Where is former DET mayor Louis Miriani buried?...

[Al Publican]

Kwame gets all the former mayor press, but where is Louis buried. Bio on same, please.

[R8RBOB]

I recall when Coleman Young was being transported to Elmwood, one of the news anchors commented that a number of Detroit mayors were buried there. I suppose it is a good place to start.

[Brock7]

Did you used to post as Rhymeswithrawk?

Detroit’s most regrettable demolition?
Rhymeswithrawk
Old City Hall, no question. After doing research on it, I am half-tempted to go piss on then-Mayor Louis Miriani's grave.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Did you used to post as Rhymeswithrawk?

Thx for the spelling correction of Miriani's last name. I 've heard he was just as corrupt as some of Detroit's recent mayors.

[larrym]

Look on wikipedia. He died in Pontiac

[Brock7]

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

Mount Elliot might be more likely than Elmwood, as I suspect he was Catholic. Cavanaugh is buried there.

I came across this.

darktimesblog
Democrat Louis Miriani was Detroit’s mayor from 1957 to 1962. His was an old school Italian administration, complete with cronyism, corruption, and police shakedowns. Detroit had a substantial crime problem even in the 50s. Blacks were overrepresented in the criminal class. But like today, the victims were also primarily Black. Miriani responded to calls about the crime problem by sweeping up 1,000 young Black males. His lack of nuance was unappreciated by the community.
In the 1962 mayoral election, unknown Irish American, Jerry Cavanaugh, won by over 40,000 votes on a liberal anti-corruption ticket. Cavanaugh received substantial support from the Black community which constituted about 26% of the electorate.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Just as I thought. He was as corrupt as any other politician, black or white.

[kathy2trips]

Yeah, he served 10 mos. for Fed tax evasion, but according to the Wiki article: "Under his administration, Detroit's Cobo Hall and other parts of the Civic Center were completed, and the city's infrastructure was expanded."

And they say Las Vegas was never better than when the Italians ran it, too.

[buildingsofdetroit]

I used to be Rhymeswithrawk.

Miriani is buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield. And I'm still contemplating the grave desecration over his push to tear down Old City Hall. More on that dick move, my friends, right here: http://buildingsofdetroit.com/places/cityhall.

[Lowell]

While digging around the web for Miriani I stumbled across this picture his predecessor Albert Cobo addressing the public in front of the old city hall with Truman and Soapy Williams beside him. It was the occasion of Detroit's 250th anniversary.


Side snicker... Truman looks like a unicorn piercing the fluer-de-lis.

This image is from the Detroit Commandery No. 1, Knights Templar website tourting the masonic membership of all three. Here is Detroit at its zenith in population run by Free Masons. My how the times have changed.

[buildingsofdetroit]

LOUIS C. MIRIANI, FORMER DETROIT MAYOR, DIES AT 90
DAVID KUSHMA and TERESA BLOSSOM
Detroit Free Press
Tuesday, 10/20/1987
Former Detroit Mayor Louis C. Miriani, whose record of nearly 50 years of
public service was blemished in his later years by a federal prison term for
income tax evasion, died Sunday in Pontiac after a long illness. He was 90.
The city's chief executive from 1957 to 1961, Miriani confronted a series
of urban problems that plagued subsequent mayors: rising unemployment and
demands for public services, racial tensions, falling tax revenue, and the
flight of industry and white residents to the suburbs and other states.
Like later mayors, Miriani attempted to strike a balance between social
liberalism and fiscal conservatism.
A popular mayor, Miriani perhaps is best remembered for his political
downfall after he left the mayor's office. In 1968, a federal court convicted
him of failing to report some $261,000 in income, acquired largely while he
was mayor.
Miriani argued that as a professional politician, he could not separate
most of his political contributions from other sources of income and that he
could spend contributions on personal expenses incurred in his political role.
He served 294 days in a federal prison between 1970 and 1971.
A FORMER Detroit City Council president, Miriani was alternately irascible
and ingratiating, considerate to supporters and often impatient and insulting
to critics. He said he served no special interests, "only the public
interest."
A self-identified Republican in his early political career, he adopted
an aggressively nonpartisan stance as council president and mayor.
Miriani's passion for independence made him impatient with organized
community protest.

