Abandonment of alleys

[Király]

Something I've noticed on Google Street View are the huge areas of the city where garage access was through back alleys. Now the alleys are overgrown and unused, and residents have cut driveways through their properties to the street.

Was the conversion of alley access to street access planned by the city? Or did it just happen on its own?

[313WX]

It just happened on its own

As Detroit's population declined, there was just less need for alley use. Besides that, it just become too unsafe to use Alleyways with Detroit's crime problems.

Garbage Pickup in the Alleys ended in the late 60s or early 1970s.

Snyder, I mean Bing, plans to remove all the Alley streetlights over the next few years.

[Shollin]

I lived at 8 Mile and Schoenherr in the late 80's early 90's and they had closed the alley's and increased everyone's property. What doesn't make sense is none of the garages had doors to the alley, so what was the point of the alley? Garbage pickup?

[313WX]

What doesn't make sense is none of the garages had doors to the alley, so what was the point of the alley? Garbage pickup?

Yes, for garbage pickup.

The reason the alleys in inner-city Detroit neighborhoods [[which were older and far denser than the outer ring neighborhoods) weren't closed up is because they still needed access to their garages after garbage pickup ended in the Alleyways.

[Shollin]

Yes, for garbage pickup.

The reason the alleys in inner-city Detroit neighborhoods [[which were older and far denser than the outer ring neighborhoods) weren't closed up is because they still needed access to their garages after garbage pickup ended in the Alleyways.

When I was kind I grew up by the Hamtramck border and our garage was accessed via the alley. I just never understood why the outer neighborhoods had alleys. Did cities like Harper Woods and Eastpointe have alleys?

[313WX]

When I was kind I grew up by the Hamtramck border and our garage was accessed via the alley. I just never understood why the outer neighborhoods had alleys. Did cities like Harper Woods and Eastpointe have alleys?

I'm not sure about Eastpointe and Harper Woods. If they did have Alleyways, it doesn't look like there was ever access to them.

Besides Garbage Pickup, the alleys were probably so Detroit Edison could have access to the power lines

[GUSHI]

When We lived on the hamtramck Detroit border my garage door was in the alleys, only way if you wanted to park in the garage

[detroitsgwenivere]

The alleys behind my boyfriends house [[8 mile/ john r) and in his neighborhood were used for garbage pick up and garage access. Edison had to use the alleys because the spaces between everyone's houses were too narrow to drive between [[now the trucks have to drive up into the vacant lots to get to the poles). They were not solid concrete, but a layer of small, broken up concrete rocks. They also had big public dumpsters, not the black, plastic and rubber cans. There were never any working lights in the alleys on his side of john r, but the other side had them.

My boyfriend has told me stories about how creepy the alleys became as he grew up. The kids liked to play in them during the day, riding bikes, throwing rocks at each other and climbing on garage roofs. But the alleys were basically a criminal access route and there were frequent car chases, backyard thefts, dumpster fires, bodies found in the dumpsters, and bodies of prostitutes and addicts laying in bushes that grew along the edges.

The use of the alleys over there came to an end about '95. Once they were decommissioned, the alleys grew over, and since there weren't many driveways most of the garages went up in flames. Now people use empty fields as their driveways.

The alleys in several neighborhoods in Detroit are still in use, including for trash pick up. Corktown is one of them. Usually they are fully paved and have neighbors who are willing to clean them up. Highland park and hamtramck still use most of their alleys as well.

[Chinman]

hi folks,
if you drive down any old neighborhood of detroit, you would notice that the homes are 5 feet away from each other. they did not have driveways next to the houses. more homes means more density. in the 30's and 40's, alleys were a way to access all the homes in a single road. i.e. trash, utilities, etc.

[DetroitPlanner]

Yes, for garbage pickup.

The reason the alleys in inner-city Detroit neighborhoods [[which were older and far denser than the outer ring neighborhoods) weren't closed up is because they still needed access to their garages after garbage pickup ended in the Alleyways.

Actually density is not that much different. The number of homes per acre would be about the same. Alley garages and trash pick up require more room so that cars can not only get around the trash but also turn enough to get into a garage or allow another car to pass. This would mean an additional 24 ft R.O.W. If you wanted your 30' lot to have a garage, you would need additional length in order to fit everything on the lot.

