Remembering the PJs: What was torn down to build the now defunct Jeffries Projects??

[drpoundsign]

Always curious about this. Was it nice [[or not so nice) Victorian housing? Commercial buildings or tenements? It was built about 60 years ago and imploded in 2001. Now converted to "mixed use housing"

[5speedz34]

My understanding from some light research that I have done would be that the housing stock would have had some Victorians/Gilded Age architecture due to it's proximity to Brush Park. Look at what is on Trumbull Ave right now, Victorians with a mix of early 20th Century architecture. It would have looked like Woodbridge basically.

[DetroitPlanner]

One thing that needs to be considered is that decades prior Detroit's elite had moved on from Brush Park to places such as Boston-Edison or Indian Village. At the same time Detroit had lots of jobs for able-bodied men who had to stay somewhere. Many of these places were turned into rooming houses and were maintained in much of the same manner as today's Section 8 properties.

Yes this area would have had victorians probably a few years older than what is founf in Woodbridge [[which is considerably further out from the CBD). But the context would have changed from the neighborhood being full of the wealthy elite to being that of a working-man's slum. At the time these were the sorts of areas that were ripe for Urban re-Development. If the area was still home of the elite they would not have cleared it to build low income housing as there was a double standard.

[Danny]

The Jeffries Projects were demolished due to flow of crime, drugs and sorrow for low and fixed income [[Black) Detroiters. It was already dead community since the 1970s. Building some middle income houses and apts. for mostly middle income residents by means of gentrification provides a beacon of hope from blight and restore Detroit's image. I feel really sorry for the have nots, but if they want to make it to the top of the world, they would have to use education instead of the streets.

[5speedz34]

If you notice in Woodbridge the oldest homes[[aside from Trumbull) are usually found at the corner lots. I would venture to guess this would have been the same for the streets where the Jeffries Projects where later built. You're right though Danny, between WWI-WWII many of the old Victorians where converted into apartments or multi-family homes.

Living in Woodbridge now though, I can only imagine what it would have been like living that close to the Jeffries in the 70's and 80's!

[drpoundsign]

It would be hard to look this up, I think because even the Names of streets have changed [[to honor Motown or Sports heroes.) I have read that in the past "Inner city Detroiters lived in a Dickinsonian Hell with wood stoves for heating and rats all over" Can't Imagine there were too many Franklin Stoves in the late 20th century anymore?

[Al Publican]

What is PJ's? Born in DET and lived in the city for decades. Never heard the term PJ's.

[313WX]

What is PJ's? Born in DET and lived in the city for decades. Never heard the term PJ's.

It's a play on Eddie Murphy's cartoon "The PJs" [[which was about people living in the projects). Actually, it was modeled after the Brewster-Douglas projects.

PJs stands for The Projects.

[313WX]

Oh, and now that I've did a bit more research, I had no idea Lily Tomlin grew up in the Brewster-Douglas projects.

[Jason]

Yeah a lot of people grew up in the projects or have connections to them.

I've always liked this photo of the Supremes.




But as far as what would be at those locations if the projects were never built? There would be wastelands. Those areas were the worst of the slums even back in Detroit's heydey

I think what's more interesting is that Woodbridge wasn't killed by the projects. There are a few blocks of devastated land in between them but Woodbridge itself survived. Woodbridge historically had a lot of community activists living there and the Jeffries was the better of the projects so maybe that had something to do with it?

[drpoundsign]

I dunno about "Wastelands." The Douglas Brewster footprint IS a wasteland. Yes that was the "Black Bottom/Hastings" area [[that may have been the ONLY Slum back in the day) but I don't know if that holds true for The Jeffries Block or Herman's Gardens. In Chicago, the Robert Taylor Homes and Cabrini-Green PJs Sucked and are long gone

[drpoundsign]

They tore down a LOT of stuff to expand WSU and the Medical Center. Charles Lindberg's boyhood home was demolished to build the athletic field

[twodjr]

Two aerials of this area: You can compare easily with the triangular-ish building that is now Norm's Liquor express at the corner of Grand River, Trumbull, and MLK [[a street that does not yet exist in this photos!)

Here is an aerial view of the Jeffries projects area in 1949, shortly before construction. Norm's Liquor Express building is cut off at the bottom middle of the photo. You can see how there are noticeable vacancies in this area.



Here's an aerial photo from the 1930s. Norm's Liquor Express is located at the middle right side of the photo.The southern half of the neighborhood that became the Jeffries is visible on the right side, at the top of the photo.

[drpoundsign]

WOW! Aerials. good stuff. There was The Globe A theater that went Adult and is long gone there. Amazing it survived The 67 riot

[Bham1982]

In Chicago, the Robert Taylor Homes and Cabrini-Green PJs Sucked and are long gone

Robert Taylor homes were torn down, but Cabrini Green is still there. They only tore down the Cabrini Green highrises; the lowrise townhouses stayed.

[JenniferL]

If you notice in Woodbridge the oldest homes[[aside from Trumbull) are usually found at the corner lots. I would venture to guess this would have been the same for the streets where the Jeffries Projects where later built. You're right though Danny, between WWI-WWII many of the old Victorians where converted into apartments or multi-family homes.

Living in Woodbridge now though, I can only imagine what it would have been like living that close to the Jeffries in the 70's and 80's!

I am not a Woodbridge resident, but I clearly remember what that area looked like in the early 1990s, when I took a WSU education class at Edmonson Elementary on Canfield. The northern edge of the Jeffries Projects was across the street from the school. We students were told NOT to park there EVER.

Between Edmonson and Trumbull, there was nothing but an empty field. I understand there used to be an A&P on that site, which burned down during the riots. The apartment complex that's there now was build sometime in the late 1990s.

There were many Victorian homes still standing on Lincoln, Gibson, and some of those other streets, but nearly all of them were vacant. When I returned to the neighborhood some years later, only a few hadn't been torn down. The renovated houses on Trumbull were not renovated then. Some were abandoned, others were occupied but in poor condition. That area changed so much during the 1990s that when I happened to drive through there in 2000, it took a moment before I recognized the place.

[MrsApricot]

Songwriting legend Lamont Dozier grew up in the Jeffries Projects. He writes about the early days in his memoir How Sweet It Is. And about how one day in 1967, he went back, hoping to reconnect with some old friends. He barely escaped with his life.