Southwest corner of Fort and Schaefer and other similarly-demolished neighborhoods

[mtburb]

I am surprised this has barely ever been brought up. This is for entire neighborhoods that were wiped off the map to make room for freeways and infrastructure and roadways related to them.

I start this with one such classic location-the entire southwest corner of Fort Street and Schaefer. Today, it is, of course, occupied by I-75 and associated ramps. An average person at that location does not know that long ago, there was a bustling residential area in that location. Then, in 1965, it was all knocked down for what is now there.

Here are before-and-after aerial photos of this neighborhood from 1961 [[top) and 1967 [[bottom).

[Király]

It's the story of urban America in the 50s and 60s.

Search DY for Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. Lots of threads but I don't remember any popping up recently.

[EastsideAl]

Freeways were also used as an excuse to "clear" neighborhoods deemed to be "undesirable" or"outmoded". Paradise Valley is a prime example, as are old Chinatown, Skid Row, the Western Market, and the south part of Corktown. Even areas that weren't directly in the path of the freeway itself, but just nearby [[like Chinatown) were often cleared as "slums" as part of the freeway building project. The entire east half of what we now call Woodbridge, where my mother grew up, was demolished as part of the building of the Lodge Freeway, because it was seen at the time as a hopelessly outmoded neighborhood full of Victorian homes that were 'hideous' old-fashioned eyesores.