Development at Buffalo and Charles Street

[leady106]

I drove by a new housing development on Buffalo and Charles [[near Mound Road) and was curious as to what was there before? Google earth currently show it as a vacant site that is about 4 blocks wide with a smaller residential complex off of Mound.

[MikeM]

Former Charles public housing. Some pictures near the bottom of this thread:

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/62684/73103.html

[ferntruth]

Former Charles public housing. Some pictures near the bottom of this thread:

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/62684/73103.html

Ah yes, the memories I have of attending KB White elementary and walking past this housing project each day. Even then it was a tough area. I lived several blocks north of the units [[at McNicols and Mound), and that area wasn't much better.

Of course, compared to how it looks today, it was paradise.

[BVos]

The new development is called Emerald Springs [[don't even ask how it got the name).

http://dhcmi.org/DevelopmentSiteDetails.aspx?siteid=11

Some more great looking stuff going on there. I encourage folks to drive by and take a look.

[Hamtragedy]

Build it and they will come. I hope it doesn't look like Ferris St. in Highland Park in two years.

[ferntruth]

The new development is called Emerald Springs [[don't even ask how it got the name).

http://dhcmi.org/DevelopmentSiteDetails.aspx?siteid=11

Some more great looking stuff going on there. I encourage folks to drive by and take a look.

I would love to see that area make a rebound. Despite the rough neighborhood, it was a decent place to grow up overall.

[mtm49269]

There are a couple of blocks just south of KB White school that are actually still pretty decent - Bloom, Moenart, etc. My Dad lived on Moenart until shoryly before he passed away [[at almst age 90) in the end of March and his neighbors looked out for him. Hamood across the street would shovel his snow, etc. And now, amazingly, two neighbors are interested in buying Dad's house [[once we get it cleaned out - which could take YEARS!!) so they can move family members in.

[ferntruth]

There are a couple of blocks just south of KB White school that are actually still pretty decent - Bloom, Moenart, etc. My Dad lived on Moenart until shortyly before he passed away [[at almst age 90) in the end of March and his looked out for him. Hamood across the street would shovel his snow, etc. And now, amazingly, two neighbors are interested in buying Dad's house [[once we get it cleaned out - which could take YEARS!!) so they can move family members in.

Thats good to hear! I'm sure that by having family members move in there is a better chance of keeping the neighborhood nice - although even thats not a guarantee.

My street was Syracuse, between McNicols and Davison.
Our house is long gone, as are several others on the block. The remaining ones do not look as if they are cared for very well. It's disheartening since I remember so many people on that block who would spend the summer tending gardens, planting flowers, etc.
Every family was pretty poor by then [[including us) but we did at least have pride in what we had, even if it was very little.

[mtm49269]

It's amazing how many of the old neighbors and/or their families are still there despite age, etc. A few years back, while Dad was in church, some guys broke in but didnt get much because the neighbor across the street ran over and started ringing the doorbell like crazy while his wife called 911.

A lot of the old wood frame houses in the area are long gone but the homes in this area are brick ranchs built in the 60's and they're not quite as easy to get into to strip. [[My parents' original, a duplex on Charles, was recently renovated!!) After Dad went into hospice, we had an alarm installed and there was only one attempted break in that failed because the alarm scared them off.

[ferntruth]

It's amazing how many of the old neighbors and/or their families are still there despite age, etc. A few years back, while Dad was in church, some guys broke in but didnt get much because the neighbor across the street ran over and started ringing the doorbell like crazy while his wife called 911.

A lot of the old wood frame houses in the area are long gone but the homes in this area are brick ranchs built in the 60's and they're not quite as easy to get into to strip. [[My parents' original, a duplex on Charles, was recently renovated!!) After Dad went into hospice, we had an alarm installed and there was only one attempted break in that failed because the alarm scared them off.

