Skid Row, 1960

[Ray1936]

I would suppose that the younger viewers of DetroitYes are unaware of what a funky skid row Detroit had in the fifties and early sixties. The photo here is Michigan Avenue from about where the John Lodge is today, looking east. The Book-Cadillac Hotel [[as it was known then) is fuzzily in the background. Michigan Avenue from old Sixth street down to Washington Boulevard was a mix of bars, liquor stores, and pawn shops. There were also a few fleabag hotels. Fifty cents a night gave you a cot. I worked the area in Vice for two months and hated it. Those poor souls who 'lived' in the area were victims of alcohol and other diminished capacity problems. Mayor Cobo started the demolition of the area, finished by Mayor Miriani when Cobo suddenly died. Can't remember any stories of my visits/work there, sorry to say. But, whaddahell, I can't remember what I had for breakfast today.

[Hermod]

I remember walking from shopping downtown to a Tigers game at Briggs Stadium with my cousin and three of his friends back in 1955. What a zoo.

[IrishSpartan]

Ray,
Would you say the Northwest part of downtown bordered on being a skid row area by 1960? I'm referring to some of the area behind the Fox that Mike Ilitch largely demolished. For instance, Cass & Montcalm, Park & Elizabeth, etc. It has a mixture of apartment buildings and some hotels that were probably considered "fleabag".

[Ray1936]

Definately, Spartan. I think when the Michigan Avenue skid row was demolished, the inhabitants just moved elsewhere; mainly the lower Cass corridor, including 2nd and 3rd. Prior to the sixties, it was a decent neighborhood, but it aged quickly. Lot of bars, although I don't recall the great number of loan sharks that had stores in that area as shown in the Michigan Avenue 'row' photo. There were a couple on Michigan between 14th and the Lodge, one owned by the father of that guy who has the TV show from his shop on Greenfield and 8 Mile.....I forget his name. Dumb show; it puts Detroit in a very bad light, IMHO, unlike the Vegas 'Pawn Stars' show.

[IrishSpartan]

Ray,

When you are referring to the lower Cass Corridor being decent prior to the 1960's. Are you including the area of Cass, 2nd, 3rd, etc. below Vernor?

Before the Fisher Freeway was put through did you really consider the neighborhood much different north of Vernor compared to south of Vernor? [[i.e. Cass Tech area compared to behind the Fox Theater).

I've always been curious about the northwest part of downtown. Actually, in 1960 would anything north of Grand Circus Park been really considered downtown or the more fringes?

Ray: Thanks for the response

[softailrider]

Definately, Spartan. I think when the Michigan Avenue skid row was demolished, the inhabitants just moved elsewhere; mainly the lower Cass corridor, including 2nd and 3rd. Prior to the sixties, it was a decent neighborhood, but it aged quickly. Lot of bars, although I don't recall the great number of loan sharks that had stores in that area as shown in the Michigan Avenue 'row' photo. There were a couple on Michigan between 14th and the Lodge, one owned by the father of that guy who has the TV show from his shop on Greenfield and 8 Mile.....I forget his name. Dumb show; it puts Detroit in a very bad light, IMHO, unlike the Vegas 'Pawn Stars' show.

I think his name was Sam Gold. He closed that shop after a shootout with a customer where he was hit in the buttocks, from what I've been told, he was a very unpleasant person.

[Maof]

here's a good article about the area and the shootout.

http://corktownhistory.blogspot.com/...cash-gold.html

[Ray1936]

Spartan....Yeah, below Vernor. Anything above was much related to Wayne [[later Wayne State) University area, and wasn't bad, my memory tells me. Even Anderson's Garden back then was not the dive it was to become.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

I think his name was Sam Gold. He closed that shop after a shootout with a customer where he was hit in the buttocks, from what I've been told, he was a very unpleasant person.

His grandson, Les Gold took over the business, which became the TV show, "Hardcore Pawn"

[1953]

That sure is some urban renewal program - demolish the whole area!

[softailrider]

His grandson, Les Gold took over the business, which became the TV show, "Hardcore Pawn"

Don't think that's his grandson I think that's his son.

[EastsideAl]

Ray,

When you are referring to the lower Cass Corridor being decent prior to the 1960's. Are you including the area of Cass, 2nd, 3rd, etc. below Vernor?

Before the Fisher Freeway was put through did you really consider the neighborhood much different north of Vernor compared to south of Vernor? [[i.e. Cass Tech area compared to behind the Fox Theater).

I've always been curious about the northwest part of downtown. Actually, in 1960 would anything north of Grand Circus Park been really considered downtown or the more fringes?

Ray: Thanks for the response

I would say the area up to at least Vernor [[where the Fisher Fwy. would be built) was considered downtown. Two of the major theaters downtown were there, as was Hughes & Hatcher's main store, several men's shoe stores, some important nightspots and restaurants, and the two Ys. There were also several large residential hotels that were once quite respectable places for people, particularly single people, to live, and a few social clubs too.

