Gratiot Conner Area Memories

[7andkelly]

Gratiot/Conner - Rio's Bar was near there. Not my favorite haunt, but full of characters.

[Johnnie Sue Bridges]

Morgan Bar, 10047 Van Dyke

MikeM, are you sure this is where the Morgan Bar was? I can't begin to tell you how much it drove me crazy trying to place in my mind where this apartment over the bar could have been. I have even driven down the road all around that area with google searching. Just a little gnawing nat with me. LOL Thank you!

[MikeM]

That was the address I found in a couple of phone books from the 1960s. It was on Van Dyke near the Chrysler plant on Lynch Rd, so it seemed to match your description.

[Johnnie Sue Bridges]

That was the address I found in a couple of phone books from the 1960s. It was on Van Dyke near the Chrysler plant on Lynch Rd, so it seemed to match your description.

MikeM, thanks for taking the time to look for Morgan's Bar.

[4Detroit]

When I was a teenager my friends and I used to go to Connor Park to play baseball. We used to go to Harry's Drug Store on the corner of Montclair and Harper for a Coke. Good old days.

[4Detroit]

I think the Drugstore at Gratiot and Harper was Reid's, and last time I was by there, it was still there.

[FerndaleDamon]

The Gordon C. Crabb funeral home was on the SW corner of Outer Dr./Gratiot. There was a doctor's office on the NE corner. Dr. Prigg and Dr. Nielson to be exact. I used to go there as a kid.

[teesalk]

glad to see people are still posting, I was afraid the site was dead. An old friend pointed out the site to me, and I found references to my last name! I grew up on Glenfield [[two houses two blocks apart) and went to St. David's and DeLaSalle. My Grandparents raised 7 boys and 1 daughter on Rosemary, half a block from St. Davids. Too bad what it has become; last time I drove down Gratiot, it looked more like a war zone than the old neighborhood.

[mikefmich]

Was Haas Roast Beef the only little restaurant on that side of Gratiot between Connors & Outer Dr.? Whatever it was, it was the first time I ever ate liver. lol
The osteopath right across the street on Gratiot saved my back in 1965, I will always feel indebted to him.

[mikefmich]

The Gordon C. Crabb funeral home was on the SW corner of Outer Dr./Gratiot. There was a doctor's office on the NE corner. Dr. Prigg and Dr. Nielson to be exact. I used to go there as a kid.

I just saw your post after I made mine below. Dr. Priggs family were family friends with mine when I was growing up.
On a sad note, his daughter just passed last week.

[ferntruth]

My dad was there quite a bit earlier than that. He retired from Detroit in 73 after 37 years, so he probably crossed paths with your dad at some point in time. He died in 75, a year after he left the city.

Wow, that sucks. Your poor dad only got to enjoy his retirement for a couple of years...

[[excuse the thread jack)

[FerndaleDamon]

Teesalk, I lived on Charlemagne. I also went to St. David[[ '76-'78) De La Salle[['82). I worked at Deary Hardware, part time after school. What I wouldn't give for a hot roast beef sandwich and mashed potatoes from Haas, right now. Ditto the war zone comment.

[Danny]

I lived on Sanford between Gunston and Elmo from Hallowe'en '76 until spring '82. The neighborhood was transitioning by then and I was part of it, from homeowners to rentals. The first murder in Detroit of one of the years I was there happened on Sanford near Gunston. A couple across the street from me was found murdered execution style, their dog too, as a result of their selling stolen property. A book titled Land Of Opportunity covered part of the continuing transition after I'd left. It's about the Chamber brothers and their crack cocaine drug trade. Many of the addresses in it are in this area.A Hmong family moved into the lower flat that I had rented.

In the meantime a new murder for hire black gang called 'The Best Friends' ruled the 7 Mile from Schoenherr Rd to Kelly Rd. By 1986 The Best Friends Gang went to the drug dealing businesses.

[TygardTails]

My Uncle owned the flying school. John Lewis, known as "Lank" Tygard. His brother Wil came up with the slogan and created the sign. Lank grew up in Pittsburgh. His Dad & Uncles built engines & he learned how to be a mechanic from them. His 1st flight at age 15 was in 1922 with a barnstormer. That luxury was a reward for fixing the transmission on a neighbor's car. He was hooked. He ran liquor in his Model A from Tenn. to Pittsburgh, bought his first plane, then smuggled booze by plane from Canada to Detroit for Pinky who later owned a restaurant on the River. In WWII he trained Caydets in Bainbridge GA & Florida. After the war he determined to build a flying school and chose Detroit City Airport. He met Jeanne at the Pilot's Club. With Lank's help she started TrimAPlane and redid airplane interiors. Lank had a Dixieland band and played various clubs when he wasn't flying. Lank had the 1st busines-use Bell helicopter in Detroit & shuttled many dignataries throughout Detroit & even used it to put a steeple on a church. DCA management changed & made it impossible for him to sell his business. He took his last flight in his Stearman with a good buddy at the helm for takeoff & landing. He did his usual stunts of loop-dee-loops and Lazy-8s over Detroit in 1987 at age 80. He died at 93.

[oladub]

In about 1968, two cars driving past me were trying to cut each other off on the westbound Ford. I followed them up the Connors exit and north on northbound Conners. They were well ahead of me but came to a stop for a light. The idiot driver of one of the cars got out and proceeded to pummel the other driver through an open window. This was on Connors directly across the street from the police station. A cop coming to work made arrests on the spot. I circled back to the station and left a witness statement.

[pgn421]

What was the name of the bar, that was in the motel on Gratiot, by Conner? Night Flyte?

[Lillian]

My house is gone from 11044 Promenade. Remember your drugstore well. My older brother had a part time job there as a teenager, breaking down liquor boxes, in the basement.

[Former_Detroiter]

I grew up on Conner south of Jefferson. The closest police station was on Conner & Gratiot. It has since moved to another location on Gratiot. My Dad was a DSR bus driver for almost 35 years before he retired. In the early 50's when the DSR bus drivers carried change machines my Dad came home and hung his machine in a burlap sack over the kitchen door. I remember him telling me and my 3 brothers that the money in the machine belonged to the bus company and we were not to touch it. A few weeks later the owner of the candy store down the street came up to our house with a handful of pennies and told my Dad which one of my brothers came to the store with the pennies. When my Dad checked the change machine all the pennies in the penny compartment were gone. Of course my brother denied knowing anything about it. My father then loaded us all up in the car and drove us to the police station on Conner & Gratiot and told the police officer that one of his children had stolen money from the DSR. To make a long story short we were shown around the police station and the officer showed us where people who stole were locked up. By then we were all in tears fearing that we were going to be locked up. I remember the officer asking my Dad why he brought all of us there rather than the child who stole the pennies. My Dad told the officer that we all needed to learn what happens when people steal.

[Zacha341]

^^^ I call that proactive parenting. Today as a rebuttal, the child would have probed the parent with a sage existential conversation for half an hour. Culminating in a post-modern diatribe pointing out that after all, the very term "stealing" is demeaning and very judgmental.

After all the act of stealing is subjective, of which causality is also variable to the individuals or groups so accused -- don't cha' know!