Rethinking Standard Narratives: A Documentary Archaeology ofDetroit’s Roosevelt Park in the Early 20th Century

by

Katherine Korth

AN ESSAY

Submitted to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences,Wayne State University,

Detroit, Michigan,in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

May 2015

MAJOR: Anthropology

APPROVED BY:

____________________________________Adviser Date

____________________________________2nd Reader Date

Table of Contents page

Introduction...................................................1Historical Background and Prior Research.......................5Methods and Scholarship.......................................10Detroit, City Beautiful.......................................16Clearing Land for the Station.................................18The Approach to the Station...................................21The Plans.....................................................28Condemnation Proceedings......................................33Interpretations...............................................38Conclusions...................................................42Bibliography..................................................45Appendix......................................................53

Figures page

Figure 1: Michigan Central Station towering over Roosevelt Park,

in red area (date unknown, in Burton Historical Collection). 1

Figure 2: Sanborn map overlaid on aerial image of Roosevelt Park

(Graham Sheckels, 2012).....................................2

ii

Figure 3: Duration of residency on 17th Street..................4

Figure 4: Map of land annexation in Detroit (Manual, County of

Wayne, Michigan, 1926)......................................6

Figure 5: Wood framed houses in Roosevelt Park site area with new

station in background c. 1913-1918 (source unknown).........8

Figure 6: 1906 Baist Real Estate Map showing west

area.........................................................

..................12

Figure 7: 1897 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map showing west........12

Figure 8: The 200-foot boulevard approach plan (Detroit Free Press,

1913)......................................................23

Figure 9: 1911 Baist Map, no brick building

present.............................. 37....................

Figure 10: 1915 Sanborn Map, brick building

appears........................ 37

Figure 11: Photograph of neighborhood in 1915, looking from 15th

and Dalzelle to the northwest (Burton Historical Collection)

...........................................................43

iii

Introduction

Roosevelt Park is a wide expanse spanning three blocks in

the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit (Figure 1). It is a popular

destination for Detroit “ruin porn” tourists to drive in, snap a

quick photograph of the massive empty train station that the park

leads up to, and drive away just as quickly, probably never

realizing they were in a city park. This park was the location

of a long property struggle between residents and the city of

Detroit in the early 20th century during and after the

construction of Michigan Central Station. Recent archaeological

excavations at the site have been fruitful, but there is much

about the historical and cultural context of the site that is

unknown or misremembered (Figure 2). This paper employs

documentary archaeology to consider the reputation of the

neighborhood over time before and during the land struggle in

order to determine if this reputation is accurate. Maps,

photographs, newspapers and other written records, as well as a

relational concept of class suggest that the standard narrative

of the site is flawed. These documents reveal a more complicated

and nuanced background.

1

Figure 1: Michigan Central Station towering over Roosevelt Park, in red area(date unknown, in Burton Historical Collection).

Figure 2: Sanborn map overlaid on aerial image of Roosevelt Park (Graham Sheckels,2012).

2

In contrast with other subsets of archaeology,

archaeologists working with urban historical sites can focus

closely on one or two household lots associated with one or a few

families. This close focus is helpful for developing theories

about how assemblages associated with families of certain class

statuses might be composed. Considering the larger historical

context can reveal information unobtainable by material remains,

as well as patterns of forced displacement that repeat on a

larger scale over time.

Archaeology can be an outlet for previously unheard voices

among the larger historical context. Marginalized individuals

and groups are often unrepresented in the written record, but

they usually leave traces in the material record. In the case of

Roosevelt Park, the residents are found in directories and other

city records, but their personal points-of-view do not exist in

public written format. Their stories must be understood through

what they physically left behind as well as through primary

sources written about them. At first glance, the written sources

seem to indicate that these residents lived in disreputable

squalor, but a little digging in the archives reveals this to be

3

untrue. More analysis is needed on the artifacts from the 2012

and 2014 excavations at the Roosevelt Park site, especially

faunal and soil analysis, but primary written sources (especially

newspaper articles, city records, and committee reports) as well

as some special finds from the excavations reveal this area was

home to working and lower middle class individuals and families,

and that is was completely unremarkable until after the city

revealed plans to condemn it.

Generally, Detroiters and people interested in Detroit’s

history are familiar with Michigan Central Station, and some

might be aware of the way in which the city changed the area in

front of it into Roosevelt Park. The standard narrative,

however, is incomplete and inaccurate. A cursory look at select

historical photographs and newspaper articles1 might suggest the

area was rundown, and it would logically follow that the city

targeted the neighborhood because of its poor reputation. This

is the standard narrative that permeates the lore,2 but a closer 1Roosevelt Park Neighborhood, Photography, January 30, 1915, The Detroit Saturday Night; “Why Not Begin It This Year?,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), April 23, 1914,http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565672475/abstract/432B98AC671D402CPQ/2?accountid=14925.2 Preliminary reports from the archaeological excavations include brief discussions of historical information on the displacement years using articlesand photographs such as the above cited, which suggest the neighborhood was

4

reading reveals that this was not the case. Documentary evidence

reveals that as the city condemned the neighborhood over five

long years from 1913-1918, its reputation declined. Before and

even while the station was being constructed, parts of the

neighborhood housed long-term residents, many of them families

with children (Figure 3). The area was ordinary and usually only

ever mentioned when an individual resident was in the news

because they were struck by a vehicle or selling their house, not

because of its embarrassing squalor.3

When the Michigan Central Railroad (MCRR) began construction

on their new station in 1911, the neighborhood transitioned from

a working and lower middle class family neighborhood to a working

and lower middle class neighborhood of more transient people.

