Paradise Valley/ Black Bottom

[RickBeall]

Hi Danny,
Do you have first hand memories from those days?

[Kimistree]

I sent a link to the Paradise Valley Blues site to my Mom. This is her reply to me. She has many memories of those days.

Thanks, Kim. This is absolutely right on. I'm just sorry the businesses we frequented, such as Barthwell's soda shop and James Holt's Confectionery are no longer there. As a teen, I worked in James Holt's Confectionery for a while - dipping ice cream and making milkshakes. John R near Canfield was the mecca for showbars and such. All the big stars came to the area. The Gotham Hotel on John R., was black owned and the big stars stayed there. The Castle theater was mentioned - its where we spent Saturdays at the matinee. You could see two movies for 12 cents if you were under 12 years old. If you were lucky to have a quarter or 35 cents you could really make out. You had your show fare and money to spend on candy. You could hear us asking each other "How much you got to spend" meaning how much over your fare do you have to spend on candy or popcorn.

[RickBeall]

Hi Kimistree,
Wow! It is wonderful to get feedback from people that were actually there. If you Mom has any other memories, we would all love to hear them. I would incorporate them back into the ParadiseValleyBlues site too. Anything about the allies or colorful characters, or the streetcars or anything. Tell your Mom I would put a picture of her up there if she wanted.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Cincinatti, if you email me at JamesJazz at comcast.net, I'll send you a street map which has PV boundaries.

Ok Jimg, will do and thx again.

[Danny]

Dr. Ossian Sweet had his own clinic in Hastings St. back in the early 1920s before his moved to a 3 1/2 bedroom woodframe bungelow on the corner of Garland St. and Charlevoix St. an all white Detroit neighborhood in white folks don't him living there.

[royce]

The common council, as it was called when the decision was made to bulldoze Hastings Street, may have thought they were improving the area by clearing out the so called "slums." However, they made sure that black businesses in the area didn't return. Notice now how on both sides of the Chrysler Freeway, starting north of the Fisher Freeway[[I-75), that there are all of these public housing units lining the freeway. If the council wanted to at least save some aspect of Hastings, then they would have allowed some businesses or have some sections of the service drive zoned for businesses. Yet, that wasn't the case. When the Lodge Freeway was carved out of the James Couzens Freeway, you'll see that the businesses were allowed to remain, so was the name James Couzens. What was that about? Instead of renaming Harmonie Park, Paridise Valley, the current city counsil should have renamed the western service drive of the Chrysler Freeway Hastings Street. That would have been the correction that should have been made. Not saying that it would bring back the area to its heyday, but at least it would be a symbolic gesture of healing the wounds caused by a very insensitve public policy decision.

[MichMatters]

Royce, you should actually see about that renaming. I bet it didn't even cross most of their minds. What are the rules concerning street and district renamings in the City of Detroit? Very interesting proposal.

[Fury13]

When the Lodge Freeway was carved out of the James Couzens Freeway, you'll see that the businesses were allowed to remain, so was the name James Couzens. What was that about? Instead of renaming Harmonie Park, Paridise Valley, the current city counsil should have renamed the western service drive of the Chrysler Freeway Hastings Street. That would have been the correction that should have been made. Not saying that it would bring back the area to its heyday, but at least it would be a symbolic gesture of healing the wounds caused by a very insensitve public policy decision.

Royce, the same is true of Edsel Ford/I-94/Harper on the east side. The Harper signs on the service drive remain. Also, see my post [[#11) above. The western [[southbound) Chrysler service drive IS Hastings Street [[though narrowed a little on the embankment side). I've advocated renaming [[or restoring the name, if you will) for years. There's no reason why Hastings signs couldn't be put back up and infill retail buildings constructed to face the service drive [[replacing the ones demolished decades ago).

[RickBeall]

I don't think a one sided business district would do very well, especially an artificially created one facing a picturesque expressway.

I think that street maps from the 1970's still called the south bound service drive as "Hastings Street" [[I had a map that did.). But it seems to have dropped from current maps.

[Fury13]

I don't think a one sided business district would do very well, especially an artificially created one facing a picturesque expressway.

I think that street maps from the 1970's still called the south bound service drive as "Hastings Street" [[I had a map that did.). But it seems to have dropped from current maps.

It might be a little difficult to visualize, but if the district was entertainment-oriented: bars, restaurants, etc., with bright neon signs plainly visible from the freeway [[and resurrecting establishment names like the Swing Club, Sensation Lounge, Flame, Frolic, etc., from Detroit's nightclub past), I think it might become a viable strip, especially the stretch between Gratiot and Macomb. The brightly-lighted signage would advertise the area to people on the freeway. Hastings could even be two-way for much of that strip, down to where traffic exits near Monroe.