I know what you mean. One of my friends from school is still living on Charles. She did not attend KB White with me, but she did attend Cleveland and then Osborn with me. Her parents retired and moved, so she bought the house from them and has lived there ever since.

It is funny how hit and miss the blight can be. The block I grew up on is pretty ravaged, but the last time I drove down Charles [[between KB White and Cleveland), it didn't look very much different than it did when I lived there.

[sirrealone]

My grandparents lived on Syracuse, right near the Transfiguration Church. I spent most weekends while growing up at my grandparents house, so I know this neighborhood well and have many of my fondest childhood memories in this area. My grandparents were very active in the church for a long time. My grandpa was an usher and in the KofC, my grandma was in the Madonna Guild and always helped with the annual church festivals. My grandmother sold her house in 1995 or so, a couple of years after my grandfather passed. As much as the neighbors looked out for her, it was just too much to take care of that old house by herself. She passed in 2009 so her funeral at the church was the last time I was down there and had noticed that most of the buildings in the 'projects' had been torn down. Things didn't look too bad in the immediate vicinity. A little more worse for wear, sure, but still reasonably OK. I think Fr. Andy at Transfiguration has done a remarkable job at keeping that parish afloat and thriving, and has done a lot to ensure that the church works the neighborhood. I remember in the late 80's or so, they fixed the church bells, and the first time they started ringing again, people just walked out of their houses and stood there listening, transfixed. Hopefully this development gets things in the right direction for the surrounding area.

Thanks for sharing the news.

[CassTechGrad]

I went toWhite School and had many friends who loved in what we called “the projects” onCharles and Buffalo. I lived on Moenart, the first house off 6 Mile on the Westside of the street. Ferntruth, do you remember the Motyl family who lived onSyracuse between 6 Mile and Davison? Here’s a copy of my 1961 White ElementarySchool graduation program showing all the kids in the class.

[Danny]

The Charles Projects were built in around late 1940s to 1950s to provide subsidize housing for low-income families. It the time it was a mix of low-income whites and blacks and later Yemeni Arabs in the late 1980s. Lots of low-income blacks quickly fill the projects and occupy the Detroit ghettohoods north of Charles St. and up to Mound of E. McNichols. Only a handful of middle income blacks occupy the neighborhoods west and of Detroit-Hamtramck border in since the early 1970s coming mostly from Conant Gardens area.

Later the projects became a fast growing crime and crack den. Some neighbors say that the Best Friends Gang do their crime there. By the mid 1990s to prevent this crime epidemic to spread around Detroit-Hamtramck area. The DHA have the 95% of the projects demolished leaving 5% of the housing rehabed on the corner of St. Charles and Mound Rd.

[ferntruth]

I went toWhite School and had many friends who loved in what we called “the projects” onCharles and Buffalo. I lived on Moenart, the first house off 6 Mile on the Westside of the street. Ferntruth, do you remember the Motyl family who lived onSyracuse between 6 Mile and Davison? Here’s a copy of my 1961 White ElementarySchool graduation program showing all the kids in the class.

I sure do! They lived two doors down from us. I'm the youngest of 5 kids, and their youngest child was my age, so we were best friends and grew up together. I still keep in touch with the family [[Mrs. Motyl turns 90 this year!). All of the kids are still doing well, with a couple of them now living in California and working on the set of Desperate Housewifes. I don't know if you recall or not, but the Motyl's were a family of 12 children, so you can only imagine how big the family is now since they have all married and have children [[and grandchildren) of their own now.

Dino's in Ferndale is owned by the son of Sandi Motyl, so I run into family members all the time when I am there.

My sister and her husband lived on Moenart when they first married, but it was closer to Luce than 6 Mile. God, I used to practically live at Sonny Boy market since they had such a great candy selection!

[CassTechGrad]

I see Mike [[Teek) allthe time and was at this house in Shelby Township in May for his 60thbirthday. All the Motyl’s were in town for the party except I think one. Thepicture on the left has Mike at Loui’s pizzeria last year and on the right is from1959 at Mt. Elliott Lanes for a Cub Scout bowling tournament with Tom and Ithink Matt. The lower pic shows Sunny Boy market taken from my front yard onMoenart in 1969.

