Shorpy Belle Isle 1917

[Laurent]

Times have sure changed.... http://www.shorpy.com/node/9254?size=_original

I bet many of us have an ancestor or two in this group. Can the DYes experts identify any landmarks?

[gnome]

the minarette looking towers in the background is Waterworks Park. I assume the shorpy pic was taken in front of the original bathouse. Note the rented bathing costumes and the rental locker keys around their necks. I believe the bathose burned in the 1920's, was rebuilt and gained infamy as a holding cell for 1967 rioters.

The tower looking thing looks like dome sort of 'moonlight tower', but that is just a guess.

[woodwardboy]

Wow.. those people have more clothes on than does the crowd at Camp Dearborn....

[EastsideAl]

The tower is indeed a sort of mini-"moonlight" tower. Here is an opposite view facing back towards the bathhouse.



Picture can be found here:
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?id=S-DPA1IC-X-DPA5041%5DDPA5041.TIF

[EastsideAl]

I've been sitting here staring at the Shorpy photo trying to figure out what the largish building is that's more or less straight across the river [[a bit to the left - that is, to the west - of the waterworks). At first I thought it may be Jefferson Ave. Presbyterian, but that wasn't built until 1925. The shape, or what I could make out of it, seemed very familiar though.

I've come to the conclusion that it's Annunciation R.C. church, which is huge and about a block in from the river on Parkview. I looked it up and it was built in 1912, in advance of much of the surrounding neighborhood's growth, so it would have been there at the time of the photo. And upon close inspection its 3 towers are clearly visible.