Metro Times published a YouTube link and their commentary on this absolutely fabulous video of aeriel of downtown in 1997. Quite incredible and all I see is a ocean of parking lots. Also neat to see the buildings that stood where Ford Field and Comerica Park are now and the Donovan Building. Tiger Stadium, MCS, and Rouge Plant [[?) at the end.
http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/arch...roit-from-1997
Question: What building was at the corner of Elizabeth and Witherell?
I don't have the patience to watch. Are you thinking of the Y.M.C.A. building?
Some thoughts from someone who was in middle school and living in Grand Rapids back then:
-I didn’t realize the DAC’s parking garage pre-dated Comerica Park.
-What used to be where the Opera House garage is now?
-I know that some are upset about the buildings we lost for Comerica/Ford Field, but that area looks very dead to me. Given that the YMCA/YWCA were replaced by a very nice facility that replaced a parking lot on Broadway, and the Gem and Elwood were moved, I really think the Wolverine Hotel was the only real loss. [[Of course, that’s a maddening one, because it wasn’t actually in the footprint of the ballpark).
-West Foxtown doesn’t look much more full with buildings than it is today. For some reason I thought much of it was cleared when Comerica was built for parking/”future hockey arena.”
-My god the area around DTE used to be depressing. I know their weird garden things aren’t very urban, but they’re better than parking lots. And didn’t there used to be a cool neighborhood west of there where the MGM Grand is? I can’t really see it. Was it already gone in 1997?
-Campus Martius today is much better than the Kerns block/Kennedy Square/confusing intersection that was there back then.
I thought that was where the corner entrance of Comerica Park is now, facing Witherell and Adams. This is right across the street. This building was right across the street.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeM
Khorasaurus said it, it's the Wolverine Hotel.
A couple of things to take away from that video:
1) It was difficult to orient myself without Ford Field and Comerica Park in the picture at first
2) Hudson's was freaking HUGE
3) Campus Martius was 1000% more depressing and horrific in 97'
4) Pretty evident the Wolverine didn't need to come down for Comerica Parking lots. What a waste.
5) There were, and still are, a shit ton of parking lots in this city. It's almost unreal to comprehend unless looking from overhead.
6) Thank God for camera stabilizers and HDTV being invented and implemented for widespread use. Watching that was almost unbarable.
I pleaded with the videographer to show St. Antoine and E. Elizabeth [[564 E. Elizabeth, in particular), but he couldn't hear me some 18 years on...
http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?11912-180-E-Elizabeth-in-the-1880-s
It didn't need to only if it was going to be redeveloped, otherwise it made no sense to have a vacant hotel next to a new stadium. I mentioned this in another thread, but Detroit had numerous vacant hotels at the time. A parking lot is not much better, but the space is there for future development. It has taken almost two decades to get to the current economic climate, where redevelopment of old buildings is really picking up.Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeg19
Was there ever any plans to renovate it?Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeg19
This was the only thing I could find.Quote:
But Baron, whose company redeveloped the Cupples Station area of St. Louis and was part of a group that tired to redevelop Hudson's in Coleman Young's administration, said Detroit's leaders should reconsider the store's future."They should let it play out some more. Detroit has enough ability to get the private sector involved," Baron said.
Other developers said they'd be eager to redevelop the building.
David Tryba, whose company paired with actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in a $100-million development of a dilapidated section of Denver, believes the building could be useful.
"It's a tremendous opportunity," Tryba said. "It has features that you can't put a price on " Added New Orleans-based developer Pres Kabacoff, president of Historic Restoration.
"We see it as having important historic significance and located in an area that would connect the financial district with the entertainment district."
The building could serve a number of uses and help relieve the shortage of residential and office space downtown, developers said.
The group suing to save the old department store cites a recent study by the Greater Detroit Partnership, a quasi-governmental body of business leaders and politicians, that shows a need for more than 12,000 residential lofts in downtown Detroit.
Developers said the Hudson's built-in features – including 2.2-million square feet in 28 stories – make it attractive for upscale lofts. The ceilings are 13 feet high, with molded plaster; many floors are marble; and there are huge windows overlooking the city.
There has been a demand for similar living quarters in other major cities.
"The demand is really across the board," Tryba said. "You have a lot of empty nesters moving back to the city. These are higher, upscale developments, where people want the urban feel and the sense of style for a turn-of-the century building."
We've done a lot of things right [[Ford Field, Compuware, Campus Martius, streetscaping, a little bit of infill near stadiums) and a lot of things wrong [[2 unwarranted demolitions near CoPa, too many demos to list behind the Fox, Lafayette Building, Hudson's Building).... this is great for taking account. I still like the slate on which we are building-- it still beats many downtowns-- but it's good to identify our missteps.
The parking situation in that corner of the city, 1952:
Attachment 26010
I can understand the desire to develop parking under GCP.
Better, but I must say, even then we had a lot of downtown surface parking. Interesting how some blocks are basically historically parking, like the lot across from district court on Adams, and the lot behind what is now the Hilton on Brush.
