Unusual Detroit Streets Thread

[mtburb]

I remember seeing a couple years ago an entire thread discussing unusual streets such as Jacoby's Alley. I cannot find it now. Can anyone find it for me?

[Jimaz]

You must be referring to raptor56's post in the Things you've seen in Detroit that make you go "ewwwww" thread.

[mtburb]

That is not what I'm looking for.

[Retroit]

Could it be this: http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/...tml?1185334760

You might also find this interesting: http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?t=4134 and its predecessor: http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/...tml?1232132309

[RickBeall]

I like the title of this thread. It seems like it might lead to, or generate some good reading.

Heidleberg Street would be a well known, but unusual street in Detroit.

[SMRJim]

Don't know if this is the type of thing you're thinking of, but it reminds me of a street in NW Detroit that a friend called 'Land of the Leaning Trees'. Don't remember what street[[s) it was, I think it was near the 6 Mile/Lahser area [[mid to late 70s), but the street was lined with big trees that a huge 'lean' to them, all leaning in the same direction, looked really unsual, like a special effect you'd see in a movie or something.

[Neilr]

Don't know if this is the type of thing you're thinking of, but it reminds me of a street in NW Detroit that a friend called 'Land of the Leaning Trees'. Don't remember what street[[s) it was, I think it was near the 6 Mile/Lahser area [[mid to late 70s), but the street was lined with big trees that a huge 'lean' to them, all leaning in the same direction, looked really unsual, like a special effect you'd see in a movie or something.

The sycamore trees that line Asbury Park between W. Warren and Whitlock are like that. It's an odd look.

[slick]

You mean like Knock Knock street,
7 mile and Hoover area.

the legend was a yound child got runover by a car and dragged and when you drove down the street the spririt of the child would still knock on the bottom of your car.

I beleive it may have been Strasburg between 7 mile and State fair.

[kryptonite]

Barham St. on the east side from I-94 to Mack I always thought was strange. There are houses only on one side of the street, the east side of the street is the back of the houses on Beaconsfield.

[Detroitnerd]

I've often thought South West End Street was a weird one. Here's a Google Maps street view.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&so...63.07,,0,13.42

[RickBeall]

Wow! I bet those little narrow streets are OLD! Probably dating from the ribbon farms or something. Just wide enough for a horse pulling a wagon. You can actually drive down them in Google maps too.

Someone could put a link to the brick/cobble stone street thread too, because those are unusual.

[RickBeall]

You could consider the old ribbon farm streets, the ones laid out at 90 degrees from the Detroit River, where they hit the grid streets to be unusual. You get all these little pie slice bits of land. I see it as I drive north on Conant towards 8 mile.

Or places where Judge Woodward's spoke streets hit the grid in downtown are kind of unusual.

Another source of unsual streets might be streets named after people who had unusual histories. I read that Judge Woodward died an alcoholic and was buried in an unmarked grave in Florida [[going on old memory here). I know that's stretching it because really you want physically unusual streets.

[Gsgeorge]

the existing sections of Fourth Street are all highly unusual. Chopped up by both the larger 'river' city grid & the Lodge, Ford, and Chrysler Freeways, Fourth Street displays an eclectic mix of Detroit architecture and gives us a peek into Detroit's former, more dense & urban landscape, and also shows how the freeway system divided formerly contiguous urban areas & communities.

Fourth at Holden. This was created when the I-94/Lodge Freeway interchange was built -- it was one of the first urban freeway interchanges built in the world, and this slice of Fourth Street narrowly avoided demolition. Today it is a thriving artist community, sheltered from the surrounding area by vast parking lots & obscured by trees.
http://tinyurl.com/yceywu9

Fourth at Willis. South of I-94 and north of MLK, the remnants of Fourth Street continue, but only between Calumet & Selden. Although this area suffered urban abandonment since the 1950s, today it remains as a small & well-kept apartment and housing district. Like Fourth Street north of I-94, this area is also somewhat [[though less) sheltered from the surrounding area by the Lodge Freeway & the vacant expanses along 4-lane wide Third Ave.
http://tinyurl.com/ycuxzt9

Fourth at Peterboro. At the site of the former Jeffries East housing project, Fourth Street is a shell of its former self. Four houses remain on the three blocks between MLK & Temple. Take a good 360 view of this intersection in Street View -- the house on the NE corner of Peterboro & Fourth is quite interesting and old. Then click the arrow to go East down Peterboro to "time warp". The imagery is older--before the housing projects were demolished.
http://tinyurl.com/yjyxsqo

