Gibbs on Gratiot demolished

[DetroitZack]

Looks like they are demolishing a lot on Gratiot lately.


056 by Zack Blackerby, on Flickr


058 by Zack Blackerby, on Flickr


054 by Zack Blackerby, on Flickr

[Ed Golick]

Gibbs was demolished to create a parking lot for the new liquor store next door.

[Danny]

Good riddance to the place. That store assorted missery juices to po-folks and mutants. That area was the spot where one of the Best Friends gang got shot on ambush.

[bartock]

Despite the sort of controversey with respect to the library branch, I like what they have been doing on Gratiot lately. Wish they'd tear down Valente's.

[313WX]

Except for the hat store, all the storefront businesses are gone between Bessemore and Harper on that side of Gratiot, including Alexander & Hornung along with Tonya's Records, which were both there for some time as well.

Sad really.

[313WX]

Despite the sort of controversey with respect to the library branch, I like what they have been doing on Gratiot lately. Wish they'd tear down Valente's.

Could you elaborate please?

Because most of us know they don't build structures like the ones they're demolishing along Gratiot anymore, amongst the other avenues in Detroit, and if the city ever did come back, some of us would prefer if they were preserved so we can maintain some resemblance of a real city [[an urban fabric) instead of looking like another Atlanta or Houston with strip malls everywhere.

BTW, I assuming the structures across the street will be next.

[bartock]

Could you elaborate please?

Because most of us know they don't build structures like the ones they're demolishing along Gratiot anymore, amongst the other avenues in Detroit, and if the city ever did come back, some of us would prefer if they were preserved so we can maintain some resemblance of a real city [[an urban fabric) instead of looking like another Atlanta or Houston with strip malls everywhere

You seem to get my point, though you disagree with it.

Valente's is a burnt-out hulk of a place that can not be rehabbed. The Mark Twain branch from what I understand was magnet for crime and the urban exploration stuff, though I don't know whether it could have been salvaged.

Many of those structures were nothing more than blight, and blight for a long time. If I were a parent living in one of those neighborhoods, I'd much rather have my kid walking past a parking lot or empty, leveled areas as opposed to some aesthetically depressing, structurally dangerous building harboring God knows what inside of it for the sake of some sort of preservation efforts by those who don't live in that same neighborhood, or to preserve some broken eyesore reminder of an urban fabric that no longer exists and won't exist for a long time, if ever.

[Occurrence]

A magnet for urban exploration? Not really, seeing is how the place was small and boring.

[SWMAP]

I'm thinking that the City planners have woken up to the damage done by those cheap strip malls that have the parking in front. At least on the SW side i'm seeing buildings being built right up to the sidewalk again. No more setbacks of asphalt to collect weeds, ghetto trees and litter.

[313WX]

I'm thinking that the City planners have woken up to the damage done by those cheap strip malls that have the parking in front. At least on the SW side i'm seeing buildings being built right up to the sidewalk again. No more setbacks of asphalt to collect weeds, ghetto trees and litter.

Agreed.

If people truly want more of suburbia, they can stay in the suburbs. Why come into Detroit?

This is why we're losing so many of our young people to places like Chicago. Missing teetth and strip teeth a urban environment does not make.

BTw, the structures could be mothballed. The outside and foundation can be preserved while replacing everything else inside of it.

Losing the block with Valente's would also be fortunate beause we would officially lose the last hint of the 7 Mile and Gratiot area even resembling its own mini-city.

[bartock]

A magnet for urban exploration? Not really, seeing is how the place was small and boring.

It was mentioned on one of these threads, not necessarily in the same terms, but urban explorers were mentioned when someone described seeing a pool of blood the last time they had looked at the place.

[Bham1982]

I'm thinking that the City planners have woken up to the damage done by those cheap strip malls that have the parking in front. At least on the SW side i'm seeing buildings being built right up to the sidewalk again. No more setbacks of asphalt to collect weeds, ghetto trees and litter.

Where is this happening in SW? I can't think of any examples.

All the newer strip malls along Vernor and the like are suburban-style, with parking in front.

[SWMAP]

No more. On Vernor, everything built since the last three years has to come up to the sidewalk. There is a dentist office near Clark Park that had to stop building and change plans to achieve that frontage. Also, see the new construction by CHASS [[health services)on Fort at Junction. Right up front on the sidewalk.