What happened? For example, was there anything next to the GVSU Detroit Center building?Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeM
I remember on this forum someone found a picture from like the 1920s that showed that as parking. If I'm remembering correctly, that means that lot has been parking for close to 100 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by dtowncitylover
Some of the "arena district" articles have mentioned Ilitch wanting to put an apartment building on that site with stands on the roof, like at Wrigley Field. We'll see if that comes to fruition.
There was a large house there in the 1890s, back when Grand Circus was mostly residential. But ever since that was torn down, it seems to have been used for parking cars. The 1921 Sanborn shows it as "auto parking", and thus it has remained.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khorasaurus
It would be like me riding on bulldozer clearing away rubble with holding my cowboy hat saying "HEE HAW! WOO HOO HOO!"
There was a large house there in the 1890s, back when the Grand Circus area was mostly residential. But ever since that was torn down, it seems to have been used for parking cars. The 1921 Sanborn map shows it as "auto parking", and thus it has remained.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khorasaurus
Mlive had an article with photos and renders from that. It's being called "Wildcat Corner" http://www.mlive.com/business/detroi...at_corner.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by Khorasaurus
I'm skeptical about a lot of major development in the city, but things have been looking up recently and Ilitch has plenty to benefit from this coming to fruition. The announcement of the Little Caesars HQ, gives me hope that there will also be new development across the street.
A small office building facing Broadway, and parking lots.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khorasaurus
Agreed. The only way the Wolverine was going to be saved is if someone came in and redeveloped it, and the chance of that happening back then was slim. The city put out RFP's for the Kales, Starlet, and Lafayette back in 98 and the Kales was the only one to get a proposal. I also don't think it's fair to compare the Park and Eddystone situation to the Wolverine, because the climate is so much different.Quote:
Originally Posted by davep
Hopefully they'll be built a little bit more sturdy than some of the "wildcat bleachers" we've had in Detroit in the past...Quote:
Originally Posted by davep
Attachment 26012
-The DAC added a few floors to the garage after Comerica Park opened, but it was there for quite some time before that. I'm not sure exactly when the garage, but it was prior to 1994.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khorasaurus
-The new Opera House garage replaced an old parking garage that was built in the '50s or '60s.
-The neighborhood west of DTE that you are thinking of was on Plum Street. It was a Hippie hotspot [[for lack of a better term) in the mid-late '60s. It boomed and busted pretty quickly, and was demolished in the 1970s.
Speaking of the DAC garage.. It bugs me that the rear of the garage on Adams looks like, well, a parking garage while the front [[entrance) has a facade. Every time I watch a Tiger home game those slabs of cement parking structure stand out over the left field wall and bug the shit out of me.
Attachment 26013
http://media.mlive.com/tigers_impact...7b06746723.jpg
i am too young to have memories of hudson's, outside of the demolition, but it is remarkable how it dominated the woodward streetscape. it dwarfed everything. i know it was a loved and revered building, but did anyone ever think that it was out of place downtown?
i would take it back in a heartbeat, but i cant help but hope that whatever gets built on the block in the future is more in scale with the surrounding buildings.
For downtown at the time? No.Quote:
Originally Posted by southen
It was the 2nd largest store in the world [[in both volume and size) only smaller than Macy's.
The same applies to the Fox Theatre and Radio City Theatre [[Fox Theatre is the 2nd largest in the country behind Radio City Theatre).
And remember that building wasn't one building, it was a collection of interwoven buildings built from the 1920 to the 1940s as Hudson's expanded. There was even an alleyway people would have to cross to get from one building/department to the next.Quote:
Originally Posted by southen
And an old blues guy [[what WAS his name?) who sat in the alleyway between the two buildings playing his guitar.Quote:
Originally Posted by dtowncitylover
I don't think anyone thought of it as out of scale at all. First, you have to remember that neither downtown buildings, nor Hudson's itself, were planned in any way other than by their individual owners. Hudson's was just the largest of several department stores downtown, not all of which [[like Crowley's, the second largest) were even on WoodwardQuote:
Originally Posted by southen
Until the "urban planners" got ahold of Detroit after WWII, Woodward was lined with buildings and stores on both sides from Grand Circus Park [[and beyond to the north) right down to the river, with a break only at Campus Martius and Cadillac Square where the stately [[or horrifyingly Victorian, depending on your point of view) City Hall faced the County Building a couple of blocks away. It was an entirely and densely urban scene, and Hudson's was only part of the landscape. No more "out of scale" than Macy's in New York or Marshall Field's in Chicago.
i guess i may have a different view if i had memories. looking at that aerial footage it absolutely dwarfs everything near it. i guess it may not have felt that way from the ground.
Yes, but that's in large part because that aerial view was taken after so many nearby large buildings had already been taken down. City Hall, the Kern Block, the Monroe Block, the Cadillac Square Building, and both Crowley's buildings were gone by then, greatly enlarging the "hole" in the middle of downtown. If you look at, say, the DTE aerial shots from the early '50s you will get a much better view of Hudson's in its true urban context.Quote:
Originally Posted by southen
Eastside Al, you have a year for the pic of Bennett Park?
I asked an address question awhile back.....one of my earlier Detroit ladies was living at the Wolverine Hotel.