And here's an even more grandiose, impractical concept for you: extend the new Hastings district along Mullett, to St. Antoine, and include frontage along Gratiot too, between the freeway and St. Antoine. That whole area has been cleared of buildings; it's ripe for infill. To avoid too much of the "artificial" look, move a few abandoned [[but structurally-sound) one- and two-story commercial buildings from nearby, and install and rehab them in the area [[a la the Gem and Elwood, but on a smaller scale). Then fill in the gaps with new construction with brick facades in architectural styles that recall the 1910s-1920s. Have retail or entertainment on the first floor, residential on the second floor. Put up a pedestrian bridge over Gratiot, linking that area to the Harmonie-Paradise district north of Gratiot, and voila, an unbroken walkable entertainment district from Greektown to the Opera House.

True, it would only be a modern, 21st-century replacement for the old Hastings, and not original, but we can't resurrect what was destroyed in exact form.

[RickBeall]

Wow Fury13! You turned that "one sided business district" into a plus! I could see that working! Your other ideas are great too.

[casscorridor]

Entire neighborhoods literally wiped off the map to implement a planner's extreme vision of what a city and a neighboor ought to be. No need to ask the actual residents what they think. And so it goes... Detroit's inner city neighborhoods gone in the name of urban renewal and what is left is a few pockets of dense neighborhood near downtown, surround by freeways, stadiums and public housing projects. The height of modernism.

Parsdise Valley will never come back. Maybe Hastings will replace the freeway, but it wont replace the damage done. I think investing in other areas and trying to build on what is there rather than what is gone is a better idea.

[Fury13]

Wow Fury13! You turned that "one sided business district" into a plus! I could see that working! Your other ideas are great too.

Thanks... it's a pipe dream, I know. We can never bring it back the way it was, but why not make the most of what we have left?

[RickBeall]

It's a great pipe dream. It would be like building a bridge to the past: something in the present to remind people of the past, as opposed to looking at vacant lots. Or visting a museum. Or renaming a different part of the city Paradise Valley and blotting out someone elses history.

[ziggyselbin]

These are all fun ideas but would it work? Having performed in nightclubs/bars extensively I am skeptical. Jazz in the time of the valley and blues as well was a real sawdust floor kind of a thing.Now it is almost recital music;especially jazz. Bakers is having problems, I wonder how Cliff Bells does on a consistent basis_ and here in A2 there is no jazz club so spaces like the Kerrytown concert house and The Ark are where jazz is performed_ ok but not really a club atmosphere which I think is waht we are looking for. Also like it or not there was often illegal activity. Prostitution, gambling and drugs often involving doormen/employees of clubs was how bars became crowded.When the heat got to be too much they moved to another club or town.

I love the ideas just not sure they would work today.

[RickBeall]

Yea, you got it ziggy, back in the day you were in the club pursuing your vice, whatever that was, having fun, talking trash. It was no concert hall where everyone politley claps after every solo. Cool clubs don't come from our city fathers. They just have to happen spontaneously, and then go out just as spontaneously like embers blown from a log into the night. Or blown out by our city fathers.

Still, one can still have pipe dreams, multiple pipe dreams, big pipes, little pipes, drawers of pipes. And once in a while pull one out. Fury13 did show how night clubs on the old Hastings street could have an advantage, since their signs could be seen from the expressway. Mmmmmm Thinking. On I-75 somewhere around 8 mile there is a nice red neon sign for a car repair place that says "Hastings" on it. Every time I see that, as John Lennon said in a song, "I slip into a dream."

[ziggyselbin]

Yea, you got it ziggy, back in the day you were in the club pursuing your vice, whatever that was, having fun, talking trash. It was no concert hall where everyone politley claps after every solo. Cool clubs don't come from our city fathers. They just have to happen spontaneously, and then go out just as spontaneously like embers blown from a log into the night. Or blown out by our city fathers.

Still, one can still have pipe dreams, multiple pipe dreams, big pipes, little pipes, drawers of pipes. And once in a while pull one out. Fury13 did show how night clubs on the old Hastings street could have an advantage, since their signs could be seen from the expressway. Mmmmmm Thinking. On I-75 somewhere around 8 mile there is a nice red neon sign for a car repair place that says "Hastings" on it. Every time I see that, as John Lennon said in a song, "I slip into a dream."

I would still love to see it tried. Btw I absolutely love your site. It is so important to keep that history alive. I visit it often. I wish Dan Pliskow from the playboy thread would chime in as he played those places. Anyhow love the wonderful history.