[Bham1982]

No more. On Vernor, everything built since the last three years has to come up to the sidewalk.

I'm very surprised, but I'll take your word for it. I'm on this street every week, and never noticed.

Seems to me that every single building of recent vintage along Vernor was set-back suburb-style.

Many times I drove the street and thought that there would be a point where Vernor would be all strip malls, since most of the vacant spaces and crap retail are in the old buildings, and the chain stores in the strip malls are usually doing well.

As Mexicans move to the suburbs, I thought this trend would accelerate, since the churches, restaurants and supermarkets now attract a heavily suburban clientele. Most of the major restaurants now have big fenced parking lots, which wasn't the case not too long ago.

[SWMAP]

You are missing things on Vernor: the Oddfellows Hall renovation housing the arts center COMPASS west of Springwells; the new Detroit Public Library branch right nest door. These are west of Springwells. Then near Clark Park, the restored buildings on the north side housing Cafe Con Leche and others. These are beautifully restored retail spaces that sadly lack many tenants.

Look at the tortilla factory just west of Military. A new [[vintage-look) facade going in with street-level windows. Very nice.

[j to the jeremy]

Not to threadjack, but does this mean Southwest got some zoning changed for Vernor? How can the city encourage this in other neighborhoods?

[SWMAP]

Not sure if these standards are just for West Vernor. i know that the West Vernor business Association is very active with Mainstreet USA, which advocates for renewal of main street business districts that retain charm, history and walkability and the Business association was the advocate for the new standards. Not sure if city-wide.

There was a time when the planning depratment seemed to think that anything that smacked of suburbia [[such as set-back strip malls, big-box developemts, etc.) was something to be desired. But the big box stores got covered with grafitti, the parking lots got covered with litter and weeds. Now maybe they see that the old-fashioned urban streetscape is a far better thing.

[EastsideAl]

Sad to see it go. Despite Danny's usual spurious nonsense, Gibb's was an extremely classy store whose knowledgeable staff helped introduce many an eastsider to the world of good wine, etc. Tim McCarthy, who later opened Cost Plus over by the Eastern Market, got his start there.

They held on there on Gratiot much longer than most of the surrounding businesses, and for a long time they sponsored sports teams, etc. for kids from the surrounding neighborhood. I well remember going in there with my father on many a Saturday afternoon and having a long palaver with Tim over which wines were both a good drink and a good buy. When I was a younger kid we would also stop in across the street at Alexander & Hourning to pick up some of the German-style meats that my mother loved so much.

So, that's another whole piece of my youth gone, but, really more importantly, as pointed out elsewhere here another part of the real street-level urban fabric of our city gone forever.

[Chinman]

that is the store that Tim Mcarthy of 'Cost Plus Wine Shop' got his start as a young man. I am sure he is nostalgic about the place, but would not want it to stand in it's current condition.

[1953]

The CHASS building is zero-setback, but it is a brick wall with no windows!

That's part way to good urban design, but only part.

[SWMAP]

I agree that no windows streetside is bad - but that is a desolate stretch of Fort St. inhabited by some kind of Huns that demolish, demolish, demolish in the dark shadows caused by no streetlights.

[DetroitZack]

A magnet for urban exploration? Not really, seeing is how the place was small and boring.

I think many that would disagree that Mark Twain was "boring" it was historic and very unique architecturally.

[EastsideAl]

It sure wasn't boring to me, since it was the library where i learned how to read as a kid. It was an avoidable scandal what happened to the Mark Twain library, which was, in fact, a beautiful building designed by Wirt Rowland, who also designed the Penobscot Building, the Guardian Building, and many other important buildings in this area. It's a real shame that eastside kids will no longer have the opportunity to read, study, and learn in that library, and that as its 'replacement' we have nothing more than yet another vacant lot.

[Ed Golick]

They should have kept the Gibbs building with its porcelain panel facade and levelled the cinder block building next to it for parking.

[Occurrence]

I think many that would disagree that Mark Twain was "boring" it was historic and very unique architecturally.

You got me wrong, it was a very interesting building, but the inside was modernized some time back, and it was far too destroyed to get any good photos out of. It was worth a visit, but I wouldn't have considered it a urban exploring hotspot.

It is a shame they tore it down, I don't understand why they did it, especially when there are dozens of other buildings in the area in far worse shape.