Pretty sad to think of what Detroit used to be. Unfortunately the demographic changed and that was the beginning of the end. Like many great American cities that are now 3rd world shitholes
I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia in the 50s and 60s. We experienced the same decay of our downtown and neighborhoods. Just like Detroit, we had very corrupt mayors and politicians. They destroyed most of our communities along with our history in the process. Historical places in Atlanta were torn down for new and boring building. They have no meaning for anyone. The good people don't live there, they all left. I am afraid the old Detroit like my old Atlanta, are only memories now. Both cities cannot pull themselves out of their political corruption.
I was born in Detroit in December 1948. Lived on Driggs until 1963. My Dad passed in 1961 & Mom remarried in 1963 to a man who lived in a very small town in Northwest Ohio. What a culture shock to the system. LOL!!
This makes me a bit sad. My mom was born in Detroit in 1941. She lived there until 1959 and then moved to Ohio for college. She would have loved to have seen this video but she got old before her time. The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away. She will be at peace soon, bless her heart.
My family moved to the suburbs in '59. We lived near McNichols and Outer Drive. I'm an old guy now but I still remember Detroit fondly for the beautiful place it had been.
The Michigan Central Station. Ford Motor Company bought it from the neglectful Maroun family in 2018 and are spending over $1 billion to restore it and turn it into a technology center for Ford. It’s expected to be operational early next year.
Detroit is indeed interesting. Looking at the old photos and contrasting it to Google Maps' street view today is amazing. The urban prairie concept shows some promise. Farming and wildlife preserves are possible. And I read that many of the downtown historic buildings have been restored and the middle class has returned to downtown loft living to a small degree. Seems like Detroit could possibly morph into a small, charming city one day. Obviously, it will never return to the size and influence it once had, but there's still potential for something good.
I grew up in the 50’s & 60’s, then going to school & working for my father in the early ‘70’s and remember downtown Detroit which was similar to what you have shown here. It was a different time then. After that time it began evolving/changing into something completely different. I loved going to the massive JL Hudsons downtown which wasn’t too far from my father’s work, it was like a complete city in itself with floors and floors of stuff and food, I could spend a whole day there and not see everything…..I still have dreams about it! 🥰. Verner’s Ginger Ale was something we always had to drink & I was startled to learn when I moved away that it was local….a Verner’s & vanilla ice cream float mmmmmm. Anyway, thanks for the memories. ❤️
Thank you for this wonderful trip down memory lane. I was born in Port Huron in the late 1940s but my grandparents lived in Detroit all during that decade and into the 1960s until my grandfather retired from GM in 1966. I remember well visiting them in the 1950s where they lived on Alter Road off E. Jefferson in the Windmill Point Apartments which I think are still there. In the summertime my grandpa and I would take a walk down Jefferson to a corner store where he'd buy a newspaper and cigarettes. Detroit was a beautiful city back then, bustling with business and traffic and lots of things to do. My parents moved to Florida in 1959, but I've made many trips back and the city just isn't the same anymore. It hasn't been for decades.
I remember growing up in the 60s in Detroit. It was so beautiful so safe so clean now they destroyed it burned everything you would think a nuclear bomb went off there. If a nuclear bomb went off there it still would not look as bad look how beautiful the homes were what a shame. everything was made in the USA and things lasted after the riots in 1967. They called it white flight. All the white people moved to the suburbs factories started closing down and it just turned into a shit hole. It is the most dangerous city now in the United States?
Small, neighborhood grocers right in the middle of your block. You knew the owner and he would give you credit until payday. Detroit was a big city but full of tight knit little community neighborhoods back then.
