Detroit's social engineering project: The Cass Corridor

[Hermod]

I strongly disagree with that statement. The northeast area of Detroit was heavily Italian, German, Polish, and very Catholic with LOTS of kids. Many of those neighborhoods contained famlies with 4-5 kids and 8-10 was not that uncommon. I'm sure the west side Catholic schools like St.Mary's of Redford contained several families that could field a baseball team as well.

I agree with you that the east side was heavily European ethnic and heavily Catholic [[as many teams in the Catholic high school football league as in the public high school football league. European immigration pretty much stopped in the early twenties except for the displaced persons diaspora from eastern Europe post WWII.

The immigrants began to flow out of the city after WWII though and were replaced by blacks and hillbillies. For evidence, check out the Warren phomebook. It is chock full of Slovak, Ukranian, and Polish names.

[mwilbert]

The idea of openly selecting a neighborhood to be your new Skid Row probably wouldn't be viable today, but effective public protests against land use decisions didn't really get going until the late 60's, by which time this was already done. The 50's were a very different time.

[IrishSpartan]

I agree with you that the east side was heavily European ethnic and heavily Catholic [[as many teams in the Catholic high school football league as in the public high school football league. European immigration pretty much stopped in the early twenties except for the displaced persons diaspora from eastern Europe post WWII.

The immigrants began to flow out of the city after WWII though and were replaced by blacks and hillbillies. For evidence, check out the Warren phomebook. It is chock full of Slovak, Ukranian, and Polish names.

I was referring to the original statement "IMHO, the only thing that kept Detroit so populated after the war was immigration from the South, black and white." In 1964 for instance the white European ethnics [[especially Polish & Italian) were still in abundance. Yes, Warren was a popular destination in the 50's-70's especially for the second generation. I'm not disputing that fact about the movement to the inner ring suburbs. However, it really depends on the neighborhood and time period after the war we are referring to. The white southerners were bailing out of the several lower east side neighborhoods in the 1960's for places like Roseville, south Warren, etc. Their were still many Poles around 7 Mile & Hoover in the mid 1970's.

[Hermod]

[/b]

I was referring to the original statement "IMHO, the only thing that kept Detroit so populated after the war was immigration from the South, black and white." In 1964 for instance the white European ethnics [[especially Polish & Italian) were still in abundance. Yes, Warren was a popular destination in the 50's-70's especially for the second generation. I'm not disputing that fact about the movement to the inner ring suburbs. However, it really depends on the neighborhood and time period after the war we are referring to. The white southerners were bailing out of the several lower east side neighborhoods in the 1960's for places like Roseville, south Warren, etc. Their were still many Poles around 7 Mile & Hoover in the mid 1970's.

The fact remains that after the post WWII influx of DP refugees from eastern Europe, the only meaningful in migration to the city proper came from southern white and blacks. While the non-English European ethnic groups did not totally abandon the city in the fifities, they weren't moving into the city either.

[IrishSpartan]

The fact remains that after the post WWII influx of DP refugees from eastern Europe, the only meaningful in migration to the city proper came from southern white and blacks. While the non-English European ethnic groups did not totally abandon the city in the fifities, they weren't moving into the city either.

I'm not arguing that white "ethnics" were still immigrating to Detroit after the war in large numbers. However, white southerners and blacks were not the exclusive source of Detroit's population in 1960. The fact [[1960 Census) is that half of the people of Polish, German, Italian, and Russian extraction [[combined) in Southeastern MI still lived in the city limits of Detroit. Granted, that was changing before the riots and emptied out after 1967. I guess it comes down to the semantics of what is total abandonment, what is considered a significant portion of the population, etc.

[Danny]

The social engineering project on Cass Corridor is working too well. Thanks to Wayne St. University and lot's of ethnic folks. Cass Corridor [[ Midtown) is in its early developing stages. Apt.s that were poor, drug infested and squatters' den are now yuppified with very high rent. Po'folks, DEAD [[C)KRAK HEADS had been swept away from WSU police force. New Indian and Arab cuisine restaurants popped up everywhere. We have Barnes and Noble Bookstore competing with Marwil's and WSU engineering buildings and labratories, a new exercize facility on campus, Tech Town are many more. The Cass Corridor is more ethnically diverse than SW Detroit and its growing as long we have Wayne State University bringing educational regionalization into Detroit.

[Detroit_uke]

I know I'm a little late - but thanx dookie...looking forward to more of your writing!

