Brush Park - 312 Watson Street

[cman710]

Hi everyone,

Looking through some old pictures of Brush Park, I came across the house at 312 Watson Street in Brush Park. The house is vacant and has been for at least quite some time. There is the following stone on the house, and I am wondering if anyone has any incite as to who any of these people were.



While my understanding is that Brush Park was declining by the 1940s as a place for wealthy individuals to live, I imagine several of these people were probably notable Detroiters in their day. I know that Kathleen and others have books of notable Detroiters from the early 20th century, so I am hoping someone might have some information.

A picture of the full house:

[RickBeall]

------------------- Masons?

[barnesfoto]

Brush Park was already full of boardinghouses in the 1920's, when my grandfather came to Detroit from a small town in Ontario and moved into 62 Alfred St.

By the 40's, I think that Brush Park was the "Colored" side of Woodward, so this was probably a Prince Hall Masonic Lodge. MikeM will probably be able fill us in on this address.

[cman710]

While I know there is much history out there regarding the Masons, I have never read a book about them and do not know much about them [[though one of my great grandfathers who immigrated from Greece to NYC was apparently a Mason).

Is there a difference between a Masonic Temple and a Lodge? I would not think so, but if anyone is more familiar with the Masons, I would be very interested.

[brandon48202]

The owners name is: GARY W ARMSTRONG

[cman710]

Check out this post from Detroit Funk regarding this building, which contains this picture from the WSU Collection:



The building served as Mercy Hall, until Mercy Hall moved to 269 Mack Avenue. It is interesting that there is a small building that looks almost like a store on the building's west side.

[EastsideAl]

Mercy Hall appears to have been a pioneering effort in a couple of respects. First of all as a hospital dedicated to cancer treatment in an era when most hospitals simply sent cancer patients home to die, and secondly as an integrated hospital at a time when pretty much all mainstream hospitals in Detroit were effectively Jim Crow and wouldn't hire blacks.

Here is a Milwaukee Journal story from April 1948 on Mercy Hall and that rather eccentric self-styled "nun" who operated it, Lorettamary Gibson:
"Nurse's Fight, Faith Convert a Speakeasy Into a Hospital"

It is not clear from the story whether the "speakeasy" referenced is the Watson St. building or some earlier building.

Here is an interesting piece of oral history from a nurse who came to Detroit from Tuskegee, was turned down for a promised job at Children's Hospital because of her race, and ran into and was hired by "Sister" Gibson on the same day.
http://www.med.umich.edu/haahc/Oralbios/onorthcross.htm

This site is the result of a very interesting U of M project on the history of African-American hospitals in Detroit during the era of medical segregation. Anyone interested in this history should click "home" at the top of this page and explore this site.

[EastsideAl]

Mt. Sinai Grand Lodge was a black masonic organization. There is apparently great controversy going back many years over the legitimacy of these "AF&AM" masonic organizations vs. the "official" black masonic organization, the Prince Hall Masons [[who have a still very much operating Grand Lodge at Gratiot and McDougall), as you can see if you look at comments to the DetroitFunk link above.

[gnome]

Here are a cuple of pics of Alfred St. ...taken from the Burton library at UofM
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/imag...index;c=dpa1ic

[Zacha341]

Wonderful photos... thanks for posting them.

[Bcscott]

I looked at the 1921 Sanborn map and it didn't say anything specific about the structure. Just there were two other houses between 312 and the corner of Brush. As noted above, there were a ton of boarding houses at that time in the area.

[Strathcona]

Here is a shot of it in the 1970's compliments of Place Promo.
Attachment 5049

[exmotowner]

I love those old photos. I should have been born back then, and born rich so I could have had one of the victorians I envy so much. LOL

[gnome]

Forgive me, I believe I made an error in the posting above. I believe the homes I posted were/are on Alfred Street, not Watson St.

Here is a home that is indeed on Watson st.






The description says it was owned by Emily B. Watson at 97 Watson St. Here is a pic from the nside:



From the orientation of the windows I suspect, Mrs. Llyod's place was on left or east side of the duplex.

