Where is your first home?

[Danny]

I was wondering from all the forumers about your first childhood home. Did have a great time in your first neighborhood? Was it an experience or dangerous. Did you all have a great or unstable memories in your first home. Any thoughts?


My first home was at 16210 Lawton St. in Detroit's Northwest Side in 1977 to 1985. It's a three family flat brick house. Very nice and well kept neighborhood. No abandon home there. Every neigbhorhood knew every neighborhood. I used to play oustide with some friends until the street lights came on. I have to share a bedroom with my little sister. I have a great time there. Everyone was quite safe as long as the crackheads from Highland Park don't take over. Our neighorhood watch and block clubs will band together and stop any invader who tries to mess up our hood. The people there were mostly black middle class families with few white families and Jewish families. Most of them were living near Palmer Park as long their synagogue Temple Israel is in business. University of Detroit is a very nice campus with a clock tower that chimes every 30 minutes. Lots of kids black, white and Jew went to Gesu School next to Gesu Catholic Church. Very nice building and a decorate gymnasium. There were some mom and pop stores along McNichols St. The Avenue of Fashion on W. 7 Mile Rd. was filled with exotic stores that could rival Downtown Ferndale. It was totally beautiful all over the Bagley, University Homes, Sherwood Forest, and Palmer Woods and Palmer Park area. I my dad used to took me and little sister to Palmer Park. The lake was clean and sparkly. The Palmer Family Cabin is there, but close for many years, Only open by private appointments. There were kids, families and friends playing there. The full line of apartments were nice. Nothing were tore up. Those were the fine memories of the piece of the 48221 area.

[corktownyuppie]

I was wondering from all the forumers about your first childhood home. Did have a great time in your first neighborhood? Was it an experience or dangerous. Did you all have a great or unstable memories in your first home. Any thoughts?


My first home was at 16210 Lawton St. in Detroit's Northwest Side in 1977 to 1985. It's a three family flat brick house. Very nice and well kept neighborhood. No abandon home there. Every neigbhorhood knew every neighborhood. I used to play oustide with some friends until the street lights came on. I have to share a bedroom with my little sister. I have a great time there. Everyone was quite safe as long as the crackheads from Highland Park don't take over. Our neighorhood watch and block clubs will band together and stop any invader who tries to mess up our hood. The people there were mostly black middle class families with few white families and Jewish families. Most of them were living near Palmer Park as long their synagogue Temple Israel is in business. University of Detroit is a very nice campus with a clock tower that chimes every 30 minutes. Lots of kids black, white and Jew went to Gesu School next to Gesu Catholic Church. Very nice building and a decorate gymnasium. There were some mom and pop stores along McNichols St. The Avenue of Fashion on W. 7 Mile Rd. was filled with exotic stores that could rival Downtown Ferndale. It was totally beautiful all over the Bagley, University Homes, Sherwood Forest, and Palmer Woods and Palmer Park area. I my dad used to took me and little sister to Palmer Park. The lake was clean and sparkly. The Palmer Family Cabin is there, but close for many years, Only open by private appointments. There were kids, families and friends playing there. The full line of apartments were nice. Nothing were tore up. Those were the fine memories of the piece of the 48221 area.

My first home -- which I left before I was 8 years old -- was over near Denby High at Kelly and Moross in the early 1980s. At the time I was growing up there, I remember the neighborhood being almost all white. I was too young to really put my finger on it but I do recall there being racial tension because when we moved in, everyone thought that because we weren't white, we must have been black...and that kinda riled up the neighbors. Once they got to know us, though, everything was fine...but I do remember thinking that was strange.

We had a cop living next door, a hairdresser across the street, someone a few doors down who ran a Belle Tire, and a few factory workers. I also remember there being some stuff that made me uncomfortable. Factory worker a few doors down was an alcoholic and his wife was in and out of mental hospitals. Across the street was my babysitter who was in her 70s living with her older sister. Neither had married. The babysitter was very kind, but her older sister was an angry witch of a woman. Our other next door neighbor was another older retiree who was really mean.

I remember the high school kids as being mean, troublemakers. There was a black family across the street, but they mainly kept to themselves, and their kids would never come and play with us...though I don't know if that was because they didn't want to or because they didn't feel welcome. Like I said, I was 8.

I liked that most of the kids would come out of their homes and we'd all sit on the sidewalk together, but I didn't really like how people would treat each other when they were angry. There was a lot of angry talk about who did this and who did that, and people were sometimes mean. The more I think about it, people were really petty.

By the time we moved out to East English Village in the mid-80s, more than half of the neighbors we knew on our block had moved out. It's kind of crazy when I think about it. I recall someone putting graffiti on a garage door and that being kind of the beginning of the end.

Haven't been back that way in a long, long time. But I hear 48205 is kinda rough these days. Most of my real childhood was spent in EEV.

