Love this house on Grixdale

[detroitsgwenivere]

Are there any historians here who know after whom Grixdale was named? In a past life I knew some people named Grix, but they lived on Greendale - go figure.

Looks like you knew some relatives. Frank Grix, born in Germany back in 1868, used to be a produce merchant:

Per wiki: A little-known gem of a neighborhood with uniquely designed houses in an enclave of historic homes. Some of its stately homes sit on double-sized tree-lined lots built in the 1920s and 1930s. Once farmland owned by the Grix family in then Greenfield Township. Platted in 1913 by Frank Grix as the Grixdale Home Park Subdivision. The stretch of Woodward Ave. [[between 6 Mile and 7 Mile Roads) along Grixdale Farms is recognized as the first full mile of concrete paved road in the United States.^[8]


I've been inside this house before, super nice guy. Was there for an appointment and he kept me there talking for hours.


I used to post about this neighborhood a lot some years ago, the whole area had started to nosedive back in the 90's due to wide scale plumbing damage and grave illnesses to residents that slowly spread out block by block from the Greendale neighborhood across John R. This was caused by industrial waste pollution imported from GM in Canada being dumped by the 10s of thousands of gallons into the sewer system every day at the corner of Greendale and Brush by a company called Canflow:

Waste knot | Local News | Detroit | Detroit Metro Times

No can flow | Columns | Detroit | Detroit Metro Times

Despite the issues above, Grixdale was still pretty solidly populated back in about 2005, a few blocks of well maintained homes surrounded by mostly low income renters and some dilapidated vacants. The majority of the houses that are gone now were victims of the 07' housing crash. There were a hand full of landlords who owned most of the rentals, they pulled the equity out during the Countrywide era to buy more properties, then walked away from them after going underwater. All of the renters were forced out by the banks who had assumed the notes, and who had taken insurance out on the properties before letting them sit wide open for all of the left behind people to pick apart.

There are currently no plans in place for the area, the adjacent blocks are still waiting for hazardous clean up.