Southen, I was there. Al speaks the truth.......with a MUCH better memory than I. :)
The DPL Burton Historical site doesn't give a year for it, but from the political ads on the stands, I would guess that it's from 1907. Charles Nichols began serving as City Clerk in 1908, meaning that he was elected in the 1907 election.Quote:
Originally Posted by mikefmich
From the packed stands, and the dense number of them, as well as them being festooned with campaign signs, I would guess that this picture was taken at either an important late season game, or the Tigers first World Series against the Cubs.
Detroit has had numerous vacant buildings sitting around for 30 years, so it doesn't mean that because you put up a shiny new one close to it that it needs to be knocked down. That was the situation with the Lafayette Building. God forbid those penthouses at the BC had to stare at the Lafayette for awhile until a plan came to place for redevelopment. Like knocking down that one building meant that they wouldn't pass 5,000 others.Quote:
Originally Posted by davep
As for the parking lot situation, it's taken almost 20 years for a proposed plan from Illitch to convert that parking lot into housing where the Wolverine stood. Would the Wolverine have been rehabbed before now? Who knows. And with his track record, I'll believe it when I can walk into the building when it's standing there.
In his book, "Downtown," Urban historian Robert Fogelson writes about how many building owners demolished their structures and paved surface lots in the 1930's because they couldn't fill buildings with tenants, but they could earn enough parking money to pay their taxes. Hence, they came to be known as "tax payers."
This goes along with his ideas that much of the urban decay that later swept America was emerging in the 20's and 30's. There is a similar sentiment in Christopher Lineburger's work, "The Option of Urbanism." He uses the town square imagery from Back to the Future to show how the America of 1985 and the America of 1955 and 1935 are basically one and the same.
Links here:
http://www.amazon.com/Downtown-Its-R...words=downtown
http://www.amazon.com/The-Option-Urb.../dp/1597261378
The Back to the Future thing is really interesting. They put a lot of effort into the background of that movie. In 1955, the little town's downtown is thriving, with the courthouse square full of people and lots of stores. In 1985, it's struggling, with porn theaters, a vacant courthouse, and part of the square converted to parking. Meanwhile, all the retail businesses are out at the mall. In 2015, the courthouse has been renovated, there are lots of stores again, and the town is bustling. We don't see the mall, but we do see a subdivision on the edge of town that is now considered a rough area.Quote:
Originally Posted by 1953
It's pretty interesting how it predicted correctly that downtowns would come back.
Subsidized, I agree completely. I am so sick of looking at that garage.
Southen, it certainly dwarfed Merchant's Row, but it also marked the gateway to the taller buildings of the financial district. The taller Stott building is a block west, for example. The tall-building gateway to downtown is actually Grand Circus Park, i.e. Broderick and Whitney. I think what's getting you-- and me too-- is the bulk of the Hudson's building. It was not only tall, but took up an entire block, while the other nearby blocks were apportioned into 5-6 buildings.
Oddly enough, we'll probably get a big block development from Bedrock that uses the block similarly. I don't mind if they go quite tall with it, but my biggest hope is that the design prevents a monolithic feel along Woodward, because that would indeed be a little out of place.
Agree with you on the massing. Not having a building on the Kern's block probably offset the massing a little bit, but it was still an incredibly "thick" building, in addition to being tall.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mackinaw
My guess is the Hudson's site development will have a mid-rise 6-8 story component that will take up the whole block with a much thinner tower [[or two or three) rising out of the top of it, kind of like the design contest winner.
It prefers the term curves, thank you. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Khorasaurus
Here is a 1951 DTE Aerial photo of the center of downtown from Grand Circus to Campus Martius, showing Hudson's in its former urban context. As you can see, Woodward and the blocks on either side of it are almost solidly built up, except for parks, etc. Hudson's is big, to be sure, but not out of scale I think in this setting.
Attachment 26050
Did Library Street cross Gratiot back then? When was it truncated?
It crossed Gratiot and went through to Monroe until the Compuware garage was built, around 1999. That block was crossed by a bridge between the 2 Crowley's buildings, as seen in the picture. Also as seen in the picture, Library crossed Monroe and ended at Randolph until the now-demolished Bates Garage was built in the late '50s.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khorasaurus
Here is a 1977 picture of Library between Monroe and Gratiot, with the Crowley's bridge going over it, from HistoricDetroit.org:
http://www.historicdetroit.org/works...il1977-wsu.jpg
Actually, it was already demolished back to Gratiot by 1981, though the crosswalk stripes were still there in Monroe, but those were removed by 1997.Quote:
Originally Posted by EastsideAl
So, it was closed when Crowley's went down? Now that I think back, I'm sure you're right.Quote:
Originally Posted by mtburb
I remember the vast, ugly parking lot that sat on that piece of land for the next several years [[awaiting the "Cadillac Center" that was never built, except for the People Mover station), and I don't remember Library running through it. I have a 1987 map that shows it still going through, but I think it's wrong.
A couple of oblique views of Hudson's, facing west, using the DTE aerials from 1981 and 1997:
Attachment 26077
Attachment 26078