This was partially the result of the condemnation proceedings.

As the city continued to slowly clear out the neighborhood, some

homes fell into disrepair or were abandoned as a direct result.

“dilapidated” during the 1910s. As will be discussed, this is not inaccurate for the neighborhood towards the end of the decade, but the area did not fit this description in earlier years. See Krysta Ryzewski, Roosevelt Park Archaeological Excavation Report (Detroit: Wayne State University, 2012).3 “His Right Leg and Arm Were Broken: Patrick H. Moran Was Struck By Street Car. Suspected of Stealing Copper Wire. Mrs. H. L. Innes, of Sandwich, Dead,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), June 1, 1903, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/563482346/citation/A8DA5E49BD5F4E67PQ/1?accountid=14925.

5

Also, it is important to recognize that opinions about the

neighborhood written in the early 20th century were written in

the context of the City Beautiful Movement. A notoriously

rundown neighborhood in Detroit today likely looks completely

different from a similarly described neighborhood in 1914,

especially when directly adjacent to a magnificent brand new

building.

Figure 3: Duration of residency on 17th Street

1869

1871

1873

1875

1877

1879

1881

1883

1885

1887

1889

1891

1893

1895

1897

1899

1901

1903

1905

1907

1909

1911

1913

1915

1917

344

346

348

350

352

354

356

358

360

362

n=6 houses Year

Address number on 17th St.

This chart illustrates the length of occupation for longer-term residents on 17th Street over time. No houses were ever built at 354 and 350 17th. Information from 360 and 358 17th is provided from Amanda Roach and begins in 1897, so occupation patterns before 1897 are currently unknown. See Appendix I for greater detail.

6

This study traces the reputation of the neighborhood over

time, mostly using newspaper sources, in order to question the

standard narrative and provide a basis for future archaeological

study. Roosevelt Park’s story is important to the history of

Detroit because it was one of the first urban renewal projects.

Like other urban renewal projects in Detroit (Brewster-Douglass

homes, Lafayette Park, etc), the city condemned privately owned

land to build an empty space, and that empty space is all too

familiar in Detroit today. In the context of national history,

Roosevelt Park is important because its planners at least

attempted to realize the City Beautiful Movement, popular across

the nation in the first decades of the 20th century. While the

City Beautiful made its mark with many beautiful buildings and

landscapes that still stand today, it also encouraged cities to

remove the old to replace with the new, and in the process much

has been lost.

This paper will touch on the City Beautiful movement, but

focus most closely on the story of Roosevelt Park using both etic

and emic approaches. An analysis of the class relations between

the multiple parties involved with the construction of the

7

Michigan Central Station (MCS) and demolition of the approach

area reveals that contrary to popular belief, this neighborhood

was ordinary and not rundown, and that the city was desperate to

control the land but their hold was very tenuous. The Detroit Free

Press thoroughly covered the property struggle, including voices

from the community and from the various committees involved in

its planning. These articles reveal the change in perceptions of

the neighborhood, and the arguments and controversy surrounding

the plans and condemnation of the neighborhood. This paper uses

an emic approach by closely analyzing these articles in order to

correct longstanding pervasive misunderstandings about the

demolished neighborhood.

Historical Background and Prior Research

The history of the Roosevelt Park site extends back about

four decades before the station was built in the 1910s. As

Detroit’s boundaries expanded in the 19th century, land that had

been organized as French ribbon farms since the 18th century

turned into residential neighborhoods often associated with

specific nationalities (Figure 4). This area, today known as

8

Corktown, transitioned from the Stanton and LaFontaine Farms into

mostly small residential lots in the mid 19th century.4 The

Roosevelt Park site consisted of homes, churches, and some

factories and businesses along Michigan Street and in the

neighborhood displaced by the station. The west side of the site

was home to two brick German churches and a number of German

residents, while people of other nationalities, especially Irish

immigrants and descendants, lived throughout the rest of the

neighborhood. As time went on, the breakdown of nationalities in

certain areas was not as specific. Determining the demographics

of people living in this area is a large undertaking and ongoing.

4 C. Stephan Demeter, An Archeological Evaluation of the Corktown Study Area Submitted To City of Detroit, Community and Economic Development Department, Detroit, Michigan (Jackson, MI: Commonwealth Associates, 1981).

9

Figure 4: Map of land annexation in Detroit (Manual, County of Wayne,Michigan, 1926).

