Rare 1970's, 1980's and 1990's Photos of Downriver West Jefferson/Fort St. Corridors

[mtburb]

I hope 313WX dosen't sue me...

None of these photos are mine, they are all part of this Flickr profile: https://www.flickr.com/photos/92760331@N04/

That profile was created by the folks at this site:
http://www.downriverthings.com/

Taken circa 1974-75, looking north from Biddle Avenue and Pennsylvania Road in Wyandotte, this shows a glimpse of the old BASF South Works plant. It later closed by 1980 and was completely demolished by 1989. On that site now? A nine-hole golf course.


Taken in December 1989, looking up Biddle from top floor of the old Sears store [[which closed twelve years earlier), that Christmas season, the city of Wyandotte experimented with allowing parking in what was usually the center left-turn lane while narrowing thru traffic down to a single lane in each direction with a speed limit of 25 MPH. Today, Traffic Jam Boutique occupies the Wilson Shoes storefront. Note that a lot of the cars here still have boxy frames, even though the 1990's would begin in less than a month...


On July 16, 1990, a fire leveled the old Neisner Brothers dime store in downtown Wyandotte at Biddle and Maple, which by that point had been operating as a makeshift indoor mall for twelve years.


The Wyandotte Theater in 1994.


Taken in the 1970's, the old Starvin Marvin's strip club on Fort Street just north of Oak Street in Wyandotte, where Simbol Auto Glass was located as of 2013.


Taken in the early 1990's, storefronts along the south side of Eureka Road between 11th and 13th Streets. Ron's Bar & Grill is now the Rockery, whose building is the only one along the south side of Eureka between 11th and 12th still standing today, the other buildings have been torn down for an apartment development called Wililamsburg Square [[which was completed around 2004), which features offices I think were never occupied.


The Harbor Theater in Ecorse during demolition in 1988 or 1989.


Taken sometime in the 1980's, the old downtown Lincoln Park White Castle is torn down for a newer White Castle on the same block.


Taken in 1972, the Lincoln Park Theater, which was switching to adult flicks and would continue showing them all the way until around 2005, much longer than the other Downriver theaters that also showed similar movies.


West Jefferson in River Rouge looking towards Delray in the very late 1970's.


Taken on February 17, 1995, the new River Rouge High School during construction.


An abandoned Fort George Drive-In in 1991.


Taken in 1973, Fort Street in front of the Southgate White Castle.


The Korvette City complex in Southgate sits abandoned in 1991. Only two years later, it would be torn down and the vacant lot remained until a Super Kmart opened on the site in early 1999 and will close on October 12th.


West Jefferson and Saint Joseph in Trenton in 1976 [[looking south)


[[looking north)


The 1984 Trenton Christmas Parade:

[313WX]

By all means, please post more of these pictures...

I love seeing the images from this transitional time in Metro Detroit's history [[1970s and 1980s).

[XDetroitr]

Thanks for posting pictures of the Downriver area. Growing up there, it was often overlooked by the residents of the rest of the metro area. I was often amazed at the number of native metro Detroiters who had never even heard of many of the Downriver communities.

[Lowell]

Interesting pictures mtburb. Everyday pictures like those tell a very special story unlike posed glamor pics.

[scottn55]

Great photos! I'm being a little nitpicky here but the top photo [[BASF) is probably from a few years later than stated. The rectangular headlamps featured on the Chevrolet G-Van in the foreground weren't offered until the 1978 model year when federal regulators first approved them.

[mtburb]

Here's some brand new photos showing the last remaining portion of the old South Works cement plant being torn down in 1991. The plant's signature smokestacks come down in a fashion to the demolition of the Seven Sisters power plant five years later while Biddle Avenue is being reworked into a boulevard.



In addition, Place Promo also features late 1970's photos of various Wyandotte and Ecorse buildings, both still existing in 2014 and since demolished, starting on page 358 of the overall address list, running through page 501, with Wyandotte listings ending on page 477 and Ecorse listings starting on page 494. Wyandotte has the second-most amount of photographs on this site, behind Detroit.
http://placepromo.com/search_results...tion=&page=358

[lpg]

Still have a knocker from Starvin' Marvins.

[mtburb]

Not a photo, but it's actually a Sketchup visualization I created of Biddle Avenue near Central Avenue on December 29, 1987, showing how little was left then of the South Works [[mainly the cement plant).

[mtburb]

And bumping my own thread since these sorts of threads are now apparently back in style...

I do have a few more of my own renderings that I have gotten around to in recent times that relate to this that I'll post when they are complete so as to provide new looks at things that were hardly ever photographed back in the day, especially my own current neighborhood.

[MicrosoftFan]

God bless the forgotten suburbs, god bless downriver.

[jiminnm]

I once lived in an apartment complex behind the Fort George [[Village Green?). We could watch movies at a distance from a window but, alas, no sound.