[Ray1936]

First home was on Ward and Capitol....don't recall the address. We had the upper left flat. Main thing I remember was going down to the railroad tracks the other side of Foley and watching the steam engines go by.

Here's 1937 and 2009.

[gazhekwe]

I lived on Lyndon near DaCosta in Brightmoor. Our block was all brand new. There was racial tension. Some of the neighbors got up a petition to get us to move out because they thought my dad and me were Filippinos. No Asians [[or blacks) allowed. No mixed race marriages. Turns out, it didn't apply to American Indians though, so the petition died. It was an early introduction to the mysteries of prejudice.

But we did have a great time, all us kids played together outside all day until the street lights came on. We had sled races on the tiny hill in the vacant lot next door in winter. I fell off my bike a million times going over a bump in the sidewalk on Dolphin.

[eno]

First home I was aware of was at 12719 Greenlawn between Buena Vista and Fullerton. It's still standing tho' the Jeffries Freeway cut thru the neighborhood to the north. I lived there until 8 years old when we moved in summer 1960 to northwest Detroit north of 7 Mile/Southfield/Evergreen. Used to walk to the Beverly Theatre for Saturday matinees at a thriving shopping center on Grand River/Oakman Boulevard. Used to put pennies on the railroad tracks in the back yard of the folks who lived across the street. Went to Noble Elementary until the mid-third grade. Was rescued from a house fire at six months old in '52 by a passing milkman on his route. My older brother didn't realize until my birth that his lifelong ambition was to be an only child.

[downtownguy]

12682 Strathmoor, now the westbound express lanes of the Jeffries Fwy.
Detroit 27, Michigan.
VErmont 7-3606.

[corktownyuppie]

VErmont 7-3606.

When and why did they stop using the 2-letter, 5-number system? And I'm curious, my first phone number started with 371-, and the second number was 885-.

What were the words they used for those numbers?

[Ray1936]

When and why did they stop using the 2-letter, 5-number system? And I'm curious, my first phone number started with 371-, and the second number was 885-.What were the words they used for those numbers?

Converson took place by the mid-sixties, to the best of my recollection. Reason was there were some combinations of the first two digits that letters couldn't make a reasonable word, and Ma Bell needed all the combinations they could get. In addition, direct long distance dialing was starting then, and the need for the three digit zone code just was the final blow. Can't say for sure what your 371 exchange would have been, but 885 would have beenTUxedo 5-xxxx.This old timer can even remember telephone numbers with only six letters/digits. Our home on Steel had DAvison 2539 for a number until about 1952, when it changed to WEbster 4-2539 as Ma Bell changed to 7-digit numbers. Guys older than me probably recall fewer digits than that. Here's gramps letterhead fronm 1905 showing four digits.

[shovelhead]

Farmington Township way before it became Farmington Hills.......

[Buy American]

Converson took place by the mid-sixties, to the best of my recollection. Reason was there were some combinations of the first two digits that letters couldn't make a reasonable word, and Ma Bell needed all the combinations they could get. In addition, direct long distance dialing was starting then, and the need for the three digit zone code just was the final blow. Can't say for sure what your 371 exchange would have been, but 885 would have beenTUxedo 5-xxxx.This old timer can even remember telephone numbers with only six letters/digits. Our home on Steel had DAvison 2539 for a number until about 1952, when it changed to WEbster 4-2539 as Ma Bell changed to 7-digit numbers. Guys older than me probably recall fewer digits than that. Here's gramps letterhead fronm 1905 showing four digits.

371 was probably DRexel

[MikeM]

Yes, 371 was DRexel and 885 was Tuxedo. 1961 was the first year the phone company started printing directories with all-digit phone numbers. All through the 1960s phone books would use a combination of 2-letter, 5-digit phone numbers and 7-digit phone numbers, even for the same exchange. I can't remember when the last prefixes were phased out; probably early 1970s.

[beachboy]

Yes, 371 was DRexel and 885 was Tuxedo. 1961 was the first year the phone company started printing directories with all-digit phone numbers. All through the 1960s phone books would use a combination of 2-letter, 5-digit phone numbers and 7-digit phone numbers, even for the same exchange. I can't remember when the last prefixes were phased out; probably early 1970s.

Right. Some of the alphabetic prefixes persisted into the 1970s:

"The letter system was phased out, beginning before 1965 [[though it persisted ten years later in some places, and was included in Bell of Pennsylvania directories until 1983), but alphabetic dialing remains as a commercial mnemonic gimmick, particularly for toll-free numbers. For example, one can dial 1-800-FLOWERS to send flowers to someone, or 1-800-DENTIST to find a local dentist."

from following article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_A...Numbering_Plan

This is a nice thread. I can't add to it - born in the Thumb - but some relatives lived in Detroit near old St. Anne's and we visited them often.

[Detroitej72]

My first home -- which I left before I was 8 years old -- was over near Denby High at Kelly and Moross in the early 1980s.