[buildingsofdetroit]

"The whole community organization program was put in jeopardy by him, " said
Councilman Mel Ravitz, who was elected primarily by residents who favored the
establishment of community councils and opposed Miriani.
A native Detroiter whose parents emigrated from Milan, Italy, Louis Miriani
grew up on the city's near east side and earned 12 cents an hour as a boy
unpacking crates before dawn at Eastern Market.
After naval service in World War I and a brief stint as a bank teller,
Miriani graduated from the University of Detroit Law School and was admitted
to the Michigan bar in 1923. As chief counsel and later director of the
city's Legal Aid Bureau, he offered free services to the indigent and earned
the nickname, "Poor Man's Lawyer."
"He had a down-to-earth feel of human struggle, " said his daughter, Sister
Christa [[Carol) Miriani of the Sisters of Mercy order. "He always taught us
that no job is menial, that everyone deserves our respect for their hard
work."
HIS CHARITABLE efforts during the Great Depression won the attention of
Mayor Frank Murphy, who named Miriani to a blue- ribbon panel on unemployment;
he later was named to a similar statewide body.
Miriani also served on the state's Social Welfare Commission and in the
agency overseeing the city's Department of Street Railways, now the Detroit
Department of Transportation. He was head of the Detroit Welfare Commission,
becoming an expert on public assistance programs.
In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt selected Miriani to run the
Detroit regional office of the War Labor Board. Miriani's efforts
simultaneously to transform the Motor City into America's "Arsenal of
Democracy" and avoid union disruption were highly publicized.
Miriani tried to transform that success into elected office in 1946 when
he ran in a special election to fill a vacancy on the Detroit Common Council,
forerunner of the Detroit City Council. Although he won the primary, he lost
the runoff to Patrick McNamara, later a U.S. senator from Michigan.
Miriani won a council seat -- his first elective office -- a year later at
age 49. In the next election, he garnered more votes than any other candidate
and became president of the nine-member council -- a post he would hold for
the next eight years.
AS A COUNCILMAN, Miriani showed a vast understanding of city government and
an autocratic leadership style that often grated on his colleagues' nerves.
He clashed frequently with Mayor Albert E. Cobo. Many believed Miriani was set
to run for Cobo's job when the mayor died of a heart attack in 1957.
Since council presidents fill uncompleted mayoral terms, Miriani moved
into the mayor's office. That fall, voters elected him to his own mayoral term
by a 6-1 margin and made him the first Detroit mayor elected to a four-year
term.

[buildingsofdetroit]