I had a long-single great aunt [[referred to as a "maiden aunt" by my relatives) who lived in one of the hotels along Park. A lot of single women who worked downtown [[my aunt was a bookkeeper for law firms) lived in those hotels and apartments around there. When I was a little kid in the '60s she would take us out for lunch at the Women's City Club on Park, where she was a longtime member, or other nearby restaurants. She even took us to some movies at the Fox, before they switched over to blaxploitation and kung fu schlock.

But after the Michigan Ave. skid row was eradicated though, the character of the streets and the residential hotels to the west and north of there began to change and the neighborhood became more transient and the residents more troubled. Still, like the Corridor area to the immediate north, it was mostly older single working people [[although sometimes sporadically working) into the late '60s. But by 1970 or so the area had really changed, drugs came in with a vengeance [[especially heroin), and many of the hotels changed management and were run for a quick buck and no longer maintained. The area became less and less safe.

My aunt finally had to move out in the early '70s, even though she loved living downtown, and ended up living in the Alden Park on Jefferson for several years.

I spent a lot of the '70s and '80s hanging around downtown and the Corridor area. I even lived in the area for a little while when I worked for the city downtown, before I left town for many years in 1988. By then the area had passed through its wildest and wooliest phase and was emptying out and dying pretty quickly.

[EastsideAl]

I just remember the tail end of the Michigan Ave. skid row. By the time I came along the bars and pawn shops and flops were already mostly gone. The "undesirable slum" of old Chinatown was being cleared out and moved to a new, less desirable, location. An "international village" was being touted as its replacement [[never to be built). The "slum" of Corktown had been half torn down and was being replaced with a "modern" industrial park. The rest was rumored to be be going going gone in the next couple of years.

There were still a number of fleabags on the nearby sidestreets though, and bars too [[one of which was the original Lindell, and another the original Anchor). As there were on Michigan past the Lodge and up into Corktown. It was not uncommon still to see poor old souls sleeping huddled in a lump in doorways along the street on your way to the ballgame.

My grandfather and my uncle - who had lived 'on the bum' around there for a while before getting a semi-respectable job and a wife [[but still being a drunk) - liked to stop in at the old [[pre-rock) Lager House for a couple, or three, before Tigers and Lions games. l remember being dragged into that warm narrow space [[probably in violation of the law) which was full of a mix of football fans and old Irish drunks, many of them veterans of the old row, with the fascinating stories to match. I didn't want to be there then [[I wanted out of that space of adult blathering and stale beer smell and to get to the game), but I remember it now at least as well as any of the games grandpa took me to.

[IrishSpartan]

I just remember the tail end of the Michigan Ave. skid row. By the time I came along the bars and pawn shops and flops were already mostly gone. The "undesirable slum" of old Chinatown was being cleared out and moved to a new, less desirable, location. An "international village" was being touted as its replacement [[never to be built). The "slum" of Corktown had been half torn down and was being replaced with a "modern" industrial park. The rest was rumored to be be going going gone in the next couple of years.

There were still a number of fleabags on the nearby sidestreets though, and bars too [[one of which was the original Lindell, and another the original Anchor). As there were on Michigan past the Lodge and up into Corktown. It was not uncommon still to see poor old souls sleeping huddled in a lump in doorways along the street on your way to the ballgame.

My grandfather and my uncle - who had lived 'on the bum' around there for a while before getting a semi-respectable job and a wife [[but still being a drunk) - liked to stop in at the old [[pre-rock) Lager House for a couple, or three, before Tigers and Lions games. l remember being dragged into that warm narrow space [[probably in violation of the law) which was full of a mix of football fans and old Irish drunks, many of them veterans of the old row, with the fascinating stories to match. I didn't want to be there then [[I wanted out of that space of adult blathering and stale beer smell and to get to the game), but I remember it now at least as well as any of the games grandpa took me to.

The old Lindell Bar on the first floor of the Lindell Hotel was at the corner of Cass & Bagley. The Butsicaris brothers & Alex Karras moved the bar to Michigan & Cass and opened as the Lindell A.C. in April of 1963. Supposedly the old Lindell Hotel was condemned in this time period. A lot of Lions & Tigers players lived in the Townhouse Apartments on First, and would walk across the street into the old Lindell Bar. Alex Karras once compared it to their version of "Cheers". It's interesting that both the Leland Hotel and the building that would become the Townhouse Apartments in 1954 successfully existed within skid row for a number of years.

Below is the late Johnny Butsicaris standing outside the old Lindell Bar at Cass & Bagley circa 1963. The Leland Hotel is visible behind Johnny. [[Image from Virtual Motor City).

[Stinger4me]

On countless occasions the politicos have made the call to tear down the "skid rows" or ghettos, thinking they would make them disappear forever. It never works. I recall spending too much time in the Cass Corridor and the "down & outs", winos and evrything else still remains. When they tore down the black bottom they just moved somewhere else. Thanks to those who posted the images on this thread.