Fourth at Henry. This one also makes a great '360' and is my favorite section of Fourth Street and one of my favorite streets in the city. Like Fourth at I-94, this section of Fourth Street was abbreviated by the construction of the Lodge Freeway & I-75 interchange, another early urban freeway interchange. Diagonally crisscrossing a length of Henry St., and wedged between Grand River and The Lodge/I-75, this "district" is the most urban section of Fourth Street. Though small, its impressive older architecture and angular corners & alleys make for a very interesting intersection, visually. I could see this being quite the loft/bar district in some future, gentrified Detroit. Today, a pharmaceutical company & gallery occupy the street.
http://tinyurl.com/yeahrux

One can imagine what Fourth Street once looked like as it continued to the river. However, today, all the remaining sections of Fourth Street south of I-75 were demolished for the Lodge freeway's downtown spur, Casino development, and the Riverfront Towers development.

[Gsgeorge]

I always found Perry Street, a seemingly random brick-paved road in nestled in the urban farms of North Corktown, to be unusual.
http://tinyurl.com/ycj48z5

[bike4beer]

I found this street one night when trying to get a picture of a billboard on 94.

http://tinyurl.com/yet4tly

[catch22]

The 400 block of State Street [[between Cass and First) exists only as a sidewalk. In the mid-80s, Michigan Bell built a parking lot out of the First/Bagley/Cass/State block and somehow convinced the city to remove State Street and replace it with just a pedestrian walk. I worked for AT&T in the "Bell Addition" at 445 State at the time. This was a disjointed part of State Street to begin with, but once it was removed people had an even harder time finding us.

[EMG]

I always liked the little triangle formed at the corner where Guilford and Oldtown end at each other near Lanark [[this is in the area almost immediately northwest of I-94 and Cadieux).

http://www.vpike.com/?place=oldtown+...lford%2C+48224

Once at that link you kind of have to move yourself around within the picture to see it, but there's another little street that connects Oldtown and Guilford sort of like the crossbar of a letter "A". Up until exactly two minutes ago I thought that that street was nameless - it's never had a street sign identifying it - but according to vpike.com it's now called "Oldtown Ct."

[EMG]

Barham St. on the east side from I-94 to Mack I always thought was strange. There are houses only on one side of the street, the east side of the street is the back of the houses on Beaconsfield.

Yes, definitely. And there was at least one short unusual street crossing Barham - Voight Street. Seems to me there was also a "Schupper" [[or something like that) street in the area but now looking at the map I can't seem to find it....

[Meddle]

There's a street on the west side I'm trying to find an aerial view of. Somewhere around Southfield and Fenkell. It's a small street that makes a horseshoe within another block and the houses are laid out around it. Might be apartments -- mind is very fuzzy. I can't remember the name or the exact location but I found it one day riding a bike in the area when I was a kid. I used to ride all over that area, so it could be as far east as Greenfield or down around Schoolcraft.

[Goose]

wonderfully maintained homes on a street with a "funny" name...

http://tinyurl.com/yepv8wk

http://tinyurl.com/yepv8wk

[Meddle]

I don't do blind URLs, so I can't see what you're referring to. What's the full URL?

[Jimaz]

I don't do blind URLs, so I can't see what you're referring to. What's the full URL?

The full URL

[fareastsider]

Some very interesting streets I have never found before in the city listed above. Here is a "street" I posted here before James Ct. which is actually a small pedestrian court.
http://tiny.cc/ztFjl
Also I wonder why Google calls Sunset near 8 Mile Rd "Clinton Shore Ave." At one time a small drainage ditch was located a bit north of here in Warren that was a tributary of Bear Creek.
http://tiny.cc/Mra2M

[Gsgeorge]

I found this street one night when trying to get a picture of a billboard on 94.

http://tinyurl.com/yet4tly

Great find. Just down the street from there is Wesson and Nowak, where we find a tableau of striking contrasts:

http://tinyurl.com/yboe962

[Gsgeorge]

Some very interesting streets I have never found before in the city listed above. Here is a "street" I posted here before James Ct. which is actually a small pedestrian court.
http://tiny.cc/ztFjl

wow! Any more of these???? It's like the backwoods version of New Center's Pallister St.:
http://tinyurl.com/y92hpuf