Interestingly enough, alleys are coming back in vogue. Check out all of the pavement in this new subdivision with alleys.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Mason+...Mason+Run&z=19

My house in Warrendale still has an alley behind it. Its a pain because it is over-run. All homes with alley access garages are now abandoned so no one really use it. Occasionally I have had to chase off drug addicts or hookers. It is also a dumping ground in the area closest to Warren.

[Hermod]

The primary purpose of the alleys in the newer parts of the cities was trash [ickup and utility access. The alleys were "semi-paved" and were just wide enough for the trash and garbage cans on each side and one lane of traffic for the garbage trucks and the trash trucks [[separate pickups on different days).

We had no special "dumpsters" as our trash can was a 55 Gallon drum with a wooden top. Our garbage can was the basic galvanized metal round can. You didn't have to remember to schlepp your cans out to the street and there weren't all of the mess and unsightliness associated with curbside pickup.

Few people drove in the alleys as they were usually full of glass and nails. We boys used to use the alleys to commute to and from school as there was no traffic and you could stop off behind some convenient trash barrel if you needed to take a leak. The girls and little kids used the sidewalks on the street to commute.

[Detroitej72]

Growing up at 7 Mile and Gratiot in the 70's & 80's, us kids used the alleys as our playground. As someone mentioned earlier, they weren't paved, but large gravel rocks. Every few years the city would send a plow down the alley to turn over the ground, then add a new layer of gravel on top. All the boys in the neighborhood would love to play "kill the man with the ball", our version of football. Getting tackled on it hurt worst than cement because the rocks would gouge out your skin, and by sucking up the pain, we thought it made us into men.

Alleys were also good for riding our bikes through, we made a sport out of peddling real fast, then skidding as hard as we could to see who could leave the longest marks in the gravel. Another fun activity was playing a form of tag where we'd have set boundaries and their was always some good hiding places in old garages where we'd never get found.

We also did mischievous things in the alleys as well, like going "garage hopping" which consisted of climbing onto one garage and jumping to the next. Some older boys taught us this trick, but one time I saw one of my buddies fall off and break his foot and I never tried that again.

Many folks had fruit trees in their yards back then, so naturally if any branches hung out into the alley, we considered it fair game and open for the taking. Yes, we had some good times in the alleys.

[Gannon]

Many of the Dearborn blocks, at least on the west side, had alleys which the city closed during the summer of '78 at least. I was on that work crew...through some jobs program for youth at the time.

No, the courts had nothing to do with it.

We had to cut down weeds and clean up while the men-in-the-yellow-trucks used the heavy equipment to break up and remove the concrete. That was the summer I learned the rhythm and pace of union labor, or how to get as little done in a day without pissing off the supervision.

But even my father's property near Outer Drive and Southfield had easements that he had to outbid his neighbors for...he got one of the two available at his corner. That was after 1982, so Dearborn was still removing 'em then. They've a quaint gazebo there, he's a few more blades of grass to tend...and they installed a neat tile path to their friend next door. No fences in that part of the 'hood.


Cheers

[Gannon]

We also did mischievous things in the alleys as well, like going "garage hopping" which consisted of climbing onto one garage and jumping to the next. Some older boys taught us this trick, but one time I saw one of my buddies fall off and break his foot and I never tried that again.

That reminds me of the three-block area games of cops-n-robbers, or war, or even cowboys-n-indians that we played over in the Aviation subdivision in the late-sixties and early-seventies. I was just telling someone about 'em the other day, and remember that I was the one who introduced the rooftop dimension to our warfields. [[realizing fully that there would likely be real gunfire if the kids attempted this today)

Our next-door neighbor, named Chrysler actually, bought those huge Chrysler cars in the fifties and sixties...and his garage needed a two-foot extension built to accommodate 'em. They only made it about five feet high, 'just' the right size for a scramble to the roof. We got the 'jump' on the other team only once, and thankfully nobody ever got hurt.

I think I was inspired by our other neighbor's boy....truly a Son of a Preacher Man, since his father was the Pastor of the Littlefield Presyterian Church in Dearborn...he was a terror. He taught me to jump from the rafters of the garage onto the roof of my mother's Pontiac Tempest convertible...which we fully perforated on about the sixth try.

Good Lord, the memories that get triggered on this forum.


Cheers!

[mikefmich]

When I was kind I grew up by the Hamtramck border and our garage was accessed via the alley. I just never understood why the outer neighborhoods had alleys. Did cities like Harper Woods and Eastpointe have alleys?

