Mack Avenue History

[p69rrh51]

There was a RKO Uptown on Woodward at Six Mile. It became the Six Mile Uptown. They must have been sisters?

Turns out that image is the Uptown Six Mile in the pic Cinema Treasures posted the wrong pic. Although the theatre does have a twin the Oriental Theatre that was located downtown.

[Farrer]

Haven't been here in a while, but always find interesting threads when I check in, like this one.

I see in MikeM's scans that at 14100 Mack @ Eastlawn was the Ferenc Varga Sculpturing studio. The Vargas were/are of Hungarian heritage and competed with Corrado Parducci for architectural and religious sculpture commissions in Detroit. Ferenc [[sr.) and his family retired to Delray Beach, FL where his Florentine trained son Ferenc [[Frank) still lives and does commissions and runs an excellent sculpturing studio/school.

[oladub]

From Kathleen' list:
"I saw a couple familiar business names....

Mama Rosa Pizzeria. They are now located a few blocks east of Alter Rd.
Wimpy's Grill. Now on East Warren east of Outer Drive.
Maloof's. Been out on Harper between 11 and 12 Mile Rds. for years!

Here's the one that brings the memories....White Bear Ice Cream!!!!! We used to buy their popsicles at our local mom & pop candy stores."

p69rrh51 added:
"Kiska's is on the Hill in Grosse Pointe Farms [[since closed)
Carl's Boat & Motor are on Harper in St. Clair Shores.

I'll add: Omer Delue Meats at Springle may have become Adolph DeLue Meats at Warren & 3 Mile Drive; later Jimmy VanHull's Meats.

I don't remember Hanson Chevrolet but my folks won a TV in a drawing there in the early 50's when they were a new product.

[MikeM]

Haven't been here in a while, but always find interesting threads when I check in, like this one.

I see in MikeM's scans that at 14100 Mack @ Eastlawn was the Ferenc Varga Sculpturing studio. The Vargas were/are of Hungarian heritage and competed with Corrado Parducci for architectural and religious sculpture commissions in Detroit. Ferenc [[sr.) and his family retired to Delray Beach, FL where his Florentine trained son Ferenc [[Frank) still lives and does commissions and runs an excellent sculpturing studio/school.

Thanks for that background - I wondered what that was. Seems like an odd location for a studio.

[Crystal]

Tim Kiska has written a fine piece about the history of his home and neighborhood on Mack Avenue.

One block, two businesses, three families: A Detroit story

http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/one-block-two-businesses-three-families-a-detroit-story/Content?oid=2388775

Thinking about the Senave family whose history is part of the story, it’s interesting to find so many Belgian immigrants listed in the Senaves’ enumeration district in the 1930 and 1940 censuses.

1930 Census
ED 82-797
Sheet 52A - image 97 of 114

1940 Census
ED 84-1403
Sheet 4A - image 7 of 27

[Detroitdave]

MikeG provided this link and the photo is attached below:
http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/imag...-28903%5D28903

The Cunninghams Drug store was on the northwest corner of Mack and Chalmers - looking west down Mack Ave. I should know I walked past that corner for 3 years while attending Jackson Junior High 1959 - 1962.

It used to be a very vibrant area and now the area is descibed as an "urban prairie." That corner is now a vacant lot.

And it did not have to be this way.

Attachment 15116Attachment 15117

That's shocking,sad, and depressing. No wonder so many people from "back in the day" are so down on Detroit.
When I saw those pictures side by side I got a sinking feeling in my gut.
Their childhood memories have been literally wiped away. I can see why it tugs at their heart strings. such a beautiful area resorted to that ! truly sad.
And that was just one neighborhood of MANY !
A once beautiful city reduced to shambles, trying to regain her footing.
So much was lost, but some glimmers of her past beauty remains.
Hoping for the best .

[bust]

Since lured to work among the first assembly lines my family migrated up the streetcar lines, landing near their end on Mack. They stayed for more than 60 years.

The Mack Avenue streetcar provided the primary transportation for the first generation. They must have frequented the shops that lined the tracks. It's great to see the photos and other records.

The next generation was young when the streetcar was shut down. Cars became their mode. They must have more easily traveled further afield.

It's difficult to imagine a thriving business district along Mack today.

How much did removing the streetcar contribute to its demise?

[Hermod]

Since lured to work among the first assembly lines my family migrated up the streetcar lines, landing near their end on Mack. They stayed for more than 60 years.

The Mack Avenue streetcar provided the primary transportation for the first generation. They must have frequented the shops that lined the tracks. It's great to see the photos and other records.

The next generation was young when the streetcar was shut down. Cars became their mode. They must have more easily traveled further afield.

