So is "Uptown" the new name for Avenue of Fashion/Livernois?

[brizee]

I'm getting alumni mail from UDM using that phrase.

There's also an announcement/sign of a coming brewery/bar using that designation.

I live on the other side of Marygrove and stated despite the new businesses and revived fronts I couldn't see that area attracting the same demographics of greater downtown.

But when you're wrong, you're wrong.

PS. I read a few weeks ago about a plan to demolish the Comerica Bank on E. Livernois and replace it with a five story residential. I believe that would be the tallest structure in ~1 mile radius. If it comes together, I'll be impressed.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I think of an "uptown" as further out than "midtown," just as midtown is further out than "downtown." But in my mind districts using these names would all need to relate to each other, as they do in NYC. This part of Detroit is not logically called "uptown", IMHO, because it does not border Midtown.

[middetres]

Uptown was historically used to describe the downtowns of cities along Woodward that weren't Detroit. Back in the day downtown was always downtown Detroit. If you lived in Royal Oak and were going to what today is called downtown Royal Oak, you would say you were going uptown. Same with Ferndale, Highland Park [[Uptown Radio) and Birmingham. Not sure if Berkley, Clawson, Oak Park or Hazel Park used that term though. And not sure it was used out any of the other spokes radiating from Detroit.

Given the potential for retail resurgence along the Avenue of Fashion, I think the Uptown designation is perfect. It's almost at the top of Detroit. You can't get anymore uptown than that.

[Wheels]

Uptown was Woodward from Davison to Six Mile in Highland Park.

[Jman]

Uptown was Woodward from Davison to Six Mile in Highland Park.

Bingo!!!!!

[Wesley Mouch]

Uptown was Woodward from Davison to Six Mile in Highland Park.

Hence, the Uptown Theatre [[Woodward just south of McNichols [[6 mile))

[douglasm]

So "Uptown" was Highland Park?

[CassTechGrad]

My mother worked part-time at the Woodward Sears snack bar back in the early 1960's while I was in high school.

[royce]

Somewhere on this forum I read that an organization representing the McNichols-Palmer Park/Woodward area wanted to be called "Uptown." Maybe this is the same group and they are adding/including the Livernois-Seven Mile area.

[1953]

Uptown is naturally the area adjacent to midtown and twice removed from downtown. Not sure why someone in the Avenue of Fashion would think they were Uptown. They're more like, "Way-Uptown-And-Over-That-Way<--."

1953

[Enduro]

Unlike "Cass Corridor" I think it's okay to rebrand the "Avenue of Fashion" - in a lot of people's minds that sounds sarcastic and I highly doubt fashion will be the cornerstone of any future redevelopment. Uptown may not be historically accurate but I think it sounds good and it also isn't limited to Livernois proper.

I'm really looking forward to redevelopment here more so than downtown. I'd love to see a four point strategy that targets the east side, the west side and the far north end along with downtown. The north, east and west have a much smaller admission fee and if they do well they'll have a halo effect on the people in the surrounding burbs. The neighborhoods at the edges generally have decent sized populations already and you'd hope that this could spur people and businesses to start moving inward from these established hubs.

Also, CassTechGrad, can you tell me where that Sears was located? I can't place it. Thanks!

[brizee]

A little visual evidence.

[Hypestyles]

I hope redevelopment gets underway soon. Keep the momentum going and it needs to spread to other neighborhoods.

[CassTechGrad]

Uptown was Woodward from Davison to Six Mile in Highland Park.

I posted the picture of the Highland Park Sears store in response to this post about Uptown being the Woodward Avenue area from Davison to Six Mile in Highland Park. The store was on Woodward a little north of Davison across from the Highland Park Ford Plant where the first continuously moving assembly line was invented.

In the song “Uptown” by the Crystals in 1962, it implies that Uptown is a poor area?

“But then he comes uptown
Each ev'nin' to my tenement
Uptown where folks don't have
To pay much rent”

If you haven’t listened to that song in a while you need to play it again. It’s a Phil Spector “Wall of Sound” masterpiece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0il2Qd3jcs

[rbdetsport]

My mother worked part-time at the Woodward Sears snack bar back in the early 1960's while I was in high school.

Awesome photo! If that photo is indeed from the early 60s, it is cool [[but sad) to see the streetcar rails.

[1953]

Totally an aside, but its sad to see how far Sears has fallen.

1953

[Gannon]

Pretty funny to see how folks drove before lane lines...lucky the streetcars were the centerline!

As for the Uptown Upstarts...let 'em have their fun until Highland Park rebounds. Then we'll enjoy the Uptights fighting for Who's the Uppest.

I just love how UDM is representin' the gentrificatin'. Sure is a sign...

[1953]

I kept thinking to myself, "Why does it say corktown." Then it occurred to me, they were referring to their campus off 96 at MLK. Isn't that Core City? I certainly don't think of Corktown when I think of that neighborhood. Come to think of it, it may not even be Core City....

1953

[K-slice]

I think it's on the border of Core City and Briggs, definitely not Corktown. Although I think they are trying to rename Briggs "North Corktown" because, ya know, everyone loves Corktown...

Soon West Side Industrial will be called "South Corktown".

[Wesley Mouch]

I kept thinking to myself, "Why does it say corktown." Then it occurred to me, they were referring to their campus off 96 at MLK. Isn't that Core City? I certainly don't think of Corktown when I think of that neighborhood. Come to think of it, it may not even be Core City....

1953

Its not Corktown, but give 'em a break. At least they're writing ads about, and doing their education thing in the City, and not in a new suburban campus at the intersection of 143 Mile Road and W. Territorial.

[1953]

I thought it stopped at 38 mile

1953

[Jason]

I think Detroit's neighborhood names are silly anyway. Most of them are either names the home builders came up with for their subdivisions or they're post war rebranding or community building strategies. Only a handful of neighborhoods are truly differentiated and the rest is just an endless sea of tract housing.

But in my imagination an uptown is a wealthy, [[originally) waspy, suburban area on the edge of town, and dependent on an uptown-downtown dichotomy [[so Bloomfield wouldn't count because it exists mostly independently of the civic and business life of Detroit). I'd also say that downtown, midtown, and uptown are referential from a "normal" person perspective who lives in between an uptown and a midtown, midtown being the urbanized area adjacent to downtown.

But yeah, that area is an uptown imo, and calling it that makes it easier to refer to that collection of neighborhoods, avoids the outdated Avenue of Fashion name, and can be inclusive of the area just to the west of Livernois, which includes Marygrove College, and Bates Academy and U of D Jesuit which are both good schools.

[mwilbert]

Only a handful of neighborhoods are truly differentiated and the rest is just an endless sea of tract housing.

You must be thinking of a different city.

[archfan]

I think it's on the border of Core City and Briggs, definitely not Corktown. Although I think they are trying to rename Briggs "North Corktown" because, ya know, everyone loves Corktown...

Soon West Side Industrial will be called "South Corktown".

I thought that was Corktown Shores.

[rex]

unfortunately the area isnt really laid out to be much of a town at all.... its nothing but neighborhood with a couple of main streets with some businesses along 7 and Livernois. Same might be said for Ferndale... a bunch of stuff on 9 mile and up Woodward but not much parking. It lacks the layout and residential will prevent anything more. Its too bad there arent a couple of streets where you could put shops and things of that nature. Like Royal Oak I guess.