[dookie joe]

I know I'm a little late - but thanx dookie...looking forward to more of your writing!

Thanks....

[drpoundsign]

I'm Late to this Party-LOL. But I wonder when that long gone housing on the Michigan Ave. Skid Row was built.

The Late 19th Century or before??

The early 20th Century??

[Danny]

If you want to see the real Detroit's Skid Row, go down the MLK Blvd. and Third St.

[MSUguy]

Reading this thread I can't help but think this how this decision lead to the downfall of downtown. When the auto industry started to collapse in the 70's this neighborhood basically tuned into our version of the South Bronx. And from what I've heard and read about the corridor in it's in heyday I can't imagine having a neighborhood like that so close to downtown made people want to visit.

[RickBeall]

Want to visit? Heck it was the entertainment section of the city. It's where everyone went for fun, since you could get anything you wanted.

[313WX]

And from what I've heard and read about the corridor in it's in heyday I can't imagine having a neighborhood like that so close to downtown made people want to visit.

Cabrini Green in Chicago was just as close to downtown, but it didn't stop people from coming into The Loop...

[MSUguy]

Cabrini Green in Chicago was just as close to downtown, but it didn't stop people from coming into The Loop...

I guess it depends how measure it, but Macy's State Street store is over a mile from Cabrini Green. By comparison Hudson's is a half mile to edge of the Corridor. But don't forget you also had the Brewster projects on the other side of Woodward. Really all that area south of Mack between the freeways was a giant pocket of poverty and bigger than Cabrini Green. I'd argue that you had more concreted poverty in closer proximity to downtown than Chicago.

[Bham1982]

Cabrini Greene and Cass Corridor are/were totally different typologies. Cabrini Greene is a federal public housing development, for families. It's social housing in an urban renewal context. It was always surrounded by more prosperous areas, and the development itself was at least intended to improve the area.

Cass Corridor was an existing neighborhood that became Detroit's new skid row. It housed single males, often newcomers from Appalachia, and heavily concentrated with addicts, the homeless and the like. It was a dumping ground, and never intended as a form of renewal.

Chicago's closest analogue was on West Madison, just west of the Loop. There are still traces of the old days. That was Chicago's Cass Corridor-like skid row, where single men rented by the day or week, and drank themselves to death.

[Bobl]

Somehow, I have not seen this thread. The Cass Corridor, near Wayne State, where I lived and worked in the late 1960s, was an interesting, exciting place to live. Art and music was in the air. The customers at Henry Drugs were as diverse as anywhere in the metropolitan area. Wayne State professors, winos, cops, down and outers, up and comers might be in the store at the same time. One day, Little Richard and an assistant/valet walked in, to the cosmetics counter. Apparently, their luggage turned up missing at the airport. I was impressed that their rented limo, parked on Third, had a working TV inside. Nobody had television in a car, then.

[G-DDT]

Didn't stop a lot of us from living there in the '90s. I worked out in Southfield, and had my own well-heated, cockroach-free room for $65 a month with no threat of any neighborhood troublemakers coming to mess with a Brownstown filled with seven adult punks.

Didn't stop many C.C.S. art students, Wayne State students, and any of the other weirdos [[punks, strait-edge, Rastafarian, junkies, etc.) you would've seen at the Dalley in the Alley from living, working, and feeling safe to walk, shop, and hang out at any functioning place [[Zoot's, Gold Dollar, Blue Moon, Union Street, 404 Willis, Red Door, Majestic, Old Miami, Cass Cafe, Alvin's, Third Street Saloon, any number of galleries, etc.). Cass Corridor was ghetto, but it wasn't "hood". Therefor, my car was more likely to get broken into or stolen on the Northwest side [[where my folk's lived), than it ever would [[which it didn't) in the Corridor.

For many of us needing a departure from the idiocy of mainstream society. The Corridor gave us haven. As long as it made the prejudiced chub of suburban Middle America go "ewww-I'm scared."; our feelings were like "if you really believe all the fear and the lies the mass media spoon-feeds you without coming around to see for yourself, than that works out fine for us, for you all to stay far away."

Sooner or later we feared that that same Mainstream society would want in [[other than the occasional safe "slumming" down and around there) and make it it's own, but not before gentrifying and changing things radically to it's own contrived and comfortable liking. This is quite clear and obvious by the mere renaming of the Corridor to "Midtown".

Can't say I miss the mutant cockroach problem Prentis St. had.