What was the name of the little old lady....

[Detwa]

...that was stuck in the abandoned neighborhood and was afraid, because hers was the only house on the street [[or something like that)? I remember the stories, they were so sad and pitiful as she cried and asked for help, and then she died and there was no one to claim her body?

I was just trying to remember her name so I could search for her story but I can't recall - I keep thinking Lula Mae but that doesn't seem to be it.

Thanks in advance.

[Zacha341]

Marabel Chanin. The only remaining resident on her particular block which was riddled with abandon homes and gun shots, etc. she ended up at the county morgue for a few months after dying in her home. Alone. Per the news broadcast I saw she'd called the news the Fox 2 News... all of those links are dead now. She passed away in 2008 and some raised money to bury her in 2009 when the story of her passing hit the news... perhaps others have info. Here's some active links:

Dewey from Detroit commentary on Marabel [[he details the funeral and the street she live -Robinwood- on in youtube links within blog):
http://www.deweyfromdetroit.com/2009...n-detroit.html

Info on burial:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg...&GRid=37347985

The initial story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_ap5GRopHs

The follow up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmOKKXFktB8

What was the name of the little old lady....
...that was stuck in the abandoned neighborhood and was afraid, because hers was the only house on the street [[or something like that)? I remember the stories, they were so sad and pitiful as she cried and asked for help, and then she died and there was no one to claim her body?

I was just trying to remember her name so I could search for her story but I can't recall - I keep thinking Lula Mae but that doesn't seem to be it.

Thanks in advance.

[jtf1972]

If you want to feel sick to your stomach:

http://tinyurl.com/2cg3lvl

That is a neighborhood in the United States of America.

It happens to be where this lady lived and died.

Children played here. People laughed and smiled.

I want to vomit now.

[jtf1972]

Furthermore...

Look at that link and show it to the world. You too can be just like America! Hell, if that were a picture from Iraq, we'd have troops on the ground to secure it & protect the citizens. US tax dollars would be spent to make it a safe and livable community. But it is not. It is Detroit. A city that is a part of this nation. We all share the blame here, from the people who once lived in these homes to the corrupt politicians who made an "At Large" city council seem necessary to the real estate prospectors to the housing authority red-liners to the presidents of the last century, including the current one.

There is more than enough blame to go around and plenty of work to do. If what we do does nothing to eliminate scenes like this, then we are a part of the problem. Point your fingers wherever you wish.

[Buy American]

Detroiters [[Mitch Albom) are in Haiti right now repairing buildings and homes that aren't in the shape that home is in and there are thousands of homes just like that in Detroit....charity begins at home....we need to take care of our own and whatever is left, help others out if we can. Millions of dollars were contributed to Haiti after the earthquake and somehow that money isn't getting to the proper place...it's in someone's pocket. What about compassion for people right here in Michigan and throughout the U.S.?

[Zacha341]

Tragic. I would not want to walk around there.... And what is more bizarre is that on the other side of Woodward you have Sherwood Forest, Green Acres, and further north Palmer Woods. I had a friend that had a two-family flat near Robinwood. He tried to repair the place for renters, but it kept getting stripped as he went. So he had to give up and sell the place at a loss....

If you want to feel sick to your stomach:

http://tinyurl.com/2cg3lvl

That is a neighborhood in the United States of America.

It happens to be where this lady lived and died.

Children played here. People laughed and smiled.

I want to vomit now.

[detroitbred]

It makes me sick, and very sad. Those were at one time lovely homes, and now, it looks like a war zone. What skewed priorities we have in this country.

[marcwigle]

What makes me really sick are the low-lifes who made her life so miersable and then tore apart her house after she died. She can't be resting in peace. It wouldn't be so bad if the homes that were abandoned were left alone to await a new owner rather than being vandalized. Unfortunately, this is the stuff that's reported on...

[Detwa]

Thanks for all of the links. It makes me sad all over again. I'm just glad that she did die "peacefully" rather than being a victim of a crime after the news story highlighted her existence.

[daddeeo]

Another of the "gems" of Detroit.
When will any effort be made to really attend to neighborhoods instead of always downtown?

[marcwigle]

Thanks for all of the links. It makes me sad all over again. I'm just glad that she did die "peacefully" rather than being a victim of a crime after the news story highlighted her existence.