[cman710]

Great photos! Thanks for posting them. As of the 1970s, the building seemed a little worse for the wear, but it looks like the windows were mostly original still. On a side note, the house looked much better when it still had trees in front of it.

[SaintMe]

Some time within the last year or so someone on the forum posted an old [[late 1800s) photo of a row of Brush Park homes, but it was in color, not black and white. I haven't been able to find the photo since then. Does anyone remember seeing this and know where I can find it?

[kathy2trips]

Great photos! Thanks for posting them..

I agree, so priceless and rich in our proud history. Glad I was born in Detroit, just wish it was 100 years earlier!

[mpf]

I am a mason, that "lodge" is one of many in the world that are actually
"fake" lodges, it was never sanctioned as an official temple. There is a post above claiming it was Prince Hall, and that may be the case. Decades ago, Masonry was a big deal, many wanted to join. Some enterprising guys just set up shop, and recruited members, and ran their own show. This meant
they also controlled the purse, and the agenda, which is the main reason for the "fake" stigma, the members were probably all great guys, they just happened to join one that was unofficial...
Anyway, that building obviously has a ton of history!

[kathy2trips]

The owners name is: GARY W ARMSTRONG

Preservation Wayne needs to get a hold of this guy. This is a historically significant building.

Thanks for the pix, gnome. The narrow white one is HOT!

The RL Polk 1928 listing for that stretch of Watson [[apt. tenants names edited out for space considerations). I'm willing to guess that by that time, many of the houses had actually been converted into apartments. Note: the house numbers skip at John R.
Attachment 6686

[mpf]

AF & AM = ancient free & accepted masons.
This is the base standard, world-wide, for all lodges.
Prince Hall falls under this designation [[almost positive), just like Shriners, Scottish Rite, etc. They are like "branches" of masonry.
As a beginning member of masonry, you would be considered a "master mason",
and your structure, the temple, would be called a 'blue lodge'
The above branches are actually more advanced forms of masonry, I think
the highest you can go is "knights templar"
Who knows, this bogus lodge may have the most convincing architecture in the world?!

[buckster1986]

I took these yesterday...seems like someone has bought it...painted the front...dumpster on side...

[kathy2trips]

Looks like it had a fire at one point. Glad it's being taken care of.

[Detroitnerd]

The RL Polk 1928 listing for that stretch of Watson [[apt. tenants names edited out for space considerations). I'm willing to guess that by that time, many of the houses had actually been converted into apartments. Note: the house numbers skip at John R.
Attachment 6686

It's kind of cool when you look up the names of the people and then get their occupation. Those old directories are a treasure trove in that you not only get to know who lived there, but what they did. Needless to say, anybody living in those buildings in the 1920s was 99.9 percent less likely to be a captain of industry than in, say, 1885.

[kathy2trips]

It's kind of cool when you look up the names of the people and then get their occupation. Those old directories are a treasure trove in that you not only get to know who lived there, but what they did. Needless to say, anybody living in those buildings in the 1920s was 99.9 percent less likely to be a captain of industry than in, say, 1885.

OK...here's a thought. Was that a good thing? The more elaborate the house the more work it needs down the road. I doubt the people who lived there could not keep up a 50 year-old house with ancient wiring, etc. The ones that were converted were often partitioned off by the owners themselves, without professional help. Needless to say some catastrophic mistakes were made!

No offense to the non-rich, myself included, but I would guess that the change over to rooming houses hastened their demise in many instances? Look at Erksine and Eliot...many more of those houses are still around. They were generally smaller and easier to maintain. [[well, not the Weber House).

That being said, I'm amazed at the number of small businesses and skilled trades people working in Detroit back then. It must have been very easy to start a business back then.

[cman710]

312 Watson is currently for sale.

According to Zillow, the property last sold a few years ago for $78,986. This seems like an unreasonable markup, even if some cleanup/gutting work had been done on the inside.