7-Mack shopping center at Mack and Moross...

[MikeM]

Diamond Lil's was at the corner of Mack & Kerby, Grosse Pointe side.

[GPCharles]

Diamond Lil's was on the corner of Kerby and Mack. There is an office building now on the site. The other corners are Belle Tire [[formerly a Firestone store), a Shell gas station and Mr. C's Car Wash.

Monday night $.025 hot dogs at Lil's.

They also had a very old color tv with the curved corners.

[1KielsonDrive]

Thanks for those memories, guys. I had a red Diamond Lil's windbreaker for years. It finally fell apart in the mid 90's. We walked to bars in that neighborhood. I'll try to remember the names. Piper's Alley was one. I think one of them is still there - Irish Coffee or something like that. Maybe it took Piper Alley's place.

[pgn421]

Keilson-Diamond Lils was at Kerby and Mack.
The McEvoys owned that and Fat Jacks Saloon on Whittier in Detroit.

[pgn421]

Keilson-you are way older than I.
I have had a rough life, that's why I look like I do.
However, you have had a quite easy life.

[Gistok]

I bet a lot of you folks [[as kids) made loud noises when passing between the Lerner Shop and its' stand island window display area... an "echo magnet".....

[Carey]

We've talked a lot about the old buildings at 7 and Mack. How about a person who hung out at the corner: Does anyone remember Frankie, a little guy with beady eyes and black, curly hair? He was kind of a legend among under-aged kids because he would come to parties with a clipboard, take orders, leave and return with beer...for a small service fee.

[pgn421]

Keilson- Diamond Lils was at Kerby and Mack.
The McEvoys owned it and Fat Jacks Saloon on Whittier in Detroit.
You are alot older than I.
I have had a rough life, that's why I look as I do.
You have had a good easy life.

[pgn421]

Carey- is that the same Frankie, that used to work at The Woods Theatre?

[Carey]

I believe he did work at the Woods.

[MikeM]

We've talked a lot about the old buildings at 7 and Mack. How about a person who hung out at the corner: Does anyone remember Frankie, a little guy with beady eyes and black, curly hair? He was kind of a legend among under-aged kids because he would come to parties with a clipboard, take orders, leave and return with beer...for a small service fee.

Don't remember Frankie, and his service sounds better than Gay Bob's, but whatever happened to Arthur: short, plump, mustache, nasally-voiced, always pushing a lawnmower?

[stasu1213]

When was the shopping center razed? I had saw "Independent Day" at the Woods right before it had closed. Nice area.

[Al Publican]

png421, what sort of crowd frequented Cromwell's? I only went in there when someone I knew was born or died at St. John Hospital. My son was born at St. John.

EMG, the Elbow Room was in the Parkcrest Motel building on the I-94 service drive.

Remember Diamond Lil's[[sp) on Mack on the Grosse Pointe Farms side not far from Moross? A buddy of mine smashed a beer bottle across a guy's head in Diamond Lil's in the '70s after two guys threatened to jump him.

[MikeM]

The Woods Theater closed at the end of 1997. Construction on the new shopping center started in 1989; I can't remember when the old one closed.

[pgn421]

Al-
From what I remember, Cromwells had all different aged people.
I knew some of the nurses that hung there.

[mikefmich]

On part of the strip going north along Mack, near the Woods was the first Vic Tanny's I ever remember seeing. That place did burn down around 1961-62-ish.....I heard about it and rode my bike down to watch.

[mikefmich]

Me and a couple buddies when I was around 11-12 would go into Kresge's to try and teach cuss words to the parrots they had in the pet dept.

One time it worked, and the parrot starting using the word continously. Some lady that worked there came flying around the corner from the back, we ran out the door in a flash.

Had she caught us, my dad would NOT have been pleased with me.

[mikefmich]

Mikefmich.... that "Ma7ck" was a burger joint... and the last time I drove by last week it was still there... on the Grosse Pointe Farms side of Mack Ave.

