Identify a building's location

**dtowncitylover** · January-27-17, 09:24 AM

Originally Posted by jcole

Slightly off topic, but what are you using to open the DTE maps? I cannot get them to open. I can get the map and click on the links, but then I'm toast. Any help?

Edited because I'm an effing idiot. I DO use Internet Explorer. But the current browser I'm open in is Firefox. My work computer is screwy, I have to use Firefox to type on DYes and use IE for DTE Aerials, and Chrome for everything else.

But there are some things I can't use IE for. Got myself confused...

**Jimaz** · January-27-17, 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by jcole

Slightly off topic, but what are you using to open the DTE maps? I cannot get them to open. I can get the map and click on the links, but then I'm toast. Any help?

Good question though. I've had that problem in the past and was able to work around it somehow. You might try a different browser. Just now I was able to open one of these maps in Firefox only by cobbling together a URL and pasting it to the browser.

This URL for Utica, 1949 worked for me:
http://claslinux.clas.wayne.edu/photos/part1/macomb/1949/ha-3-116.pdf

**catch22** · January-27-17, 01:32 PM

Originally Posted by dtowncitylover

I was looking at the DTE aerials from 1949 and noticed those Ohio apartments. They seemed to be massive! Reminded me of all those neighborhood apartment structures in Chicago...

Does anyone know if those Ohio St. apartments had names?

They probably did, but I can't recall them. Us telco guys just had the addresses of the bad places etched into our brains. [[13501 Dexter was the grand prize winner of them all.)

**jcole** · January-27-17, 03:52 PM

Originally Posted by Jimaz

Good question though. I've had that problem in the past and was able to work around it somehow. You might try a different browser. Just now I was able to open one of these maps in Firefox only by cobbling together a URL and pasting it to the browser.

This URL for Utica, 1949 worked for me:
http://claslinux.clas.wayne.edu/phot...9/ha-3-116.pdf

I have tried Firefox, IE, Chrome and that damned Edge. I think my issue is that I'm on Windows 10 and Edge just takes over and opens everything. I was able to open your link, so I will try cobbling the links like that. Thanks very much.

**Dino** · January-27-17, 06:09 PM

Originally Posted by catch22

They probably did, but I can't recall them. Us telco guys just had the addresses of the bad places etched into our brains. [[13501 Dexter was the grand prize winner of them all.)

Catch, what made that 13501 Dexter so bad? I love listening to old war stories.

**catch22** · January-27-17, 08:57 PM

Originally Posted by Dino

Catch, what made that 13501 Dexter so bad? I love listening to old war stories.

Short list: Drug dealing in the basement in the same room as the telephone equipment. Rats. Roaches. Dead elevator. No secured entrances. Tenants with an extreme aversion to strangers. Unlit hallways. Telephone wiring from the 1930s that was a mess. One of my friends was held up at knifepoint behind the building while he was getting into his truck.

Other than that, it was a cheery place.

A war story re the Ohio apartments: I and a couple of my work buddies were having lunch at the long-departed Northlawn Grill [[NE corner of Grand River and Northlawn). There were some Detroit cops in the next booth, and they overheard us talking about the latest horror show install at one of them. One of them said to us, "You guys go in there alone? That's crazy. We never go in with less than two of us."

**Meddle** · January-28-17, 07:33 AM

Originally Posted by catch22

They probably did, but I can't recall them. Us telco guys just had the addresses of the bad places etched into our brains. [[13501 Dexter was the grand prize winner of them all.)

That address triggered a memory, but turns out it wasn't where I thought it was.

Do you recall a place on Davison? Might have been at the NW corner of Dexter which now shows a vacant lot. Large old red brick apartment house, maybe 5 or 6 floors, maybe more. Just like you described, dark halls, flaky elevator [[the kind with the inner cage and outer door you hand to open by hand). I remember being taken their on family outings to visit two elderly Aunts I barely knew. One of them had some sort of leg injury and I can still smell the stuff the other Aunt used to treat it with. Their apartment was in the front and I remember looking out at the traffic on Davison to pass the time. The parking lot was behind the building with the driveway off the side street.

**catch22** · January-28-17, 04:13 PM

Originally Posted by Meddle

That address triggered a memory, but turns out it wasn't where I thought it was.

Do you recall a place on Davison? Might have been at the NW corner of Dexter which now shows a vacant lot. Large old red brick apartment house, maybe 5 or 6 floors, maybe more. Just like you described, dark halls, flaky elevator [[the kind with the inner cage and outer door you hand to open by hand). I remember being taken their on family outings to visit two elderly Aunts I barely knew. One of them had some sort of leg injury and I can still smell the stuff the other Aunt used to treat it with. Their apartment was in the front and I remember looking out at the traffic on Davison to pass the time. The parking lot was behind the building with the driveway off the side street.

That vacant lot was 13501 Dexter. The building was U-shaped, with the front door at the center of the U, facing Dexter. From your description, it could have been although I don't recall much parking space around the building. There was a motel just north of the building that was newer, perhaps that was where parking lot was at the time you visited.

I've attached an old aerial photo showing the shape of the building, if that helps.

**carptrash** · January-28-17, 07:13 PM

Let me know what you find about the Ys. I am also trying to track down what's what because Parducci worked on several of them.

**Meddle** · January-28-17, 09:42 PM

Looks familiar, but it was the early to mid 60s when I was there, before '67.

Was that the only tall building on Davison at that time?

Minnie and Clara were their first names. I don't know that I ever knew their last names or even how they were related. At that time they were in their 70s or better.

I don't remember the building being horrible or dangerous then, just old and dark.

**EastsideAl** · January-29-17, 01:43 AM

13501 Dexter! Back in the late '70s I used to know an absolutely great auto mechanic who do pretty much any job for the price of a trip to that building.

**catch22** · January-30-17, 08:15 AM

Originally Posted by Meddle

Looks familiar, but it was the early to mid 60s when I was there, before '67.

Was that the only tall building on Davison at that time?

Minnie and Clara were their first names. I don't know that I ever knew their last names or even how they were related. At that time they were in their 70s or better.

I don't remember the building being horrible or dangerous then, just old and dark.

I don't recall any others of its size or style in that immediate area, but my work area's eastern boundary was Dexter itself [[the church at 13500, across the street, for example was in a different MBT exchange area). So my memory of things east of there is a tad fuzzy 30 years later.

**catch22** · January-30-17, 08:17 AM

Originally Posted by EastsideAl

13501 Dexter! Back in the late '70s I used to know an absolutely great auto mechanic who do pretty much any job for the price of a trip to that building.

I wonder what the attraction was. Maybe we don't want to know.