Funeral Parlor on Peterboro

[bluebiclighter]

Does anyone out there know of a Funeral Home on Peterboro [[around Cass and Woodward)? It hasn't been around in at least 30 years, but I''m trying to track down some family history.

[Detroitnerd]

Check the Detroit City Directories at the Burton Collection at the Main Branch of the Detroit Public Library. Or look through some old Bresser's guides in the business section, IIRC.

[Kathleen]

In 1920, visitation for Horace Dodge was at the Blake Chapel [[Blake Funeral Home) on Peterboro.

Source: The Dodge brothers: the men, the motor cars, and the legacy. Charles K. Hyde. p. 122.

For more info on the Blake Chapel, you might try the Burton Historical Collection at the main Detroit Public Library. http://www.detroitpubliclibrary.org/...rton_index.htm
Not only do they maintain a collection of Detroit City Directories, they also have terrific files on Detroit history, including residents.

Good luck with your research!!

[Mikeg]

From the 1923 Detroit City Directory:

78 Peterboro
Blake's P C Sons undtkr
Blake Wm F

This was near/at the corner of Park. There were no other undertakers or morticians listed along Peterboro.

[Mikeg]

Click here to view and download the page [[PDF) from the 1928 Detroit City Directory.

[dookie joe]

I'm well aware of that funeral home. It was a large light-blue house on the north side of Peterboro. I know about the place because my girlfriend lived there back in the 70s. The home had been converted into a Salvation Army shelter for battered women; my girlfriend's grandmother ran the place.

[kempenstein]

I remember a Chinese restaurant used to be at Cass and Peterboro.

[jgavrile]

My Uncle use to own the Professional Restaurant in that building.

[Lowell]

Straight from someone who knows -- Joel Landy:

"Funeral home was at 78 Peterboro. Then it was owned by Salvation Army, then William Mclain, Robert Karnak and then then water board -- empty lot now."

[softailrider]

I remember a Chinese restaurant used to be at Cass and Peterboro.

Chung's....place was always busy at lunch. Great food.

[tahleel]

Chung's....place was always busy at lunch. Great food.

As a Burton Alum, I can vouch for that place [[well, only the egg rolls because I never got anything else). I'm tempted to go to the new location. I believe is in Waterford.

www.chungsrestaurant.net

-Tahleel

[Patrick]

Wasn't Houdini laid out at a funeral home off of Cass?


edit: W.R. Hamilton and Co., 3975 Cass Avenue.

[EastsideAl]

I remember a Chinese restaurant used to be at Cass and Peterboro.

Cass and Peterboro was supposed to be the center of Detroit's "new Chinatown," after the old one was torn down for the Lodge Fwy. and urban renewal on the western edge of downtown. That's why those widened sidewalks are there and those little Chinese-ized kiosk things. There were several Chinese restaurants clustered around there for a while, as well as some Chinese clubs, an Asian grocery, and a little concentration of Chinese residents. But Chinatown never really took off there and by the 80s Chung's, and a little center for Chinese seniors behind it, was all that was left.

When I was young we used to go to the Golden Dragon on Cass between Temple and Charlotte for many many years. My father had been going there since they were in the old Chinatown down on Third and Abbott. I even learned to use chopsticks there from the elderly waiter, Mr. Bing, who had been there from the old days.

[Kathleen]

Wasn't Houdini laid out at a funeral home off of Cass?

W.R. Hamilton and Co., 3975 Cass Avenue

That funeral home was located at Cass and Alexandrine.

W.R. Hamilton Funeral Homes history: http://www.wmrhamilton.com/about-us.php

The building: http://detroit1701.org/Hamilton%20Funeral%20Home.html

[dookie joe]

We used to play strikeout in the Hamilton Funeral Home parking lot [[if there was no funeral, that is). They turned it into a music school later on.

Regarding the home at 78 Peterboro: As I said, I spent a lot of hours at that place when my girlfriend's grandma ran it as the Salvation Army home for battered women. As you can imagine, there were some pretty bad cases; some of those poor women were in bad shape.

Sometimes the scumbag men who'd beaten the clients would show up trying to harass them, and my girlfriend's grandma would kick them out. She was an incredibly feisty old Corridor woman who took crap from absolutely nobody. She's gone now, but I still smile when I think of her. Her name was Ruth, and I'm sure there are folks around who still remember her.