Research on Irish immigrants in the United States often

focuses on marginalization and the gradual cultural change from

an Irish identity to an Irish American identity.5 It is

important to contextualize this research when working in Detroit,

because Irish immigrants had a very different experience in

Detroit. In early 19th century Detroit, jobs were relatively 5 Stephen A. Brighton, “Middle-Class Ideologies and American Respectability: Archaeology and the Irish Immigrant Experience,” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 15, no. 1 (November 9, 2010): 30–50, doi:10.1007/s10761-010-0128-4;Diana Dizerega Wall, “Examining Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in Nineteenth-Century New York City,” Historical Archaeology 33, no. 1 (January 1, 1999): 102–17;Elizabeth S. Peña and Jacqueline Denmon, “The Social Organization of a Boardinghouse: Archaeological Evidence from the Buffalo Waterfront,” Historical Archaeology 34, no. 1 (January 1, 2000): 79–96.

10

easy to come by for Irish immigrants at all levels depending on

skills.6 This changed after the post-famine mass immigration,

but Irish in Detroit still found respectable and powerful

occupations. As Detroit finally organized a police force in

1865, English literacy requirements gave Irish immigrants an

advantage over other immigrants, and their ratio in the

department greatly exceeded their ratio in the general

population.7 In addition, the mayors of Detroit in 1897-1904,

1907-1908, and 1911-1912 (years encompassing the displacement for

the MCS station and approach) were first generation Americans

born of Irish parents.

Though many Irish immigrants flocked to Corktown throughout

the 19th century, the majority of Irish Detroiters lived in other

neighborhoods.8 Like other neighborhoods associated with a

single ethnicity or nationality, Corktown was segregated; often,

micro-neighborhoods of a handful of families of the same

6 Jo Ellen Vinyard, The Irish on the Urban Frontier: Nineteenth Century Detroit, 1850-1880 (New York: Arno Press, 1976), 48.7 John C. Schneider, “Public Order and the Geography of the City: ‘Crime, Violence, and the Police in Detroit, 1845-1875,’” Journal of Urban History 4, no. 2(February 1978): 183 – 208, 194.8 Vinyard, The Irish on the Urban Frontier, 175.

11

nationality lived near each other.9 Corktown was historically

situated in the eastern portion of the eighth ward between 3rd

and 11th Streets, so when Roosevelt Park was still residential,

it was not part of Corktown proper but on the western

outskirts.10 Further out towards the west of the site, these

micro-neighborhoods existed on 17th Street where pockets of

German families lived especially during the mid to late 19th

century. The families in the area usually lived in single or one

and a half story wooden frame dwelling houses, but some brick

structures were sprinkled throughout and Michigan Avenue was

mostly lined with brick buildings (Figure 5). The Free Press notes

that the homes that stood where the station is today were built

of high quality materials, and homes in both the station and park

area were either moved or harvested for building materials.11

9 Ibid, 181.10 Ibid, 197.11 “How New Location of Michigan Central Was Purchased: Credit For Big Deal Due Largely to Untiring Efforts of M. Scanlon What Others Say About the Big Deal,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), December 31, 1913, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565641249/abstract/9336952E3FD94A52PQ/1?accountid=14925; “Display Ad 2 -- No Title,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), September 17, 1917, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/566173991/citation/BF08B0B25A174A93PQ/2?accountid=14925; “45 of 100 Houses Sold to Clear Station Site,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), September 20, 1917, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/566007276/citation/928B486A54FC4BB7PQ/1?accountid=14925.

12

Some of the buildings may have been in poor condition by 1918,

but they were of good quality when built. There were already

train tracks in the neighborhood when people started buying lots

to build homes in the mid 19th century, but the property owners

never could have foreseen how this would affect them.

Figure 5: Wood framed houses in Roosevelt Park site area with new station inbackground c. 1913-1918 (source unknown).

In the late 19th century as Detroit was thriving, the train

companies realized they needed a better way to transport train

carts across the Detroit River. They built a tunnel under the

river that emerged at Sixteenth Street, so they eventually

decided that the immediate area would be a good place for a new

station. During construction of the massive and elegant station,

13

the city realized that most of the visitors to Detroit would

enter into the middle of a residential neighborhood, so they

began planning an approach to match the magnificence of the

station.

Several parties were involved with planning the approach,

drawing up at least four plans. The two plans with the most

supporters consisted of a 200-foot wide diagonal approach from

Michigan Avenue to the station that would disrupt dozens

properties, and a park encompassing three blocks that would

require the removal of 170 buildings. The city council voted for

the park approach but it took five years to condemn and demolish

all of the houses on the park property because many of the

homeowners fought back against the condemnation proceedings in

court. The city demolished the final homes in 1918 and covered

the lots in soil for the park in the 1920s. This process ensured

the material culture underneath would remain undisturbed, making

the site a priceless source for archaeologists researching early

late 18th and early 19th century Detroit.

Detroit has a rich history of urban historical archaeology.

Starting around the 1890s, historians salvaged artifacts during

14

construction projects downtown, but these faux-excavations

tapered off during the early 20th century.12 As Drs. Arnold

Pilling and Gordon Grosscup joined Wayne State University’s

anthropology department in the 1950s, they made it a priority to

conduct salvage excavations whenever possible during major

construction projects. Most of these projects took place

downtown, but Wayne State MA student C. Stephan Demeter also

worked with local CRM firm Commonwealth Associates to conduct

archaeological surveys more broadly across the city. Demeter

recommended further archaeological study of the west Corktown

area in a 1981 report.13 Wayne State archaeologist Dr. Thomas W.

