Charles Lindbergh

[unclefrank]

I understand that he was born in Detroit. Was his birthplace ever noted or preserved?

[lilpup]

Nope, wiped out when the Lodge was built.
He didn't live here, he was just born here at a relative's house.

[Zimm]

according to family lore, my great-grandmother, who lived on Alter [[1st block west of Jefferson) used to babysit him when he was a child. i suspect his family lived either on Alter or Ashland.

[Ray1936]

Lindbergh was born on W. Forest, just west of the John Lodge. The house was NOT torn own for the Lodge Freeway; it survived that until about 1975 or so when it was torn down for urban renewal. There used to be a large brass historical marker on the porch of the house. I don't know if it's still on site or not; shame if it is not.

The house was on the north side of the steet.

[jcole]

Charles Lindbergh and his links to Detroit
He was born at 1220 W Forest

[jcole]

Apparently the article I linked is a little confused. It gives the address as 1220 in the text and 1120 below the picture.
Great proofreading

[EastsideAl]

My mother grew up right around the corner from that house on Brooklyn St., in a big old dusty Victorian that her uncle owned. When my sister and I were kids she never failed to point that house out when we drove by, and told us how excited she was as a child to grow so close to a place attached to someone so famous as Lindbergh.

She was quite upset when they tore it, and the rest of that very nice neighborhood of beautiful old homes [[think Woodbridge district, but a little older) down in the early '70s, after clearing most of the rest of it out over the preceding decade and a half. Yet another moment of woeful short-sightedness in Detroit's mostly terrible history of urban "improvement."

[unclefrank]

Is the area now too a slum?

[EastsideAl]

No, the housing they built there is pretty nice. And in that sense the area is probably less a "slum" now than when they tore the old houses down, particularly with the gentrification of much of the nearby Woodbridge area just to the west and the emptying of the projects to the south. But the bland newer housing is nowhere near as nice as the irreplaceable and beautiful, if aged and a little worn, housing that it replaced.

[Evelyn]

Ray1936 is right. While doing some research for a Detroit history book, I came across this info: the house was used as a rental property for almost 30 years, and Wayne State's pharmacy fraternity Kappa Psi used it as a fraternity house before it was demolished.

[FlyingJ]

I recall reading somewhere that Coleman Young took it upon himself personally to make sure Lindbergh's birthplace got the wrecking ball, I dunno if it was due to aviator envy or what. As the previous article mentioned Lindbergh was the grand-nephew of John C Lodge

[Ray1936]

I think 1220 would probably be right, JCole, based on my memory of driving past the place hundreds of times in the sixties. 1120 would be on the corner of the Lodge, and this was up the street a tad. Whatever.

The houses in that area, say, from 14th to the Lodge, from W. Warren down to Michigan, were all of the old Victorian style homes from the 1890s to very early 1900s. [[I guess any built after 1901 would be called Edwardian, but I'm splitting hairs). They were rich in ornate gingerbread trim throughout, beautiful to the eye but a nightmare to maintain. In my time at the 2nd Precinct, which covered all that area, the 1960s, the homes were getting a run-down appearance due to the lack of upkeep. Although mostly brick homes, the wood trim looked throughout as though it hadn't seen a fresh coat of paint since the 1930s. Few had attractive landscaping any more, with many front lawns being bare earth.

Brooklyn, Lincoln, Trumbull, Commonwealth, Avery.....all those streets were once lined with magnificent homes. But, then, once I was young, too.

[szla]

from my recollection going to wayne and living in several spots in the neighborhood from 1970 on, the newspaper articles at the time seem to suggest that wayne had plans for the property in the area and even if one had a desire to purchase and rehab a house or building, a bank loan for the money was hard to get as wayne was going to eventually grab the property.

[Lorax]

Lindbergh I thought had a connection to Grosse Pointe Park, as I recall. There was or is a home on either Pemberton or Barrington that either he and his wife lived in, or perhaps it was her parents home originally, just a distant memory of something like that.

[unclefrank]

I read that his mother was living Grosse Pte. Park when she died.

[jcole]

In the article I posted above, it talks about the facts that his mother lived at 178 Ashland, where she listened to the radio coverage of his cross Atlantic flight, as well as the fact that she was living in Grosse Pointe when she died. It also mentions the fact that he and his family lived at Cranbrook for a year. It's a very interesting article with all kinds of facts in it if you read it.

[Detroitnerd]

I doubt Coleman liked Lindbergh much. Charlie got a little bit too hyped up on Hitler for the establishment's comfort, and I could imagine CAY chuckling about having his birthplace ripped down.

[unclefrank]

Didn't Coleman Young's birthplace get torn down when they built one of the freeways?

[jcole]

Not unless the freeway you're talking about was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama where he was born.

[Detroitnerd]

I think Coleman Young had to move when they rammed I-75 through the Hastings Street neighborhood in the late '50s and early '60s. He later complained that the Poletown residents at least got something when they had to move. Clearly, the subtext was that Coleman was giving it as good as he got, and having the last laugh. For a better demagogue, you'd have to wake L. Brooks up from a cocktail nap and let him rip.

[MIRepublic]

I heard Coleman supplied to the nails for the crucifixion of Jesus. I also saw Coleman dancing with the devil. I also heard Coleman was spotted creeping around the city a day prior to the Great Fire of 1805 and was solely behind the initiation of the Twelfth Street Riot of '67. And, I heard he personally and illegally evicted as many white Detroiters from their homes as possible before leaving office leaving them no other option but to move to Warren and Livonia!

[Ray1936]

I heard Coleman supplied to the nails for the crucifixion of Jesus. I also saw Coleman dancing with the devil. I also heard Coleman was spotted creeping around the city a day prior to the Great Fire of 1805 and was solely behind the initiation of the Twelfth Street Riot of '67. And, I heard he personally and illegally evicted as many white Detroiters from their homes as possible before leaving office leaving them no other option but to move to Warren and Livonia!

That's the way I heard it.

[pffft]

Actually, Lindbergh attended Central High for a year...his other stint in the area -- when he worked for Ford during WWII he and his family lived adjacent to Cranbrook, in Bloomfield Hills.

http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=153

[Lowell]

I remember that house being pointed out to me by some artists friends who had a co-op house on Brooklyn in the early seventies. Hmm.. okay... I thought, unimpressed. One has to remember that Lucky Lindy's fame was as far in the past as the moon landing would be to someone now who the same age I was then. Tempus fugit.

Also lol MIRepublic.

[Lowell]

O-M-G, I just followed Pffft's link. When Lindbergh came back to the D after his flight there was a celebration held at 'Northwestern' field.

Am I correct to assume that was the future site of Northwestern HS / Olympia et. al and that we are seeing the construction of Lee Plaza in the background??

Capt. Lindbergh addresses crowd of 60,000 Aug. 10, 1927 at Northwestern Field during daylong celebrations honoring the city's native son.

Earlier that morning Capt. Lindbergh flew his 'Spirit of St. Louis' to the Ford Airport in Dearborn, where he was greeted by Ford and his staff pilot, local aviation ace, Harry Brooks. Although Ford had been a pioneer in aviation manufacturing he had never been up in an airplane. At the invitation of Lindbergh he took his first plane ride.