I knew HW well enough to draw a map from memory in my younger years. No alleys there. I don't recall any alleys in East Detroit.

[Ray1936]

Ah, yes, the 55-gallon oil drum for burning papers and the galvanized garbage can. Remember them well. And we kids did, indeed, play in the alleys all the time [[I'm talking of the forties and early fifties now.) Also, hollyhocks were found in every alley for some reason. We used to trap bees in the blossoms. To this day, I refer to hollyhocks as "alley flowers". It's not a negative term at all.

[poobert]

I think many of the outer-ring Detroit neighborhoods had alleys but they were closed off and incorporated into the residential parcels. East English Village has no alleys [[except for the commercial roads) but has a couple odd "alley entrances" that dead end as soon as you turn into them off of the east-west sidestreets.

I also know we had alleys at one point because my deed specifically gives me ownership of "my side" of the alley [[which is now just a normal behind-the-garage scenario). I am the proud owner of about 9 feet of Detroit alley. I assume the guy behind me has the other "half" on his deed.

Thank God we don't have them anymore. They're a tremendous liability.

[jerrytimes]

I'm not sure about Eastpointe and Harper Woods. If they did have Alleyways, it doesn't look like there was ever access to them.

Besides Garbage Pickup, the alleys were probably so Detroit Edison could have access to the power lines

I don't believe that either city ever had alleys. I work for one for one of the utility companies and its rather obvious where there used to be one, even if the cement was removed.

[Bluenote132003]

East English Village certainly had alleys, they were closed off in the very late 60's. We lived on Harvard and had an alley that ran lengthwise parallel to Harvard and Cadieux. There was a large storm sewer project that went right down the middle of the alley, connected all the drains from the basements from the houses on both sides of the alley to the new storm sewer. When the sewer pipe was backfilled, they put a common fence straight down the midddle and no more alley. The stink that summer from all the clay that was dug up! Every few years after that, we had to dig up an access panel in the back yard and have a plumber snake out the ceramic drain tiles that ran from the house to the alley. We had a tree in the back yard [[silver maple, not elm) that would clog the tiles with roots. The "end blocks" that bordered E. Warren kept thier alleys that ran the short length of the block for access to the backs of the businesses.

[Danny]

In some Detroit ghettohoods most alleys have to be accessed to their garages [[if they have one). Most Detroit homes built before 1930 don't have driveways since the age of the automobile was in full swing. Some Detroit ghettohoods built after 1930 don't have alleys built in but do have accessible drivaways to their garages. sub-divisions like East English Village, Littlefield and some parts of Grandmont-Rosedale Park area.

If you look SW Detroit, West Side, East Side [[lower areas), broken concrete to dirt and gravel alleys have to be accessed because those homes were built close together.

[GPCharles]

The alleys in the western end of GP Park are still active and used extensively for access to garages and garbage pickup. Seems to work quite well.

[Detroitnerd]

I grew up with an alley in East Dearborn, one of the few alleys that hadn't been decommissioned, as they kept them behind major roads. But it was kind of cool to have an alley. When my family moved later, and we didn't have an alley, I thought it was so strange that people would put their trash out front, right where they planted their marigolds. The alley was definitely a better place to play than the street.

I like alleys. One of my favorite things about Hamtramck are the alleys. They allow for a car-oriented city to have more density by parking in back as well as front.

[Hermod]

The alleys in the western end of GP Park are still active and used extensively for access to garages and garbage pickup. Seems to work quite well.

Alleys are great, unfortunately, Detroit's proliferation of "alley katz" made them too dangerous over the years. Very nice not to schlepp the garbage cans to the curb. Very nice not to have a mess out front on "garbage day". Another case of too bad, so sad.

[Detroitnerd]

Snyder, I mean Bing, plans to remove all the Alley streetlights over the next few years.

These kind of decisions trouble me when you recall that Bing served on DTE's board...

[oladub]

Smart growth/comprehensive planning/sustainability/Agenda 21/New Urbanism planners are friendlier to alleys seeing alleys as wasted space to be reclaimed. Examples:
http://daily.sightline.org/2011/08/2...n-come-free-2/
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/...or-development

"Placing garages and driveways behind houses allows the houses to be brought closer to the sidewalk, enlarging backyards and adding interest and a feeling of enclosure to the street—a feeling that new urbanists believe adds to a walker’s sense of comfort."
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/00/earthpulse/sprawl/gallery2.html

This assumes that alleys are not frequented as crime conduits.