Killion and several students completed a systematic survey of the

eastern portion of Roosevelt Park in 2011, and Dr. Krysta

Ryzewski led excavations in 2012 and 2014. These excavations

will be ongoing as part of the Wayne State field methods class in

future years. Several students have researched the historical

background of individual lots, but the social and cultural

context of the area as a whole has been largely unstudied.

12 Arnold R. Pilling, “Skyscraper Archaeologist: The Urban Archaeologist in Detroit,” Detroit Historical Society Bulletin 23, no. 8 (May 1967): 6.13 Demeter, An Archeological Evaluation of the Corktown Study Area Submitted To City of Detroit, Community and Economic Development Department, Detroit, Michigan.

15

Methods and Scholarship

This study draws on the previous historical and

archaeological research on Roosevelt Park mentioned above, and

uses documentary archaeology to reconstruct the social historical

context of the neighborhood before it was demolished. Laurie

Wilkie succinctly summarizes why archaeologists use documents in

three points: to determine who lived or is otherwise associated

with the site, to understand the social and cultural context

around the site, and to understand the use life and social

significance of the artifacts recovered.14 Here, I focus

especially on the second point in order to test the standard

historical narrative of the Roosevelt Park site and tease out

complexities that are forgotten or ignored.

Mary Beaudry’s edited volume Documenting Archaeology in the

New World thoroughly illustrates the myriad uses of documentary

records, especially probate records, in historical archaeological

14 Laurie Wilkie, “Documentary Archaeology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology, ed. Dan Hicks and Mary C. Beaudry (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2006), 13–33.

16

research.15 Probate records often include detailed inventories

of a deceased person’s possessions, which can be helpful for

archaeologists. Gary Wheeler Stone notes that they can be useful

for studying culture, and they often help with dating and

classifying artifacts.16 Marley R. Brown III discusses how

probate inventories can be compared with an assemblage of

artifacts to judge how complete or representative the assemblage

is.17 It is difficult to say how representative an assemblage is

without these records. Of course, probate inventories are not

without issue. Their accuracy must always be questioned; they

might have errors, some objects may have been too plain or

obvious for the record keeper to notice and then quantify, and

they only represent a very brief period of a household’s

materials. Still, they are useful for comparing against the

archaeological evidence. As they were usually recorded as the

inventory taker walked through the house, they can indicate where

15 Mary C. Beaudry, ed., Documentary Archaeology in the New World, Reprint edition (Cambridge England: Cambridge University Press, 1993).16 Garry Wheeler Stone, “Artifacts Are Not Enough,” in Documentary Archaeology in the New World, ed. Mary C. Beaudry (Cambridge England: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 68–78.17 Marley R. Brown III, “The Behavioral Context of Probate Inventories: An Example from Plymouth County,” in Documentary Archaeology in the New World, ed. Mary C. Beaudry (Cambridge England: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 79–82.

17

items were placed in the house. Unfortunately, probate

inventories do not exist for the families from the Roosevelt Park

site.

Maps are another valuable documentary source, and maps from

this period of Detroit’s history are plentiful. Historical maps

are often inaccurate (or completely wrong when unfulfilled plans

are accidentally understood as maps) but they can still be useful

when carefully studied. In her study of Boston using historical

maps, Nancy S. Seasholes notes that it is imperative to question

maps like any other historical document: Who made it? Why? Who

is the intended audience?18 Baist Real Estate and Sanborn Fire

Insurance maps are helpful for studies of early 20th century

Detroit because they focus on specific individual buildings for

real estate and insurance purposes, thus noting building

materials and scale, fairly good accuracy, and change over time

as they were created and updated periodically between 1884 and

the 1920s. Using the two types of maps together is especially

18 Nancy S Seasholes, “On the Use of Historical Maps,” in Documentary Archaeology in the New World, ed. Mary C. Beaudry (Cambridge England: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 93.

18

helpful because they cover more years and can be checked against

each other for accuracy (Figure 6 and 7).

Figure 6: 1906 Baist Real Estate Map showing west area Figure 7: 1897 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map showing west of Roosevelt Park site. Helpful information includes lot area of Roosevelt Park site. Helpful information includesnumbers and coloring indicating building material. accurate building dimensions and layouts.

Stephen A. Mrozowski demonstrates how colonial newspapers

can be useful for dating ceramics, but also for getting an emic

understanding from historical individuals in order to understand

the cultural context around an archaeological site.19 Mrozowski

specifically examines an anecdote published in the 1733 Rhode

Island Gazette as a case study for understanding gender and how it

19 Stephen A. Mrozowski, “For Gentlemen of Capacity and Leisure: The Archaeology of Colonial Newspapers,” in Documentary Archaeology in the New World, ed.Mary C. Beaudry (Cambridge England: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 184–91.

19

structured the “material world.”20 Even though the anecdote

reads as an allegory, it still provides insight into the culture

of the time and the opinions, if exaggerated, of the writer.

