A Trip to the Motor City: Some Residential Areas

This page covers the area that extends from Midtown out to the outer city limits, shaded in yellow below.  Most of this area is (or was)  residential.  Now you're going to see a lot of what you visualize when you think of Detroit. 

Some of the areas we will visit include:

1. Boston-Edison
2. Hamtramck
3. Highland Park
4. Dexter-Livernois area (where I lived until I was 8)
5. Palmer Woods

Detroit had no (and still does not have) any rail mass transit, since that would keep people from buying cars, and GM, Ford, and Chrysler wouldn't want that.  So, everybody drove everywhere, which made for massive sprawl, and low density housing.  When I was born, the city of Detroit had 1.95 million people, the vast majority of them living in single-family houses.  Today, there are about 700,000 people living within the city limits.  Below is what happens when you have 700,000 people living in an area that originally held almost 2 million.  Can you see any vacant lots?

Let's start our tour in a residential area that's not so depressing.  The Boston-Edison area (named after the two main streets in the neighborhood) was where the early auto moguls built their mansions.  Most of the houses in the area are in good shape, but there isn't much commercial development (any more) near there.  Here are a few of the houses in Boston-Edison.

To the east is Hamtramck, one of the two cities that are entirely within the border of Detroit.  Hamtramck was at one time almost entirely Polish (and the subject of many local jokes), although other ethnic groups have moved in.  The commercial streets still have a lot of Polish businesses, and the residential streets are modest, but well kept.

Houses in Hamtramck

North of Hamtramck, and still within the boundaries of Detroit, is the city of Highland Park.  Henry Ford built his Model T plant (the first assembly line) in Highland Park, and for many years the area around the factory was a middle-class area.  Not so much any more.

The Model T factory is behind this shopping plaza

Part of the Model T factory

Along Woodward Avenue in Highland Park

Highland Park High School (abandoned)

Highland Park Police Department

Some houses in Highland Park

Now, let's head west, back into Detroit to the Dexter-Livernois area, where I lived until I was 8 years old.  Here's the house I lived in as it appeared in 1999.

Not bad, huh?  Well, here's how it looks in October of 2013

As far as I can tell, the house is empty.  According to the web, it sold for a whopping $24,000 earlier this year.

OK, so the house isn't doing that well.  Let's take a walk (a block) down to Dexter, which was the local commercial street when I was growing up.  This is where the corner grocer, drugstore, bank, and restaurants were.

A view down Dexter

The corner drugstore

Where the corner market was

A few more "stores" on Dexter

And, of course, the Dexter Bar

Let's visit the residential areas a couple of blocks from my old house.  

This was a block full of houses at one time

And a few more from Dexter

Lest you think that all of Detroit looks like this, let's go to Palmer Woods, a neighborhood in northwest Detroit.

Unfortunately, even Palmer Woods can't avoid the Detroit syndrome:

Now, let's cross Woodward, about 1/4 mile from Palmer Woods

But a few blocks away.....

Next: Outside the City Limits