Miriani pointed to several successes in his term: completion of Cobo Hall
and other parts of the Civic Center, enactment of downtown urban renewal and
neighborhood conservation programs, and expansion of the city's freeways,
water system, and port facilities.
He crafted a coalition with suburban mayors to work on regional issues --
the first time such co-operation had been obtained on a regular basis -- and
there was talk of drafting the Detroit mayor to run for governor in 1960 as a
Republican or Democrat.
Miriani immersed himself in foreign affairs, refusing in 1957 to welcome
delegates to an Islamic convention in Detroit because some speakers were
"anti-American." Local Arab community leaders insisted on an apology. Miriani
ignored the demand.
In 1959, he embarrassed the U.S. State Department by refusing to attend
welcoming ceremonies for a top Soviet official visiting Detroit in the midst
of the Cold War. Miriani said the Soviet's visit was "not in the public
interest."
ON THE HOME FRONT, Miriani faced declining auto production, unemployment
near 20 percent, rising demands for welfare and unemployment benefits, and a
recession-wracked local and national economy.
The mayor's pleas for more state aid to Detroit were ridiculed by a
rural-dominated Legislature. Appeals to the federal government were equally
unsuccessful.
Miriani responded to economic pressures with cuts in city spending and
services. He reduced payrolls by refusing to fill vacancies or give raises to
city workers.
He rejected demands that the city enact an income tax on residents and
suburban commuters who worked in Detroit. Instead, he submitted budget
proposals that critics said were unrealistic and would leave deficits for
future mayors.
Detroit's fiscal problems accelerated the exodus of white residents and
businesses to fast-growing suburbs and other states. An annoyed Miriani at one
point publicly advised the governor of Tennessee -- who had come to Detroit
to recruit industry -- to go home.
RACIAL tensions also increased because of the city's economic woes. Black
leaders accused Miriani of ignoring racial bias in public housing and
criticized his refusal to support a city- funded public works program.
When police Commissioner Herbert Hart ordered a crackdown during a wave of
violent crimes early in 1961, civic leaders said the move was an excuse for
harassment of blacks during an election year, a charge denied by Miriani.
But black ministers and residents held the mayor responsible and vowed to
defeat him. They, along with blue-collar and jobless voters and city
employes opposed to Miriani's tight- fisted spending policies, backed
challenger Jerome Cavanagh, an obscure 33-year-old lawyer and political
novice.
In a startling upset, Cavanagh, who described Miriani as a "ceremonial
figurehead who presides over the abandonment of the city, " defeated the
incumbent by some 42,000 votes of nearly 360,000 cast, though Miriani had the
support of organized labor.
Miriani later said of his tenure as mayor: "There was no bright spot for
Louie Miriani in those years, just a lot of hard work, 18 hours a day."
AFTER HIS DEFEAT, he became executive vice-president of Aronsson Printing
Co. in Detroit, then a non-union company. He was re-elected to the council in
1965, and immediately re- emerged as a powerful force in city government.
The Rev. Nicholas Hood, pastor emeritus of Plymouth Congregational Church,
one of the ministers who worked to oust Mayor Miriani, was elected to the
council the same year.
"As mayor, he was very much unreconstructed, " said Hood, now council
president pro tem. "Blacks played a very miniscule part in his administration.
But, he was a good politician and after the election, he began to recognize
that things were changing in this town. That's why he was re-elected to the
council."
His return was bittersweet. Months later, Miriani was indicted for failing
to report $261,000 in income between 1959 and 1962. The period included his
last three years as mayor when he earned an annual salary of $25,000.
He was found guilty of four counts of income tax evasion in 1968, fined
$40,000 and sentenced to one year and a day in prison by a visiting judge
from Tennessee.
When Miriani refused to resign his council seat pending an appeal, neither
his colleagues nor then Gov. George Romney moved to oust him.
Miriani toyed briefly with the idea of running again for mayor in 1969
until labor unions spurned his pleas for support. He retired from the council
and ended his long public career.
LEGAL APPEALS and illness kept Miriani out of prison until August 1970,
when at age 72 he reported to the Federal Correctional Institution at
Sandstone, Minn. He was released early for good behavior.
When the State Bar of Michigan reinstated his law license in 1972, Miriani
told friends that he would print "attorney at last" on his business cards and
vowed that he would be "back there on the top where I was."
But Miriani, who moved from Detroit to Troy, lived in relative obscurity in
his final years, suffering from high blood pressure, kidney disorders and
circulatory ailments.
He died at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Pontiac. He is survived by two
daughters, Dolores Deziel and Sister Christa; a brother, Joseph; seven
grandchildren and a great grandson.
Visitation is 4 to 9 p.m. today and Wednesday at A.J. Desmond & Sons,
26000 Crooks Road in Troy. A scripture service will be held Wednesday at 7:30
p.m.
The funeral mass is scheduled at 10 a.m. Thursday at St. Thomas More
Church, 4580 Adams Road in Troy. Burial will be in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in
Southfield.
The family suggests memorials to Sisters of Mercy Retirement Fund, 29000
Eleven Mile Road, Farmington Hills 48018.

[kathy2trips]

He was right about serving in the public interest. So many of politicians today are all about "self-interest".

[fryar]

His lack of nuance was unappreciated by the community.

You've gotta love understatement!

[kathy2trips]

While digging around the web for Miriani I stumbled across this picture his predecessor Albert Cobo addressing the public in front of the old city hall with Truman and Soapy Williams beside him. It was the occasion of Detroit's 250th anniversary.........This image is from the Detroit Commandery No. 1, Knights Templar website tourting the masonic membership of all three. Here is Detroit at its zenith in population run by Free Masons. My how the times have changed.

Lowell, you cannot be both a Catholic and a Freemason. They have been declared incompatible, and any Catholic who joined the Freemasons would be denied the sacraments and in some cases, excommunicated. If Miriani were a Freemason, he certainly would NOT be allowed to be buried in a Catholic cemetery.

And yes, buildingsofdetroit, I won't forgive him for wrecking old city hall, either. Oddly, my mother does. She says you have to consider the times they both lived in; anything remotely Victorian was considered a "monstrosity", dirty and heavy eyesores. Modern architecture at that time [[mid-century modern) was airy, light and clean.

Yes, times have changed.

[fryar]

More on that dick move, my friends, right here: http://buildingsofdetroit.com/places/cityhall.

God, that sucks. That's where 1 Kennedy Square is today, right? I gather the city was let go to heck for a while there, but today, that building and whatever it is [[the Wayne County courthouse, maybe?) down Cadillac Square, those two facing each other across three parks would look pretty nice.

