Rare 1970s and 1980s Photos of 9 Mile and Van Dyke

[313WX]

All credit goes to the owner of these photos [[they are not mine).

http://guarnieri.com/motorcity/building.htm

[[looking north)



[[looking SW)



[[looking south)



[[looking south at night)



[[looking NW)

[mtburb]

...and long before all of that was torn down for typical suburban intersection retail chain development. That now indeed looks like it was quite a different world back then.

[[and also bumping since apparently these sorts of threads are back in style)

[Bham1982]

That's amazing. It was actually urban, and walkable.

If Warren would have held out on demolishing everything, it could have, possibly, become a desirable inner-ring city, instead of the semi-slum it's become.

The current corner contains a Burger King, McDonalds, Coney Island and Walgreens. It couldn't be more generic. And the blocks between 8 Mile and 9 Mile now look as bad as south of 8 Mile.

[313WX]

That's amazing. It was actually urban, and walkable.

If Warren would have held out on demolishing everything, it could have, possibly, become a desirable inner-ring city, instead of the semi-slum it's become.

The current corner contains a Burger King, McDonalds, Coney Island and Walgreens. It couldn't be more generic. And the blocks between 8 Mile and 9 Mile now look as bad as south of 8 Mile.

The 9 Mile and Van Dyke is also the most dangerous part of Warren. For a long time, it was home to many of the Tool & Die shops as well as Machine / Fabrication shops that supported the Auto Industry. Those jobs have since either been offshored, have moved out to Northern Oakland / Macomb County or have been automated, and thus leaving behind what you see now in that area.

I went to the Comerica Bank that was at 9 Mile and Van Dyke a few years ago [[it was recently shuttered) and the tellers were behind a brick wall. You had to talk to them through a telephone and computer screen. It was the weirdest thing I had ever seen. Both myself and another customer in the bank at the time were both thinking to ourselves that even the branches in the city weren't THAT bad.

There was also a news story recently [[last year?) about a Wild Wild West type of shootout between a customer and someone who attempted to rob the Charter One bank across the street from the aforementioned Comerica Bank.

[Meddle]

I went to the Comerica Bank that was at 9 Mile and Van Dyke a few years ago [[it was recently shuttered) and the tellers were behind a brick wall. You had to talk to them through a telephone and computer screen. It was the weirdest thing I had ever seen.

I saw that once at a very 'suburban' bank out here in the sticks where there is virtually no crime at all. The same tellers handled the drive up windows. There was NO ONE in the lobby area you could talk to in person except one loan officer.

I told that person off, then went home and wrote a nasty letter to the bank's home office and closed my account.

[mtburb]

That's amazing. It was actually urban, and walkable.

If Warren would have held out on demolishing everything, it could have, possibly, become a desirable inner-ring city, instead of the semi-slum it's become.

The current corner contains a Burger King, McDonalds, Coney Island and Walgreens. It couldn't be more generic. And the blocks between 8 Mile and 9 Mile now look as bad as south of 8 Mile.

Not even "downtown" Center Line is the same...

[detroitsgwenivere]

I moved to 9 and Van Dyke for about a year back in the early 2000s to help out with the kids. It wasn't the hood hood, but you'd get the occasional serious crime that made the neighborhood cringe. It's proximity to 8 mile attracted criminal opportunists to pull in-and-out robberies, lots of young people out and about after school with nothing to do and no jobs, which made neighbors nervous. I'm willing to bet that several of those small businesses in the pictures above hired a bunch of local young people, which I'm guessing kept the crime down.

Does anyone know when K-Mart/Sears came to Van Dyke? Or when Wal-Mart was built?

[mtburb]

Does anyone know when K-Mart came to Van Dyke? Or when Wal-Mart was built?

Early 2000's I believe. That Kmart was very, very short-lived.