In this study of early 20th century west Corktown through

Detroit Free Press newspaper articles, I trace the opinions of

journalists over time relating to west Corktown and the park

project. Articles like the above might be heavily biased or

hyperbolic, but if the sentiments are repeated in many articles,

it is clear that these sentiments are worth recognizing because

the readership of the Free Press would be reading them over and

over and might be influenced by them. Likewise, if such

hyperbole is uncommon, it might indicate the sentiment is not as

popular and is not being promoted to the reader.

In the Free Press, editorials do not have a byline naming the

author of the piece, meaning that the editorials are

representative of the views of the Free Press staff. These

articles were likely very widely read. The Free Press’s coverage

of the Civil War gave the newspaper a good reputation nationally,

and the paper even expanded to London in 1881, making for a large

20 Ibid, 187.

20

readership base.21 Whether or not the residents living in west

Corktown read the newspaper, the articles indicate the change in

the reputation of the site over time from before the park was

conceptualized to the final demolition.

Today, the site is remembered as a working-class

neighborhood, but research on the demographics of the residents

indicates this is not quite accurate, especially up to about

1910. When determining class, archaeologists can use many

theories with differing definitions of class. This paper uses a

relational concept of class as described by Louann Wurst.22 For

Wurst, class is based on relationships that differ depending upon

scale and social context. She employs this definition in her

study on an industrial rural community in upstate New York, Upper

Lisle. Looking at the community as a whole reveals the extent to

which class structured the community. Her study revealed a

complex interplay of two main class relationships that also

interplay with each other: wealthy farmers and those who worked

21 “Detroit Free Press,” Encycolpedia of Detroit (Detroit: Detroit Historical Society, 2015), http://detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/detroit-free-press.22 Louann Wurst, “Internalizing Class in Historical Archaeology,” Historical Archaeology 33, no. 1 (January 1, 1999): 7–21.

21

for wages on the farms, and the tannery owner and those who

worked for wages at the factory. This case study is interesting

because it complicates typical simplistic understandings of rural

life, and it shows how complex social relations interplay with

each other.

This paper focuses on the relationship between several

parties. The MCRR, the city council, the City Plan and

Improvement Commission, and the area of west Corktown under study

all relate to each other in different ways. The city council had

the most power, and the neighborhood had the least. The

Commission and MCRR cared about the project to differing degrees,

but both tried to influence the city council in its final

decision. In relation to the brand new state-of-the-art station,

the neighborhood in front of it was clearly lower class and some

in the neighborhood actually worked for the MCRR. Before 1918,

residents held various occupations from janitor to business owner

to post office clerk, making the neighborhood hard to classify in

terms of a classic Marxist definition of class. Documentary

evidence suggests that most residents were working-class (working

for wages and producing materials) and some may have been lower

22

middle class (owning small businesses and possibly employing

others), but clear Marxist class distinctions between neighbors

are not readily apparent, and the relational model provides a

better avenue for studying this site.

Randall McGuire’s chapter “Marxism and capitalism” in The

Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology discusses the ways that

Marxist archaeologists have interpreted archaeology through a

Marxist lens.23 When studying class struggles, instead of

accepting that the dominant ideology dominates subordinate

classes, Marxist archaeologists look at how ideologies

perpetuated by the dominant classes shape class-consciousness and

how subordinate classes respond to and use these ideologies as

they struggle against dominant power. In the case of Roosevelt

Park, the lower classes operated within the bounds of the

dominant ideology in their struggle to keep their properties, but

they were unsuccessful.

The site saw various levels of conflict over time from about

1905 to 1918. Instead of one homogenous working class group

23 Randall H. McGuire, “Marxism and Capitalism in Historical Archaeology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology, ed. Dan Hicks and Mary C. Beaudry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 123–42.

23

against one homogenous land owning bourgeois group, members that

would mostly fit into either of the groups sometimes pitted

themselves against each other. This site was not quite a part of

Corktown proper, and so families of many different nationalities

and different income levels lived on the same block. Some

families stayed in their houses for decades, while some stayed

anywhere from only a year to five or ten years. This was not a

unified group of people from similar backgrounds. It is

important to keep this in mind when looking at the residents’

relationship with the city, the MCRR, and the various parties

interested in the park project. It is easy to mistake this site

as a neighborhood, because it is all one piece of property today

and it is in clear contrast with the station, but it is likely

the residents identified closely with some of their neighbors

that lived adjacent to them and not at all with people a street

or two away.

This context is important when analyzing artifacts from the

2012 and 2014 excavations. An expensive piece of German

religious iconography in a slum neighborhood may possibly

indicate its owner was aspiring to a higher class, an outlier in

24

the neighborhood, or someone recently down on their luck. The

same piece in a working and lower middle class mixed ethnicity

neighborhood might indicate the individual strongly identified

with their micro-neighborhood and it might suggest the individual

that owned it had some disposable income. Before a large-scale

analysis of the artifacts can take place, the cultural and

historical context must be understood.

As analysis from the 2012 and 2014 archaeological

excavations of the site is in early stages, this paper is heavily

dependent on primary sources from the Detroit Free Press, City Plan

and Improvement Commission, and council reports. Preliminary

archaeological analysis supports that the neighborhood was home

to families and single occupants from the working and lower

middle classes. Primary written documents, though always having

bias, provide more insight into people’s opinions, even if those

opinions are not based in fact. Historical Detroit Free Press

journalists often convey pride in the city. They might not

encompass the thoughts of the average citizen, but they likely

influenced their readers. They are also helpful because they

describe events as they unfold, providing a helpful timeline.

