Unusual Detroit Streets Thread

[Huggybear]

I can beat them all. Go behind the Atwater Place parking deck, and you will see "New Street." It runs between two parking garages for one block and has no addresses. It is called "New Street" because it was created during the dropping of Atwater to ground level. No one at the city bothered to actually give it a name - so someone actually made a sign that bears its designation on the site plan. That's like having a novel titled "Untitled-1."

[Detroitnerd]

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.

I saw an old view of Fourth Street from the days when it was a long, uninterrupted thoroughfare. Quite amazing, it actually looked similar to those long residential streets in the Pointes. Boy, the sure chopped the shit out of that street, with freeways, interchanges, crummy "parks" and stuff. To think that the city expended so much effort during the hectic days of building up just to get decent crosstown roads only to screw up all these nice north-south streets. Sigh ...

[bike4beer]

I was doing a bit of searching on street names. Was trying to find why a certain street had the name that it did. I found this on google books. Thought someone might find it interesting.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ING...etroit&f=false

The text at the end of the book has the progression of the city boundaries being expanded.

[Goose]

I was doing a bit of searching on street names. Was trying to find why a certain street had the name that it did. I found this on google books. Thought someone might find it interesting.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ING...etroit&f=false

The text at the end of the book has the progression of the city boundaries being expanded.

interesting, i have a large plat book of detroit from about 1960 and most of the streets in the book have the old names....

one that was missing from the book you posted:

on the far southwest side of detroit, the street currently named "Beaverland" was formerly name "Coon"..... maybe not quite so PC a name for a street in the D.....

[Stosh]

I always thought that the alley "streets" within city blocks on the east side were just strange. Homestead, Kellogg Place, Warsaw Place, among others. Some are no longer listed as streets on Google and Bing maps.

A book that lists the street names of Detroit from around 1905 is the Silas Farmer guide, here listed on the Hathi Trust Digital Library. I absolutely love this site...

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015071305018

[Corn.Bot]

Here's a question for those of you knowledgeable about old Detroit streets and history... Google Maps named the alley near my [[long-gone) house which in my whole life, and in the life of my dad who grew up there too, was ever called anything but "the alley." It is located between Georgia and Bessemore Streets, running E-W from Rohns to just past Vinton... its eastern end was where our garage was located [[address was 9522 Georgia). Google labels it "Cooper Street." From that point eastward to Gratiot, it narrowed to a typical 2-track alley and loses its street name. Sorry I don't know how to shorten the link: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&so...ed=0CAoQ8gEwAA

Something I find interesting/confusing: There is an actual Cooper Street. It runs roughly north-south between East Canfield and I-94.

[Detroitnerd]

Here's a question for those of you knowledgeable about old Detroit streets and history... Google Maps named the alley near my [[long-gone) house which in my whole life, and in the life of my dad who grew up there too, was ever called anything but "the alley." It is located between Georgia and Bessemore Streets, running E-W from Rohns to just past Vinton... its eastern end was where our garage was located [[address was 9522 Georgia). Google labels it "Cooper Street." From that point eastward to Gratiot, it narrowed to a typical 2-track alley and loses its street name. Sorry I don't know how to shorten the link: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&so...ed=0CAoQ8gEwAA

Something I find interesting/confusing: There is an actual Cooper Street. It runs roughly north-south between East Canfield and I-94.

There was a lot of piecemeal development that would suddenly turn a "street" into an alley. Or sometimes you'd have borders between parcels that would logically become a street, but developers would use them for the alley. Or crosstown streets often had to be fit in odd places because the ribbon-shaped parcels were all independently developed. And some were abandoned. Check out the bend in Hancock Street and the little piece of Aaron Street.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&so...00677&t=h&z=17

[gazhekwe]

Meddle, the description sounds like Votrobeck northwest of Seven Mile and Evergreen. I think Votrobeck was the farmer who sold the land for the apartments.

[gazhekwe]

Bike4beer, G.A.R Street is interesting. The initials stand for Grand Army of the Republic. Here is a Wikipedia article about the organization:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Army_of_the_Republic

There is a beautiful building on Grand River that was the GAR Building:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_A..._%28Detroit%29

[kryptonite]

There are a few 'courts' in Detroit. I know from experience with other cities that a court is a very interesting street. Sometimes it's very narrow, other times it's like a hidden little alley/street that can dead end on both ends with a t-type connector street.

Dill Place in Delray [[by Holy Cross Hungarian church) could be a court.