When I first saw that story that was exactly what I was worried about... a little old lady, all alone on her street put a target on her forehead IMHO. Maybe the criminals around her had a shred of decency? At least they waited until she died to rape and pillage her house.

[detroittrader]

Very strange IMO, the street just south of Robinwood is Goldengate, and it appears to be very well kept, mostly occupied. There is almost no carry over from the utter devestation on Robinwood. Goldengate looks like an awesome street to live on. I don't see any dividing line, real or imaginary that would seperate the 2 streets.

[jbd441]

Detroiters [[Mitch Albom) are in Haiti right now repairing buildings and homes that aren't in the shape that home is in and there are thousands of homes just like that in Detroit....charity begins at home....we need to take care of our own and whatever is left, help others out if we can. Millions of dollars were contributed to Haiti after the earthquake and somehow that money isn't getting to the proper place...it's in someone's pocket. What about compassion for people right here in Michigan and throughout the U.S.?

With Haiti it's the entire country that's desolate not just one city. The govenment is so corrupt they require payment on the goods shipped in by other countries and charities. Both my sister and my niece [[who is a RN) have gone there numerous times to work...my niece just returned from helping to rebuilt a school there. They have no welfare system, no unemployment...nothing. What is the sense of rebuilding an abandon neighborhood in Detroit just to have it torn down again by scrapers and thieves?

[sturge]

Very strange IMO, the street just south of Robinwood is Goldengate, and it appears to be very well kept, mostly occupied. There is almost no carry over from the utter devestation on Robinwood. Goldengate looks like an awesome street to live on. I don't see any dividing line, real or imaginary that would seperate the 2 streets.

Yeah that is strange. Looks like only a few houses toward the Woodward side are all that's left of occupied houses on Robinwood.

[cycledetroit]

Most of the good on Godengate St. is related to Dr. Bob and his business on the corner of woodward and goldengate. He has a lot of young adult "followers" [[yes, almost cult like) who work very hard to keep up the area. I believe they have a squatters village of sorts in the area.

[Fury13]

Most of the good on Godengate St. is related to Dr. Bob and his business on the corner of woodward and goldengate. He has a lot of young adult "followers" [[yes, almost cult like) who work very hard to keep up the area. I believe they have a squatters village of sorts in the area.

Whatever it takes... good for them.

[marcwigle]

Most of the good on Godengate St. is related to Dr. Bob and his business on the corner of woodward and goldengate. He has a lot of young adult "followers" [[yes, almost cult like) who work very hard to keep up the area. I believe they have a squatters village of sorts in the area.

What's his "business"?

[kathy2trips]

Detroiters [[Mitch Albom) are in Haiti right now repairing buildings and homes that aren't in the shape that home is in and there are thousands of homes just like that in Detroit....charity begins at home....we need to take care of our own and whatever is left, help others out if we can. Millions of dollars were contributed to Haiti after the earthquake and somehow that money isn't getting to the proper place...it's in someone's pocket. What about compassion for people right here in Michigan and throughout the U.S.?

Yes, the City [[and Country) that gave them the opportunity to be successful in the first place, is shunned when it's time to "give back". I find this stunningly ungrateful and particularly repulsive.

[Hermod]

Let me tell you a family story here.

When my great-grandfather returned home from the Civil War, he got married and rather quickly had two sons and two daughters. The two sons died of Scarlet Fever within days of each other [[they were 10 and 12). They then had two more children [[both girls) and the youngest was my maternal grandmother.

Because of the fevers that he contracted during the siege of Chattanooga in late 1863, my great-grandfather became unable to work his farm [[now under Detroit metro Airport). He sold out and moved to the city and went into real estate. He purchased a home on the west side on Putnam. He died shortly after the turn of the century of his war illness.

This left great-grandmother with a small pension, a house on Putnam, and four daughters in the house. The oldest daughter had married early and then became a widow as her children were becoming adults. The next two girls never married being spinsters all their lives. My grandmother, the youngest, got married [[I think mostly to get out of the house).

Great grandmother died in 1926 and the oldest daughter was killed by a car while crossing the street in 1940. This left the two spinster sisters living in the house on Putnam. Without the guiding hand of the oldest sister, the two fell to quarreling and the youngest moved out getting a job as live in caretaker of the mother of a wealthy westsider.