I don't think 1 Kennedy Square is bad, I just think it may have been really lame to tear down old city hall. What occupied that space between the time of city hall and before the time of 1 Kennedy Square?

[econ expat]

Lowell, you cannot be both a Catholic and a Freemason. They have been declared incompatible, and any Catholic who joined the Freemasons would be denied the sacraments and in some cases, excommunicated. If Miriani were a Freemason, he certainly would NOT be allowed to be buried in a Catholic cemetery.

Yes, times have changed.

Catholics are now allowed to be Freemasons,
for at least the last 25 years that I know of.
In fact, I once noticed some of the headstones at
Holy Sepulchre Cemetery had the square and compass Masonic emblem. Since a cemetery usually accepts/ disallows a tombstone, it must be OK with Catholic management there.

[econ expat]

In a startling upset, Cavanagh, who described Miriani as a "ceremonial figurehead who presides over the abandonment of the city, " defeated the
incumbent by some 42,000 votes of nearly 360,000 cast,

A term that could also apply to some mayors in later years....

[Lowell]

It was Cobo who was Free Mason. I did not see any reference to Miriani being one and would think it unlikely -- openly at leasst. But it is a secret society, so who knows for sure.

[Hermod]

It was Cobo who was Free Mason. I did not see any reference to Miriani being one and would think it unlikely -- openly at leasst. But it is a secret society, so who knows for sure.

Yes, the reference was to Albert Cobo, the last decent mayor of Detroit.

"Let's Go, Cobo" was his political yard sign and bumper sticker slogan.

[EastsideAl]

What occupied that space between the time of city hall and before the time of 1 Kennedy Square?

Why, Kennedy Square, of course. A large open shadeless space made out of some hard ugly rocky gray material built over a parking garage, with a raised balcony and rostrum area designed for public speaking sitting above a big open sunken area of cracked concrete that was actually a fountain that never seemed to work.

Below is a rare picture of Kennedy Square from the Wayne State Virtual Motor City site with its fountain actually operating [[when they did try to use it, it leaked into the parking garage below through its cracked concrete floor).





As the years went on, the hard, inhospitable, cheaply built and poorly maintained plaza, that was windswept and cold in the winter and unrelentingly sun-beaten and hot in the summer, was used less and less. One Kennedy Square - weirdly a building named after a place that it replaced, a place that no longer exists - whatever its shortcomings is a definite improvement over the space that preceded it.

[dtowncitylover]

Catholics are now allowed to be Freemasons,
for at least the last 25 years that I know of.
In fact, I once noticed some of the headstones at
Holy Sepulchre Cemetery had the square and compass Masonic emblem. Since a cemetery usually accepts/ disallows a tombstone, it must be OK with Catholic management there.

No, Catholics have never been allowed to be Freemasons, not yesterday, not today, and I don't see them ever changing that in the future. I don't want to sound like a Catholic fanatic, but traditionally non-Catholics are not allowed to be buried in Catholic cemeteries, so it would be a serious mistake if the "Catholic" management is burying non-Catholics in the cemetery.

[EastsideAl]

No, Catholics have never been allowed to be Freemasons, not yesterday, not today, and I don't see them ever changing that in the future. I don't want to sound like a Catholic fanatic, but traditionally non-Catholics are not allowed to be buried in Catholic cemeteries, so it would be a serious mistake if the "Catholic" management is burying non-Catholics in the cemetery.

It all depends how you look at it, and where you're looking at it from. The Masons now admit Catholic members, and have done so for quite a while in the U.S. The Catholic church itself though believes the principles of Masonry to be in conflict with church doctrine and that Catholics who join the Masons have put themselves in a state of sin. Just the same, there are many Catholics who are Masons. One of my uncles, who considered himself devoutly Catholic [[about the only member of my family who did) was also a Mason, in order to join in and keep up with many of his business colleagues.

In any event, the picture and comment above about Masonry concerned Mayor Albert Cobo and not Miriani.

[dtowncitylover]

It all depends how you look at it, and where you're looking at it from. The Masons now admit Catholic members, and have done so for quite a while in the U.S. The Catholic church itself though believes the principles of Masonry to be in conflict with church doctrine and that Catholics who join the Masons have put themselves in a state of sin. Just the same, there are many Catholics who are Masons. One of my uncles, who considered himself devoutly Catholic [[about the only member of my family who did) was also a Mason, in order to join in and keep up with many of his business colleagues.

In any event, the picture and comment above about Masonry concerned Mayor Albert Cobo and not Miriani.

Yes, I did forget to put 'I digress...", but I digress...