And remember that many of the 7/Mack stores had entrances facing Mack and also rear entrances facing the rear parking lot with St. John Hospital looming in the distance.

And speaking of St. John... I remember when the old main hospital had only 4 stories [[the twin wings), with a 6 story gable in the middle. only later in the 60s did they add 2 additional stories to the main hospital [[and the "L" addition towards 7/Mack) as well as add the tower.

From what I gathered... the future hotel the hospital is planning on building [[on hold with the economy in the toilet) is supposed to be where the Woods Theatre used to be.

Yeah your right on Mac7k. The party store right there....I used to grab a sub & beer for lunch there early 70's......Mr. A's?

When they started adding on to St. John's I was in junior high [[1963-66.)

There was girl from my school who solidified her reputation in the fields/woods by those huge piles of dirt that was there for years. We used to zoom our bikes up and down trails on the hills, and try to avoid the security guard that came out ocassionally

[stasu1213]

The Woods Theater closed at the end of 1997. Construction on the new shopping center started in 1989; I can't remember when the old one closed.

I had wondered why the shopping center was razed. Were the many individual owned shops that line Mack avenue in the point always there when the Mack/7 shopping center was operating? Did these shops started poping up after the closing of the shopping center. Speaking of shopping center; does anyone has vintage pics of the Warren/Conner shopping center?

[Bluenote132003]

Does anyone remember going into the Sears store? Parked in back, zig-zag alley, some ball fields surrounding the lot separated with a short red brick fence. There were a couple steps up to get into the back door of Sears and you found yourself enclosed in almost a Michigan room, two or three sides glass. They kept the seasonal stuff out there, lawn mowers or Christmas trees. As you entered the brick building proper, there was a small lunch counter at the opposite end, through a doorway, and into the store. I believe they kept a popcorn machine right there. I think it usually started out tools and expanded from there, with clothing near the front windows facing Mack...

[GPCharles]

Diamond Lil's, The Newbrick Inn [[which became Piper's Alley) and the Pointer Pub, all in a row on Mack Avenue, east from Kerby. Great fun on the night before Thanksgiving, just going from bar to bar and seeing everyone you knew that was in college.

Frankie was also the usher at The Woods Theater and he would come into the Pointer in his uniform, looking like an Admiral or something.

[MikeM]

I had wondered why the shopping center was razed. Were the many individual owned shops that line Mack avenue in the point always there when the Mack/7 shopping center was operating? Did these shops started poping up after the closing of the shopping center.

St John Hospital bought the shopping center sometime in the late 1970s or early '80s, probably with plans to expand eastward. By then the center was a dump: crime was on the increase, trash was blowing around everywhere, people used the parking lot behind it to fornicate in their cars, get high or get drunk; the lot was strewn with broken bottles, beer cans, porn magazines, an occasional syringe or pipe. The hospital sold it to a developer who rebuilt it in its current form.

Most of the stores along Mack were there before the center opened in the mid-1950s. So was most of the surrounding housing. I'd guess that the opening of St John Hospital in the late 1940s is was what spurred the development of the shopping center.

From May 1955:

[milt721]

Don't remember Frankie, and his service sounds better than Gay Bob's, but whatever happened to Arthur: short, plump, mustache, nasally-voiced, always pushing a lawnmower?

Sadly, Arthur Koenel [[sp?) was killed about 10 years ago crossing Vernier by Grosse Pointe North. He was struck by a car.

[1KielsonDrive]

Keilson-you are way older than I.
I have had a rough life, that's why I look like I do.
However, you have had a quite easy life.

You've had a rough life? You'll never convince anyone of that: married to a sweet babe, living in a luxurious OTR truck with plush living quarters and a game room, hanging out at top shelf Polish restaurants and bars all day on Opening Day, St. Patty's and every single day on the Bartenders list of reasons to party.

[MikeM]

Page 14 of this issue of the Grosse Pointe News has a full page article about the opening of the 7-Mack Shopping Center:

http://digitize.gp.lib.mi.us/digitiz...124&req=7+Mack