The remaining sister in the house on Putnam became a recluse and her care fell to my mother [[her niece). My mother used to take my brother and i with her when she went to bring groceries to my great aunt.

The house was scary. It was a very dark two story. My great aunt only used the kitchen and the back bedroom. The other bedroom and the rooms upstairs were mostly full of old newspapers [[she never threw them out). The coal furnace hadn't worked in years [[she didn't know how to stoke it and couldn't negotiate the basement stairs. During the winter, she used the gas stove in the kitchen to heat her part of the house.

In the late 1940s, the city was taking the house to build the freeway [[not sure if it was the Lodge or the Ford. My great aunt refused to move. My mother found a place for her, but she refused to move. My father and my uncle finally had to go over there [[she would brow beat my mother and grandmother, but she wouldn't act up in front of the men).

She finally died around 1951, but if it wasn't for my mother, she would have been in similar shape as this lady.

The other spinster great aunt also became dependent on my mother and she lasted until 1967.

[jtf1972]

What's his "business"?

http://www.innatedetroit.com/goldengate/goldengate.html

[RickBeall]

Hermod, you have a nice Mom.

[royce]

Very strange IMO, the street just south of Robinwood is Goldengate, and it appears to be very well kept, mostly occupied. There is almost no carry over from the utter devestation on Robinwood. Goldengate looks like an awesome street to live on. I don't see any dividing line, real or imaginary that would seperate the 2 streets.

Goldengate Street is made up of mostly, if not all, brick houses. If you look at what's left of the houses on Robinwood Street, there are few if any brick houses. Brick homes in this city just seem to outlive frame homes. Also, it can be surmised that most of the homes on Goldengate are probably owner-occupied. The homes on Robinwood probably were not. Of the 14 out of 50 houses left on the street I grew up on and where my mom still resides, 11 are owner-occupied, two are vacant, and one is a rental. Other factors probably contributed to Robinwood's demise, but having mostly renters living in the homes was probably the main reason for the decline of the street.

One of those other possible factors of decline on Robinwood could be because of the street's length. As you head towards Seven Mile from McNichols [[Six Mile), the east-west streets get longer in length between Woodward and Charleston, the nearest north-south street to the east of Woodward. Woodward's slant to the west as it travels north creates these long streets. Goldengate is to the south of Robinwood and therefore is a little shorter in length. Now, given the fact that many of the homes on Goldengate are owner-occupied, it might have been easier to get around on this long street because the owners probably owned cars as well. The renters on Robinwood probably didn't, and as a result, it made it harder for them to get around the neighborhood because they had to always walk. So if you lived on Robinwood you had long walks everytime you had to go somewhere, especially if you lived in the middle of the block. All that walking could have deterred folks from wanting to stay there. Also, with all that walking, it could have made them targets for criminals. At any rate, I know my theory is complicated, but I just remember Jane Jacobs talking about how streets in a city should be short in length in order to be more walkable.

[royce]

Just want to make a correction. The eastside streets along Woodward do get longer in length as you move from McNichols to Seven Mile, but those streets like Nevada and those south of Nevada have John R as their east border, not Charleston. John R is a commercial street with a few stores that one can walk to. Charleston is not a commercial street and therefore offers no retail to walk to. Given the fact that there's not much retail along Woodward, in terms of party stores, gas stations or grocery stores in the area mentioned above [[except at or along Seven Mile), living on Robinwood without a car would be stressful. Again, maybe not having easy access to neighborhood retail was a reason for Robinwood's decline.

[detroittrader]

Thanx Royce...all that seems pretty logical.

We just call that place at Woodward/Goldengate the "hippie place". I've never been there, but a couple friends go there once in a while for some food [[takes forever to get served they say) and the drum circle. I'm sure 420 is involved lol. Anyway, I was around town on my scooter earlier in the summer and stopped in the vacant lot across the street to have a smoke. I took this pic in the alley where they throw the food scraps into a rotting compost pile buzzing with flies. I asked my friends if they thought Inn Season or OM cafe could do this in their alleys Ha Ha:

[dtowncitylover]

It's just disgusting what happened to her. How did she not have at least one friend or family member that kept in touch?

Does anyone know how long she lived at the house?