CTY, we were neighbors! Do you remember the Morang Butcher shop, Mr. C's Deli, Kelly/ Morang Drugs, Chatums, and Lawson's?

I went to Burbank Middle School and 2 years at Dendy, with elementary school at McGregor.

[RaumVogel]

I was raised in Taylor...

[softailrider]

19499 Littlefield. North of 7 Mile, between Vassar and St. Martins. The house is still there, the neighborhood has always remained stable, that street looks almost as good as it did 50 years ago. Most of the neighbors were nice, reasonable people, with an asshole or two mixed in, just like every other place I've lived.

[SMRJim]

Born at 14624 Prevost, lived there from 1960 til 1983. 3 blocks west of Greenfield, between Grand River and Eaton. Two short blocks from St Marys of Redford church and school, went to school there grades 1-12 after going to Edison for Kindergarten. Great place to grow up as a kid. Grand River/Greenfield shopping area was thriving when I was growing up, Wards, Kresges, Federals, everyone used to go up there and hang out at some point. Had every kind of business imaginable within walking distance, Cook Park was down at Prevost and Fenkell, played lots of pickup baseball games there, played Little League ball at O'Shea, Many, many kids in the neighborhood.

[Hermod]

Converson took place by the mid-sixties, to the best of my recollection.

Ray, it was before 1954. I remember that we changed from PRospect 3324 to LAkeview 7-3324 before we left Detroit for Rochester in April of 1954. My uncle over on Lakepointe had a PIngree exchange with four digits and my grandfather on St Clair had an IVanhoe exchange with four digits.

[Hermod]

My folks moved back to their native Detroit in 1940 when I was about 18 months old [[I was born in Virginia). We lived briefly on Courville south of Warren until Nov 1941 when my father bought a little brick bungalow at 10681 Nottingham between Whittier and Morang. I lived there until April 1954 when we moved to Rochester. I am 72 now and that was the longest that I have ever lived in one house.

Our neighborhood was mostly German with a few other nationalities sprinkled around. The closest we came to a minority was a Maronite Christian family of Lebanese origin on our block. The only African-American that I can ever remember seeing in our neighborhood was an old junkman who used to cruise our alleys with a one horse cart and pick over the trash to find salable scrap.

I went to Anthony Wayne Elementary [[seven years), Andrew Jackson Intermediate [[two years), and Denby High for part of one year. I never went to school with an African-American kid until we moved to Rochester where there were a few in the school system.

[MikeM]

Ray, it was before 1954. I remember that we changed from PRospect 3324 to LAkeview 7-3324 before we left Detroit for Rochester in April of 1954. My uncle over on Lakepointe had a PIngree exchange with four digits and my grandfather on St Clair had an IVanhoe exchange with four digits.

You're thinking of the change from 6-digit to 7-digit [[2L-5N) phone numbers. We're talking about the switch from named prefixes to all numerals.

[Donovan]

My first home was near Beniteau, and Charleviox on the east side. Even with the riots, and business's burning during the 67 riots it was great. I wouldn"t trade it for anything. Even though there was a lot of racial tension during the time, all of the kids got along. It was sad to see the whole neighborhood was taken out for Chrysler. I went Lillibridge and graduated from there, then we moved to the Chalmers and Mack area.

[Jimaz]

Here's a cute piece of trivia: Detroit's 313 area code was chosen in part because it could be dialed quickly on rotary phones.

From Wikipedia's Telephone numbering plan article:

Area codes were assigned based on the length of time a rotary dial phone took to dial the area code. Densely populated areas like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Detroit had huge incoming call volume and were assigned numbers [[212, 312, 213, 313) that could be quickly dialed from a rotary dial phone. On a rotary dial phone low digits [[1, 2, 3, 4) could dial quickly as the time the rotary dial took to return to the home position was minimal. High digit numbers [[7, 8, 9, 0) on rotary dial phones took much longer to return to the home position and were usually used in less densely populated areas like rural Texas [[915). This numbering strategy became unnecessary when touch-tone phones arrived, as the tone allowed instant entry of digits.

[Detroit_uke]

First home - 6433 Willette, Detroit 48210. From 1954-1970. House sold in 1970. Turned into a blind pig and burned to the ground in '72. Phone: TY 8-2536. Willette is near Warren and Livernois.

[GUSHI]

3920 miller, 1980-1994, went to mass at resurrection, closed in 1989,became a mosk shorthly after, was a alter boy at resurrection, went to st lads k-8 st florian 9-10, mixed hood. Started getting in fights w yemans, at this time most the area was yeman, parents decide to move to macomb twp.

[Steveb78]

Lannette, between Hayes and Chalmers. Attended Guardian Angels School, Kelly and Houston Whitier.

[Hermod]

Before you could dial long distance, the long distance operators used to use the area codes. When i was going to college in a small town in Virginia and would call home, the operator would call the LD operator for "routing" to Rochester, Michigan and the answer would always be "three-one-three plus two-L plus".