 500 block of Marlborough. You wonder if the $1-million downtown condos and new housing that has sprung up in many city neighborhoods is a harbinger of a real turnaround, or more of what has been happening in Detroit for half a century -- flashy development amid subtle decay.
Since the early 1950s, parts of the city have flourished while Detroit itself has been shrinking incessantly. Between 1950 and 1970, for example, Detroit tore down slums and built much of the freeway system, Medical Center, Cultural Center, Civic Center, Wayne State University campus, Lafayette Park and Cobo Hall. Yet the population dropped by more than 338,000, hundreds of factories shut down or moved and a devastating riot broke out.
New attraction
The global economic forces that are battering Detroit seem far away from the quiet corner of the city where the Detroit River funnels into the brackish canals that have become the home of high-end cabin cruisers.
Across a canal from Lenox Waterfront Estates is Shore Pointe Village. It's a several-year-old development that continues to grow. Homes start at nearly $600,000. It's a joint venture of the Blake Co. of Grosse Pointe Farms and Pulte Homes Inc. of Bloomfield Hills and is reached by driving through two gates, or by boat.
Set on and around the former site of the famous Gar Wood mansion, it has 38 homes to date. The homes have hardwood floors, stainless steel double ovens, two furnaces, two fireplaces, thick granite countertops and an elegant, airy feel. Each home has a boat slip on the canal; some sit right on the river, across from Peche Island and the tip of Belle Isle.
One resident of the new neighborhood is Michael Dinwiddie, a Detroit native, playwright and associate professor of dramatic writing at New York University. He said he bought the home at Shore Pointe Village because he loves cities -- and Detroit.
"I've lived in Los Angeles, and I teach in Buenos Aires and New York. But Detroit is so special because of its spirit and its people," Dinwiddie said. "Living on the Detroit River is magical."
Dinwiddie's scenic street -- Keelson Drive -- is a long way from the downtown dream zone. The emergence of Shore Pointe Village, as well as those other upscale havens nearby, is evidence the city is spawning neighborhoods for people who once might have looked elsewhere.
Detroit needs a lot. Jeff-Chalmers needs a lot. It helps to have residents like Prof. Dinwiddie.
"I plan to retire there," he said. "And now that I have a dock, I have to learn to sail."
And it helps to have residents like Walt Williams, 50, a factory worker who moved to a modest bungalow on the corner of Lenox and Averhill when he was 16 and still calls Jeff-Chalmers home.
"This was a great neighborhood to grow up in," he said. "And we still love this neighborhood. We're not going to let it go down."
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