25

Tracing the timeline from before the station was built to after

the condemnation proceedings began, these articles give insights

into the way the neighborhood was portrayed in a widespread form

of media, and the reasoning behind plans for the approach to the

station.

Detroit, City Beautiful

To people outside of Detroit, Michigan Central Station is an

iconic representation of Detroit’s economic decline. To

Detroiters it is just another empty building behind a large and

empty park. People interested in Detroit’s history and historic

preservation know the general story of Roosevelt Park’s contested

construction. The standard narrative that Detroit and the MCS

condemned the Roosevelt Park area because the station was the new

grand entry point for visitors to Detroit, and that the

surrounding houses were run down and unsightly is pervasive in

Detroit’s lore. There is a tiny grain of truth in the narrative

in that the city was obsessed with its image in light of the City

Beautiful movement, but the rest is inaccurate at best.

26

As the City Beautiful movement swept the nation in the

1800s, growing cities like Chicago and Detroit as well as smaller

towns like Middletown, New York embraced the idea of beautifying

their cities.24 In one of hundreds of articles about the

movement, the Free Press reports on a case in Middletown where

after two failed attempts, a person burned down a block of wood

framed commercial buildings. Instead of painting this person as

a criminal, the article describes the block as “an eyesore,” and

the person as someone “imbued with the ‘city beautiful’ idea.”25

The article does not commend the offender, but legitimizes the

arson because it was done to make the city more beautiful.

Cities often prioritized aesthetic improvements over

improvements relating to the well-being of its citizens because

of City Beautiful. In June of 1906, a Detroit Free Press reporter

comments on articles in the Chicago Chronicle warning about this

practice. The Free Press reporter agrees with the Chronicle in

that cities should be “clean, well-paved, well-built, well-

24 “Wanted Beautiful City: Incendiary, After Two Attempt. Burns Unsightly Buildings.,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), November 10, 1907, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/564136511/citation/379D062A1D34610PQ/21?accountid=14925.25 Ibid.

27

governed and well protected against all dangers,” because “there

really is nothing that is romantic, poetic or aesthetic about

busy streets, thronged markets, hurrying crowds, high buildings

and street railways.”26 The writer only agrees with the first

point because a city cannot be beautiful without those things.

The reporter is most concerned about “architectural

impressiveness” and “greenery,” and writes, “the work of the city

itself must be expended in the larger field of parks and

boulevards.”27 This is just one of dozens of similar articles in

the Free Press arguing for the beautification of Detroit in the

first two decades of the 20th century.

In 1907, the Free Press published an article praising the

“Makers of New Detroit.” It praises six businessmen for being

great business owners and managers. One of them was the water

commissioner for a time and is credited for giving Detroiters “a

source of water supply that will, to all appearances, remain free

from contamination through all time.”28 He was also a banker and

26 “‘The City Beautiful’ Controversy.,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), June 3, 1906, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/563884885/abstract/5D776744D72F4999PQ/1?accountid=14925.27 Ibid.28 “Active Workers for the Betterment of the City Beautiful.,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), November 17, 1907,

28

businessmen. Interestingly, this feature is titled “Active

Workers for the Betterment of the City Beautiful.”29 There is no

mention in the article of how these men contributed to the

beautification of the city. They are praised simply for their

hard work and business prowess, and somehow this fits into the

City Beautiful mindset. This article hints at the biases of the

Free Press and foreshadows Detroit’s relationship with the

residents of the Roosevelt Park area and the MCRR. It did not

matter that the residents were hardworking and that some were

businessmen. The city and Free Press were much more interested in

big capitalist ventures and they believed by making their city

beautiful, they could attract such business.

The City Beautiful movement was complex and meant different

things in different cities, but in Detroit, it pitted people in

lower classes against the idea of the city as a whole. No matter

how clean and well-kept their homes, their neighborhoods did not

fit the ideal of a City Beautiful. Their achievements in their

working class jobs or small businesses could not compete with the

http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/563979568/abstract/379D062A1D34610PQ/3?accountid=14925.29 Ibid.

29

“Makers of New Detroit.” These relationships would later play a

role in the condemnation and legacy of the neighborhood.

Clearing Land for the Station

In the early 20th century, the MCRR decided to build a

tunnel under the Detroit River to move their trains more

efficiently and to capitalize on cross river transportation by

making contracts with other railroad companies to use their

tunnel. Up to that point, freight ships carried train cars

across the river. This was slow and nearly impossible during the

winter. Since the tunnel opened on the Detroit side at Sixteenth

Street, the MCRR chose land near Sixteenth and Michigan to build

a new station that could service a number of railroad companies

and have easy access to a road that would take people into

town.30 30 “We’ll Have a Tunnel: Detroit Is Going to Follow the Example of Port Huron,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), April 25, 1891, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/562190030/abstract/53665E9B3FE49C4PQ/30?accountid=14925; “Union Station: Will Probably Be Built in Neighborhood of Twentieth St. and Michigan Ave,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), October 25, 1905, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/563790251/abstract/1E847340611248E0PQ/5?accountid=14925; “Will Spend $16,000,000: New York-Chicago To Be 16 Hours Now Cost of Improvements by Michigan Central,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), May 7, 1909, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/564614230/abstract/3F7E07A06E1D4750PQ/3?accountid=14925.