I was born and raised during the mid 1950's in the SW side of Detroit - Delray exactly. Lived in the house my Father was born in - the living room when Doctor's made house calls, even when delivering babies into the world. Detroit back in the 1950's thru the 1960's, and even into the early 1970's was a cool and great city to live, explore, and enjoy. But I could see the city decline every year since the 1967 riot. It didn't make sense to me that people would burn down their own neighborhood just because the police raided a blind pig operating their neighborhood. Yes the Detroit Police were racist and the department was 100 percent white, and even white people got hassled by the police, because they could get away with it, but after being arrested, you make small bail, and get out of jail in a few short hours, then you're back home and on the streets again. Really no big deal getting arrested back then, even now. No reason to burn down the entire neighborhood where the blind pig operated. It still would have been operating as usual if the assholes didn't burn down the area. Taking away its customers. Detroit has never recovered since then, and NEVER will. Oh, you got some fairy tale minded Detroit citizens still thinking Detroit is coming back. Even bonehead Mayor Mike Duggan drinking the psychedelic cool aid, keeps saying and believing that Detroit is going to look like the days this video shows how Detroit once looked. BULLSHIT.All the good store's downtown are long gone. Hudson's, Gimble's, Crowley's, Saunders, Sam's Drugs, the Vernor's pop factory, Greenfield's Restaurant and so on are all gone, and nothing of marketing value came back. All you now have is sport's stadiums and office buildings purchased by multimillionaire families of Ford, Gilbert, and Illitch. A woman used to buy wigs on Woodward Ave. Can't do that anymore. Nope, Detroit will NEVER be the Detroit it used to be. All the surrounding neighborhoods are open farm land now. Even stray dogs don't exist in Detroit today. Now you see wild pheasants, and wild turkeys roaming the wide open spaces of where homes, apartments, and businesses USED TO BE. Hell, even Barry Gordie took Motown and moved out of Detroit decade's ago. All that's left of Motown is the shell of a museum. A building that was alive with musical talent walking in and out of it's front and back doors. Recording music there completely stopped after the 67 riot. Many Black people got the hell out if Detroit, and moved to the suburbs. Only poor and ignorant people of all racial backgrounds still wanna live in a shit hole toilet city called Detroit. Where you pay the highest property taxes for next to nothing city services. I remember when Detroit USED to have street cleaners driving down the neighborhood street's at least once a month. Garbage pickup was very efficient. Police would come within minutes when you called about a break in, or other problems. Now today, a Detroit citizen is lucky if the cops come at all. Despite all the homes and businesses gone, there are still area's of Detroit that the police are AFRAID of going into. AND THEY GOT GUNS ON THEIR HIPS. So don't bullshit people by saying Detroit is coming back, and the remaining citizens living in Detroit gotta stop believing the Mike Duggan fairy tale, and stop drinking the psychedelic cool aid that Detroit is coming back. Buy some kick ass weed, and watch videos like this one and relive the good old days of Detroit's past, and stop dreaming of its never ever future. It ain't gonna happen. Even God threw up His hands and said: "F**K it. I can't make a miracle like THAT happen for Detroit.
This is a very late reply. Many of us are frustrated but it is getting better. It's going to take time. As you've stated we suffered huge blows and still haven't recovered from them but there are lights of hope. New homes are being built in neighborhoods that were once crack havens. Many dilapidated houses are being torn down. Neighborhoods are becoming more diverse which is a beautiful thing when everyone gets along. I was a teen in the 80s and witnessed Detroit at its lowest point which was the crack era. The number of killings back then were unparalleled. My neighborhood went from a thriving working class community filled with schools and businesses, to a slum! Detroit was once a mega metropolis indeed. Corruption, crime, hatred and ignorance nearly destroyed it. Fast forward to today, it's still bad but not like before. Seeing new homes and businesses give us hope.
Its Mike Duggan and the people who put him in office is the reason that the Detroit that you use to know is coming back, if you are not happy about what's going on in Detroit ,throw your hat in the ring, no one or nothing is what it use to be, stick around and see the change.Detroit still has potential, it will take more then one person. A beautiful look back from the 1940's thanks I really enjoyed it.