It's difficult to imagine a thriving business district along Mack today.

How much did removing the streetcar contribute to its demise?

Not much. The Mack streetcar was gone by the 1950s and the street was still vibrant.

If you go from 1.8 million people down to 750 thousand, you need fewer stores, fewer houses, and you will have fewer streetcar and bus riders.

When i went to Jackson 51-53, all of the blocks around the school were filled with houses or two story flats. You look at Google Streetview now and see many blocks with just a couple of houses. Why open a store to serve an urban prairie?

[fareastsider]

What is the story or relation of the naming of Greater Mack or even Little Mack? It's interesting to note that Greater Mack may have been planned to run much further. I've seen very old maps that show what is now Union Lake Road in Harrison Twp connecting via a Greater Mack route [[roughly) through the Shores area. Even more interesting I've seen maps that showed that Union Lake may have crossed the Clinton River and continuEd north along Sugarbush Road. Today the former portion of Sugarbush is now Irwin Drive in Harrison Twp. Portions of Sugarbush exist piecemeal south of 21 Mile, even a portion is on Selfridge. In any event if one follows this Greater Mack, Union Lake, Irwin, Sugarbush, Callens route it may have been an unrealized thoroughfare? It's interesting to image Mack running all the way to 23 or even 26 Mile via Baker Rd! It's an odd jagged route constantly shifting with the Private Claims. If I have time I'll put together some older maps showing this route, whether it actually existed is not likely.

[bust]

Not much. The Mack streetcar was gone by the 1950s and the street was still vibrant.

If you go from 1.8 million people down to 750 thousand, you need fewer stores, fewer houses, and you will have fewer streetcar and bus riders.

When i went to Jackson 51-53, all of the blocks around the school were filled with houses or two story flats. You look at Google Streetview now and see many blocks with just a couple of houses. Why open a store to serve an urban prairie?

I totally agree a business district is hard to imagine now. I'm wondering how much removing the streetcar led to today's situation.

Using my own family as an example, streetcars were so important they always bought homes with a streetcar in close proximity. Today, in New York, I'm sure to live close to convenient subway stations in much the same way.

My family contributed to the vitality of Mack Avenue, but when the streetcar was shut down it pushed them to cars, which affected where they did business, so they contributed less to Mack Avenue after streetcars went away. Multiply that by all the other people who must have been similarly affected, and it makes sense removing streetcars was bad for business on Mack Avenue.

It's impossible to say how the city would have evolved differently had the streetcars remained. But I suspect we'd have more vitality in places like Mack Avenue. Considering how business districts grew up along the streetcar lines, I'm not surprised once the lines were removed business gradually faded away.

Detroit was at its peak population when streetcar service was eliminated. I don't think it had anything to do with lack of ridership. I think there was a different vision for the city.

[SyGolden48236]

One must also remember that there was considerable destruction in that area during the 1967 Detroit riot.

[bust]

One must also remember that there was considerable destruction in that area during the 1967 Detroit riot.

I'll add to that it was also the stomping grounds of all kinds of predatory drug dealers later. Maybe already back then? [[If someone knows, I'm curious when drugs became a problem in the neighborhood.)

There were a lot of factors, clearly.

I wonder how much keeping the streetcars would have helped.

I'm also interested in any other theories.

[Hamtragedy]

My family lived on Lakewood five houses north of Mack 69-71. I was 2-4 years old, but remember the Kresges, Laundramat, Bank of the Commonwealth on Eastlawn, giant cow. I remember when the McDonalds was built on Conner, also gone. We moved over to Bewick and Jefferson before settling in Grandmont on the west-side. Frequent trips back to Lakewood, even over my childhood, [[my father was a minister at a Lutheran church at Lakeview and Vernor, and we still had many friends over there), saw the neighborhood decline at such an extreme rate [[or so I thought), that by the time I was in high-school, that neighborhood had been nearly wiped out, and this was in 85, with the exception of our block, which today still seems to be the case.

Turns out, the neighborhood at Bewick and Jeff. was even farther gone when we lived there 71-73, [[I got grounded for playing in abandoned houses), but it was nearly gone by the early 90s.

I think a huge point that has been missed on these posts here is that the entire neighborhood east of St. Jean and Charlevoix was demolished [[eminent domain) for the Jefferson North Chrysler Plant, which choked off the ENTIRE AREA by blocking three main thoroughfares in Kercheval, Vernor Highway, and Charlevoix, which helped precipitate the wildly rapid decline, even by Detroit standards, of an entire section of town.

[bust]

Yes, Hamtragedy, more key pieces to the puzzle.

I offer another.

There was a massive initiative to redevelop the area that was abandoned, but not before it killed off any alternatives:

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...of_propos.html

That was a big deal. Could have been great. But since it never proceeded past the property acquisition phase, it was nothing but terrible.