30

In order to acquire the land needed for a station in this

area, the MCRR hired Matthew Scanlon, a real estate agent, to buy

the properties they needed to go through with their plan. The

neighborhood encompassed about 50 acres and 200 buildings. The

MCRR gave Scanlon credentials to show the property owners and

told him to “get the property with the least trouble, in the

shortest time and at fair prices.”31 Scanlon had a trouble with

a few residents who were attached to their homes and with

properties owned by more than two people, but the process was

fairly quick and easy. The MCRR gave the property owners time to

find new lodgings before selling the houses and let them live

rent-free in their houses for up to six months.32

The MCRR almost avoided condemnation proceedings, but one

property owner, Elizabeth Ferguson, refused to sell her

properties on Seventeenth. The houses were appraised at $3,000

(though the Free Press claims it was $6,000)33 and Scanlon upped the31 “How New Location of Michigan Central Was Purchased.”32 Ibid.33 “Score Price Boosters: Judges Sustain Verdict in Condemnation Case; Cut Fees.,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), September 26, 1909, sec. PART ONE, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/564651143/citation/732F3DB4F89E458DPQ/3?accountid=14925; “City in Brief,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), September 15, 1909, sec. PART ONE, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/564666172/abstract/732F3DB4F89E458DPQ/6?accountid=14925; “Railroad’s Right to

31

offer to $8,000. Ferguson believed the property had more worth,

and apparently she was correct, as she sold it to Burr Lobdell

for $11,500. Lobdell then sold it to Edwin Miller, a Birmingham

farmer, for $25,000. Miller planned to use the site to build a

manufacturing company and then sell it for $35,000, but the MCRR

opened a condemnation suit on the land.34 Ferguson, Lobdell, and

Miller fought back, with the argument that the land was adjacent

to the proposed station site and not required for a public

approach, so the station would have no right to it.

Ferguson, Lobdell, and Miller lost the case. In the end,

the jury awarded $8,000 to Lobdell, $1 to Miller, and nothing to

Ferguson. Since Lobdell still owned the house and Miller owed

him a mortgage, the bulk was awarded to Lobdell. Though $1 seems

an unfair award, Miller admitted at the court proceedings that

“he did not know land values in Detroit and had not been in the

Land Upheld: Question of Public Use Not Material, Court Holds in M. C. Terminal Case,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), July 27, 1909, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/564644108/citation/732F3DB4F89E458DPQ/2?accountid=14925.34 “Property Value Soars Skyward: Curious Gyrations Revealed in Michigan Central’s Condemnation Proceedings,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), September 18, 1909, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/564653489/abstract/4B56E2D4CC6B4587PQ/10?accountid=14925; Michigan Supreme Court, Michigan Reports Advance Sheets (Callaghan, 1913) 205-211.

32

habit of coming here more than once a month.”35 Miller was “used

merely as a dummy purchaser, to raise the value,”36 but if that

was truly Ferguson and Lobdell’s plan, it did not work.

According to the Free Press, the MCRR won the case because “any

property required for a railroad is subject to condemnation.”37

The Free Press was not quite correct. Ferguson, Lobdell, and

Miller argued that the “petitioner has no power or right to

condemn land for the purpose of dedicating it to the public as a

public highway for general public travel.”38 The Supreme Court

of Michigan agreed that the “petitioner has no power to condemn

land solely for a public street.”39 This is important because

Ferguson is arguing against the idea of the city condemning land

for a street before the city started planning the esplanade

approach to the station. If the courts sided with the MCRR, it

would give greater legitimacy to the city’s condemnation of the

Roosevelt Park area years later.

35 “‘Mamma, Can’t You Get Us Out?’: Two Burt Tots Cry Vainly for Help as They Burn to Death in Barn,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), September 11, 1909, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/564676762/abstract/F638EC482ADF4555PQ/3?accountid=14925.36 Ibid.37 “Railroad’s Right to Land Upheld.”38 Court, Michigan Reports Advance Sheets, 206.39 Ibid, 207.

33

Considering class relations in this context reveals the

extent to which big business in Detroit was privileged. Ferguson

and Lobdell were accused of artificially inflating the value of

the land, but Miller planned to open a business on it and the

MCRR clearly also thought it was valuable or they would not be

fighting for it in court. The courts ruled against Ferguson,

Lobdell, and Miller because “where such land is necessary for

railroad purposes, the incidental use thereof as a street by the

public does not destroy that power [to condemn land for a

street].”40 The MCRR needed the land for access to the station,

but it would still be a public city street. The courts further

pointed out that according to the Detroit Charter of 1904, in

addition to condemning privately owned lots, “the right of the

municipality to vacate a street or alley by proper proceedings,

when deemed necessary in the public interest, is clear.”41 This

essentially gives the city power to condemn privately owned land

for a street if they can argue it is an approach to something

else, setting up the city to win future condemnation suits during

40 Ibid.41 Ibid, 208.

34

urban renewal building projects, specifically in this case, the

approach to the new MCRR station.