[AlanF]

Let's see if there's any life left in this thread...

I lived in the Buffalo / Charles housing project from 1955-1959 and attended KB White school. Here are some memories of that time:

Layout: The projects consisted of around, maybe 30 brick-shaped 2-story brick buildings, each of which had apartment units for around 7 or 8 families. There were two coal-fired "powerhouses" with tall smokestacks that supplied steam heat. In the middle was a big playground for kids with swings, etc. Each of the residential buildings had a street on one side and a pedestrian court on the other. Most units had, I think, 2 or 3 bedrooms. A few of them had "penthouse" units, presumably for bigger families. It was well-maintained, and everything worked. No graffiti or trash.

Residents: Rent was subsidized, for poor people, so many of the people there were widowed, unemployed, semi-disabled, or underemployed. At that time, only white people lived there, although some black people lived south of the projects, so their kids attended KB White school, which was integrated. I had some black friends, but not many. North of us, as best I recall, was an all-white neighborhood. Hispanics and Asians were rare. Many European national origins were represented, Poles, Irish, French, German, etc. My best friends there were George "Sonny" Konvinski and Eugene Genest. Some surnames were, Ritchie, Vengris, Frishcosy, Rhode, Filipski, Peters, Whalen, Charanzak, many others.

Environs: North of us, on Charles street, were a grocery store, a soda bar / drugstore, and some kind of tavern or night club. Farther toward the school was a little candy store. The public library was on Conant, across Jayne field. To the west of us, across Buffalo, was a big empty, weedy, lot, our favorite place to play. We called it the "Wooden Projects" because it was said that, before the brick buildings were constructed, there were wooden structures there, but that was before my time. Around the time I left, they built single-family homes on that lot, so we lost our field. Silverstine's Army Surplus was on McNichols, a couple of miles away, within walking distance.

KB White school: It was a big building, divided into two parts, "White school," per se, and "White Special," for kids with various disabilities, cerebral palsy and such. There was virtually no interaction between the two groups. Teachers I remember were Mrs Martin [[Science), Mrs Kass [[Social studies), Mr. Bernstein [[Art), Mt. Tomberg [[Library), Miss Curtiss [[3rd grade), Mr. Cochran [[Gym), Mrs Harcourt [[4th grade), Mrs Schultz [[5th grade), and Mrs Brightwell [[6th grade). I remember all of them well. It was, I would say, a very good school, with good teachers.


Overall: I'd say that it was a good place to live. We were poor but happy enough. There was very little crime-- We never heard of burglaries, robberies, assaults, and it was safe to walk around in the projects at night. Oh, there was the usual kid stuff, some bullying, etc, but nothing serious. The "Wooden Projects" was a great place to play, and there were the "approved" places like Jayne field and the projects playground.

I could say much more, but let's see if there's any interest in such things.

[old guy]

Greetings AlanF. Don't know anything about that area but it was nice to read a positive post here today.

[sny k]

Are you Alan Filipski? If so I am George "Sonny" Konvinski. I'm having trouble responding with this site You can find me on facebook.

[Danny]

Years of crime, blight and rumors of Best Friends gang hang-out and safehouses and drug dealing cause the projects to be demolished and replaced by new income housing, secured and watched.

[Gistok]

Are you Alan Filipski? If so I am George "Sonny" Konvinski. I'm having trouble responding with this site You can find me on facebook.

Good luck with any reply... Alan F has only posted on this forum 16 times between Sept. 2015 and Jan. 2016, so he's not posted here in over 5 years.

[Satiricalivory]

Are you Alan Filipski? If so I am George "Sonny" Konvinski. I'm having trouble responding with this site You can find me on facebook.

How on earth did you find this thread? That's crazy.