[bust]

Meanwhile I totally agree the way that chrysler plant interrupts traffic flow is stupid. Government should have required a design that does not choke traffic. It would have been a modest extra expense way overcompensated by the great benefit to the community -- both local and extended.

[mikefmich]

One must also remember that there was considerable destruction in that area during the 1967 Detroit riot.

There was? Along Mack Ave on the far east side? Roughly the Pointes up 7 Mi to Gratiot, over to Conners and back towards the river was my stomping grounds from '66 thru '68, I'm not pulling considerable destruction during the riot from my memory banks in that area. Frankly, I'm not pulling any destruction.

[EastsideAl]

One must also remember that there was considerable destruction in that area during the 1967 Detroit riot.

No, there was practically none.

[hdbuys]

That store was called Riley's Dry Goods

[Maof]

got are school uniforms from riley's

[Packman41]

It seems we are not the only ones that have witnessed the decline of Mack Avenue:

For English cop, Detroit’s streets are a culture shock
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/new...eets/78913254/

“In my country, every murder would be national news, and it amazes me that in Detroit, there are murders that don’t get covered at all by the press,” he said. In addition to the violence, Matthews said he was struck by what he called the city’s “extreme Third World poverty.”

“One of the things that interests me is Mack Avenue [[near the Grosse Pointe Park border). On one side it’s pet boutiques and Disneyland; on the other side is Detroit — a marked difference. Burned-out houses, empty lots and such. Of all the places I’ve been in America, Detroit visually looks most interesting, and not in a good way.”

That same border divide that he mentions is clearly shown on the image I attached on my earlier post [[#27) on page two of this thread. That “marked difference” – the border line at Alter Road was also the subject of a front page column in the Wall Street Journal about 25 years ago.

And IMHO the reason was crime followed by poor schools. There wasn’t any destruction in this area during the 1967 riots and as someone else mentioned the street cars were already gone from this area by the early 1950s, yet the area was still vibrant through the middle 1960s.

[Jimaz]

... That same border divide that he mentions is clearly shown on the image I attached on my earlier post [[#27) on page two of this thread. That “marked difference” – the border line at Alter Road was also the subject of a front page column in the Wall Street Journal about 25 years ago....

This calls for Google Street View.

[swingline]

There was? Along Mack Ave on the far east side? Roughly the Pointes up 7 Mi to Gratiot, over to Conners and back towards the river was my stomping grounds from '66 thru '68, I'm not pulling considerable destruction during the riot from my memory banks in that area. Frankly, I'm not pulling any destruction.

The rioting that occurred on Mack Ave. took place in pockets between E. Grand Blvd and St. Jean. Many observers credited the professionalism of the U.S. Army troops deployed to the area [[as opposed to the cowboy antics of the National Guard deployed elsewhere) for quelling neighborhood tensions and avoiding the catastrophic damage like that inflicted on the Twelfth Street and Grand River neighborhoods. Of course, in the subsequent quarter century, white flight, crime and crack cocaine finished what the riots started.

[G-DDT]

^^^^What do you mean by "cowboy antics" by the National Guard, Swingline? That would almost imply that they are the type of guys who would mow down a bunch of students protesting in a nearby state.-and we all know that type of action would make us look just as bad as [[in small scale in comparison to) those countries that open fire on their own people [[ie. Tiananmen Square). Right?-but I think you catch my drift.

Thanks for the Google street view, Jimaz.

Yes, there are clear definitions of segregative neighborhood contrast in that area, as there has always has been [[also present in other cities, elsewhere). Yet, I have to chuckle to myself by what some may consider "a ghetto". There are far worse areas of the East side, and the West [[where I grew up) is rapidly getting more dangerous. In my travels, I would go to portions of cities that folks called "the bad part of town", and scratch my head, for they looked a tad better than many places I saw in Detroit [[with operating streetlights and frequently available trash cans that get emptied regularly, etc.). The fact that it has some operating stores in that area [[like Rite Aid) amounts to something.

Than again, I have my own tiered value system for places I would live, places I would work in and not live, places I would visit but not work in, etc...

[Jungaleer]

The Uptown Movie Theater and Polar Bear Ice Cream were near Chalmers on Mack. My mom and I would walk there from our home on Wayburn to see the movies. We also went to the Aloma on Charlevoix.

[Hermod]

The Uptown Movie Theater and Polar Bear Ice Cream were near Chalmers on Mack. My mom and I would walk there from our home on Wayburn to see the movies. We also went to the Aloma on Charlevoix.

There was also a Polar Bear ice Cream on the corner of Wayburn and Whittier.