[bike4beer]

gazhekwe: Thanks for the links. I had figured the G.A.R. part but was wondering on Horatio just to the south. Was wondering who that street was named after. My assumption that it may be related to G.A.R.

[lizaanne]

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

http://tinyurl.com/yboe962

That church down Wesson is beautiful!! Does anyone know the name?

EDIT - never mind, the St. Francis of Assisi Parish Offices is right across the street. ;-)

[kryptonite]

That church down Wesson is beautiful!! Does anyone know the name?

isn't that St. Francis of Assisi? People on the Friday Fish Fry post are claiming they have the best Lent fish fry in town.

[gazhekwe]

Horatio a GAR member? Horatio C. King, of Maine and New York was a Medal of Honor winner, distinguished public servant and active member of GAR. He wasn't a Detroiter, but maybe his activity in GAR was honored?

http://www.qmfound.com/king.htm

It could have been some other Horatio. The street is north of Fort Wayne and one end abuts Military. I wonder if all the nearby streets have a military origin.

[Detroitnerd]

Horatio a GAR member? Horatio C. King, of Maine and New York was a Medal of Honor winner, distinguished public servant and active member of GAR. He wasn't a Detroiter, but maybe his activity in GAR was honored?

http://www.qmfound.com/king.htm

It could have been some other Horatio. The street is north of Fort Wayne and one end abuts Military. I wonder if all the nearby streets have a military origin.

Around Fort Wayne, lots of streets have military names, such as Dragoon Street.

[Meddle]

No, not Votrebeck. I had an old AAA city street map around here somewhere, but I can't find it right now and I couldn't pick it out on Google Maps. I'm not even sure it had a separate street name from the street it turned off of.


Edit> Found the map, but I still don't see the street called out. Maybe someone else from the westside remembers it.


Beaverland is far northwest side not southwest. A few blocks west of Lahser.

[RickBeall]

Jefferson used to extend from downtown all the way to Delray. The part of the street between the bridge and downtown looks like an alley, but Google Maps still labels it as W. Jefferson. There are a lot of small gauge railroad tracks that cross it. And there is some period achitecture and old street signs.

My attempt at linking didn't work. It starts where Rosa Parks bends North by the Detroit River.

[mtburb]

Jefferson used to extend from downtown all the way to Delray. The part of the street between the bridge and downtown looks like an alley, but Google Maps still labels it as W. Jefferson. There are a lot of small gauge railroad tracks that cross it. And there is some period achitecture and old street signs.

My attempt at linking didn't work. It starts where Rosa Parks bends North by the Detroit River.

Where are the narrow gauge railroad crossings and old street sings located?

I know I spelled "signs" wrong.

[markseth]

That church down Wesson is beautiful!! Does anyone know the name?

EDIT - never mind, the St. Francis of Assisi Parish Offices is right across the street. ;-)

I too was struck by the absolute beauty of this church on Google street view. There is nothing like it in Seattle- not even our cathedral, St. James, is as beautiful . Detroit seems blessed with an incredible variety of architecturally significant houses of worship. Any Detroiter want to offer a list of churches/synagoges I should see when I'm there? What do you think are the most beautiful churches in Detroit that I should not miss? [[I did a quick search for prior posts for recommendations and came up with nothing) Thanks.

[mtburb]

Can you also describe what happened to East Park Place downtown? As well as Monroe Street east of I-375?

[Neilr]

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

Here's a link to a 2006 thread about Shipherd Court in West Village. Hornwrecker posted a site map and Eastsidedog added some really nice photos of the houses.

http://atdetroit.net/cgi-bin/foroum/...017&page=76978

[Pam]

Any Detroiter want to offer a list of churches/synagoges I should see when I'm there? What do you think are the most beautiful churches in Detroit that I should not miss? [[I did a quick search for prior posts for recommendations and came up with nothing) Thanks.

Lots of pics you can look at here and see what interests you:

http://detroit1701.org/Religion.htm

[SMRJim]

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.

Can't figure out what street that would be. I lived on Prevost just off Grand River and rode my bike and walked and drove all over that area over the years, can't for the life of me think of what street that would be.

[Goose]

Beaverland is far northwest side not southwest. A few blocks west of Lahser.

beaverland runs from 8 Mile Rd. in the north all the way to Warren in the South [[7 miles) so technially we are both correct, I guess its just west side, north and south

[MikeM]

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.

Was it Heyden Ct [[where Ron Paul lived), southwest of Evergreen & Plymouth?