Originally Posted by
downtownguy
No, there was no finished Riverwalk, but I used to walk the riverfront every Sunday morning before settling in with the paper for breakfast someplace downtown. Diamond Jack has been around at least that long, and there was also the Star of Detroit operating for a few years.
I moved downtown in 1981. I occupied an office in the David Whitney Building in the mid 80s. I ran a business in a storefront on Woodward near Grand Circus Park from 1988-1991. During that time I read William H. Whyte's, "City: Rediscovering the Center" and was amazed at how many of Whyte's observations of New York City streetlife existed in Detroit, albeit on a different scale and often in a unique way.
When I was on Woodward, I was introduced to a white [[as am I) Detroit television news anchor at a party. I'll not name him, but he was very cordial and took an interest in the business I operated. He also lamented how I was on such a desolate stretch of Woodward. I was shocked. He didn't have a clue. As Bham points out, shopping existed on Woodward, but it catered to it's market: Detroiters. I lectured the news anchor on this point and invited him to come down and stand with me on Woodward on any Saturday and he would see as much activity as he would have found in any mall. Around the same time, I met an executive with Sibley's Shoes and he told me the Grand Circus Park store was the busiest free standing store in the chain [[mall stores, as you would expect, were busier.) The owner of Tall-Eez shoes, a staple on Woodward for years, told me how he had opened a store at the still, reasonably upscale Northland, but it never attained the business of the downtown store. I had also been told that Winkelman's and Marianne's stores were also among the busiest of their free standing stores.
Even though Hudson's pulled out of downtown in the 80s, new residential was sprouting up: Trolley, Riverfront, Millender, Harbortown, River Place, etc. There was a small, under-the-radar loft movement [[I moved into one, on Woodward actually). Greektown actually had several Greek restaurants back then, and it was vibrant, yet accessible, as the casino had not yet come to dominate the area. Rivertown was a close second to Greektown for nightlife with restaurants, clubs and saloons.
The renovated Fox Theatre opened in 1988 and the State Theatre become Clubland. There was almost constant activity around both theatres nearly every weekend and many weeknights, and the Fox continued to be the catalyst for many years. The frequency of shows at the Fox is a shadow of that today.
My point is that ever since Cadillac hopped out of les détroits 311 years ago, our city has been evolving. I had to convince nearly every one of my Northern European brothers and sisters that I was not crazy to choose to live in Detroit back then, and I still have to today more than I'd like. But things have changed a lot since I first moved downtown. Better? Yes. Worse? That, too. One, two, ten decades ago, Detroit had more apples, now it has more oranges. Does that mean it's better? It's all subjective.
For what it's worth, I'm excited for all the recent positive changes, and I'll probably be here until the day I die. And I do hear more positive responses when I tell people where I live than when I first moved downtown. But an entire generation has left the planet since then, and I always felt my generation would never get it. They had too much baggage from the profound changes the city went through in the 60s and 70s. I hope and pray the current generation that has embraced this great, old, historic city in recent years will continue to embrace it as it continues to evolve. For better and for worse.