[Fury13]

These are all fun ideas but would it work? Having performed in nightclubs/bars extensively I am skeptical. Jazz in the time of the valley and blues as well was a real sawdust floor kind of a thing.Now it is almost recital music;especially jazz. Bakers is having problems, I wonder how Cliff Bells does on a consistent basis_ and here in A2 there is no jazz club so spaces like the Kerrytown concert house and The Ark are where jazz is performed_ ok but not really a club atmosphere which I think is waht we are looking for. Also like it or not there was often illegal activity. Prostitution, gambling and drugs often involving doormen/employees of clubs was how bars became crowded.When the heat got to be too much they moved to another club or town.

I love the ideas just not sure they would work today.

Well, I guess I'm not really talking about having just jazz clubs in there... oh sure, you'd want a couple of places that cater to jazz fans, but you'd want to have blues joints, rock 'n' roll places, venues to dance to hip-hop, soul/Motown showcases, techno clubs... in other words, an entertainment district that caters to all ages and tastes.

[Gsgeorge]

Replacing Hastings is something we do five or ten years AFTER restoring and rebuilding our EXISTING neighborhoods. Let's look at filling in Lower Cass, downtown, and Brush Park first before moving on to creating shopping districts from scratch.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Dr. Ossian Sweet had his own clinic in Hastings St. back in the early 1920s before his moved to a 3 1/2 bedroom woodframe bungelow on the corner of Garland St. and Charlevoix St. an all white Detroit neighborhood in white folks don't him living there.

I remember reading about that. Didn't a riot start over Sweet moving into a all white neighborhood?

[gnome]

Some crackers were demostrating in front of Sweet's house, inside he and several others where armed, when rocks followed the throwing of insults and other threats of violence were in the offing, Sweet defended himself. One man wounded, one killed. Sweet was arrested, was defended by roving do-gooder just fresh from the Scopes Monkey Trail, Clarence Darrow. Sweet was aquitted by an all white jury in front a young Frank Murphy.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...eet/sweet.html

The sad part about Sweet, he was never able to live up to his hero standing. After the trial, the death of child from tb or smallpox or something, Ossian and his wife split, his finances went into freefall and after running a series of failing hospitals, clinics and drugstores he put a gun to his head in 1960.

The Ossian Sweet affair is often looked as a harbinger of later troubles, some say his acquital ruined his reputation within the black community. He ran to head the local NAACP but was rebuked, his medical practices all failed because black folk wouldn't go to him. Curious he's viewed as a hero today when he coudn't get any respect when he needed it.

[xD_Brklyn]

Also, if you want to know what it would probably look like today, well drive up Oakland N of East Grand Boulevard. Back in the day, that was considered the continuation of Hastings.

Oakland North of East Grand Boulevard was still much intact in the early 80s. Driving to WSU back then we would take Oakland south when 75 would be totally jammed up. The place was a real trip. The positive side of Oakland was that the existing buildings created a density that was a world away from the suburbs of Madison Heights. The down side was that the neighborhood looked more forbidding than any other place I'd seen in Detroit. As mentioned, there is very little left of the buildings that once populated Oakland north of the Boulevard today.

[RickBeall]

A good point. So you could say, that area had its chance to become Hastings N. all the way into the 1980 but it didn't due to sociological factors [[people moved, modes of entertainment changed). Also, the real Paradise Valley [[where Ford Field is) physically survived until 2000 when the Horseshoe Lounge was finally torn down. [[And it was right above Greektown across Gratiot.) So the physical buildings survived, but the heart did not.

It's just a few history buffs and a slowly dwindling pool of senior citizens who still natter on about the subject.

But we do love to natter. ;-)

[Cincinnati_Kid]

I would still love to see it tried. Btw I absolutely love your site. It is so important to keep that history alive. I visit it often. I wish Dan Pliskow from the playboy thread would chime in as he played those places. Anyhow love the wonderful history.

Funny how your attitude turns real cheery on this post, but you want to disrespect me for my opinion on another post.

[ziggyselbin]

Funny how your attitude turns real cheery on this post, but you want to disrespect me for my opinion on another post.

As I said I don't get why you would care who is paying Beatty's mortgage. What the hell difference does it make to you or I as long as it is being done legally? You implicate that somehow something unseemly is going on_ how do you know? Maybe just maybe there are relatives or friends or whatever that are helping her it does happen.

The bottom line is it has zero effect on you. I found her behavior despicable but how here bills are paid has no effect on any of us and regardless she is entitled to basic needs.

Now feeling guilty thread jacking I will respond to Fury and say I do like your idea and would point out that music jazz as much as blues was such an integral part of the valley.