The ruling centered on the notion that the street leading to

the new station would be in the public’s interest. The MCRR was

not a city service, but a corporation. It was not a city-funded

project with intent to transport Detroiters, but a corporate

project intended to capitalize on major traffic at an

international border. The MCRR had agreements with the other

major railroad companies to use their new tunnel and station.

The courts very widely defined a “public interest” to somehow

include a street next to a railroad station. This ruling

demonstrates how the wishes of large corporations trumped the

rights of individual property owners in Detroit.

The Approach to the Station

The Free Press interviewed the City Plan and Improvement

Commission’s president, Charles Moore, in September of 1911

regarding the new train station. Moore believed that the

“attractiveness of the city will speak for itself when it is well

looked over,” but since all of the visitors to Detroit via train

35

would arrive at the new station, many would only see that small

portion of the city.42 For that reason, Moore wanted the city to

get control of the land surrounding the approach to the building,

as the land could potentially be “gobbled up by private parties”

and the approach would be “lined with just such buildings and

places of business as many of those that now surround other

passenger stations.”43 This suggests that the neighborhood in

front of the station was ordinary, and not an eyesore. It was

not impressive in beauty, but also not so bad as to be completely

demolished. The commission was mostly concerned with controlling

the land.

In addition, the commission recognized that taking the land

would probably be difficult. Moore described it as “land that it

[Detroit] does not actually need for public improvements.”44 The

approach, then, was not originally thought of as a public good,

giving the city no legal basis to gain control. About a year

42 “Make Entry Beautiful: City Plan and Improvement Commission Proposes to Take Up at Once Movement for Approaches to New M. C. Station,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), September 6, 1911, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/564995650/abstract/2C8C77AC42AF4E83PQ/2?accountid=14925.43 Ibid.44 Ibid.

36

later, the city would learn that it could only claim the land in

order to improve it for the public in the form of a highway,

street, or park.

The commission began planning for the new approach straight

away, but it would take the city at least two years to make an

official decision on how to connect the station with Michigan

Avenue. The MCRR was mostly concerned with getting passengers to

and from the station because the streets between it and Michigan

Avenue would not stand up to all the new traffic. A May 26, 1912

article in the Free Press outlines the commission’s original plan.

They wanted to “buy a 200-foot diagonal approach from Michigan

and Fourteenth avenues to the front of the station,”45 (Figure

8). Many homes would have to be demolished for this boulevard,

but not three blocks full. The Free Press article points out that

any plan would be paid for in city property taxes and would

involve the city condemning property. If the city went with this

plan, the article suggests that the “improvements” would be

considered a benefit only to the surrounding properties so they

45 “Want Park At New M. C. Depot: Central Michigan Avenue Improvement Association Will Advocate Plan.,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), May 26, 1912, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565084241/abstract/432B98AC671D402CPQ/4?accountid=14925.

37

would bear the tax burden while a park would benefit the whole

city and the whole city would pay for it.46 The park would cost

twice as much, but more taxpayers would foot the bill.

Figure 8: The 200-foot boulevard approach plan (Detroit Free Press, 1913).

The MCRR began construction on the station in 1910 after

removing the final 140 houses on their new property. The Detroit

Free Press reports that there was difficulty removing these final

properties because they had “stood on the premises for years.”47

It is unclear whether the process was held up because of 46 Ibid.47 “Begins Work On Its New Station: Michigan Central Takes Out First Permit For Proposed New Depot,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), May 16, 1910, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/564754135/abstract/3F7E07A06E1D4750PQ/4?accountid=14925.

38

homeowners’ attachments or for other reasons, but most of the

homes must have been in good condition, even if most were made of

wood, because 110 of them were moved to new locations to be sold

instead of demolished for parts.48 It is likely that the homes

in the Roosevelt Park area were of similar quality to the homes

removed for the station because they were in the same

neighborhood and sometimes even on the same block. Forthcoming

artifact analysis on building material collected from and

recorded during the 2012 and 2014 excavations will test and

further clarify this assertion.

In late 1911 as construction on the station was well

underway, the City Plan and Improvement Association started

thinking about how to make the station easily accessible to

Michigan Avenue, a major road connecting downtown Detroit to west

Michigan. The association hired Edward H. Bennett, a landscape

architect from Chicago, to design a “broad and attractive

thoroughfare leading from Michigan avenue to the depot.”49 The

48 Ibid.49 “Broad Avenue for New Depot: Attractive Setting to Be Planned by E. H. Bennett, Chicago Landscape Artist,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), October 17, 1911,http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565032527/abstract/B340F8668950492EPQ/1?accountid=14925.

39

street would be “at once sensible and attractive [and] will do

much to make people forget what they see along Michigan avenue

where improvement has not been rapid.”50 This suggests that

Michigan Avenue was not the most attractive part of the city, but

not that it or the neighborhood between it and the station was

run down. It also hints at the motive behind connecting the

station with Michigan Avenue: to improve and develop this area of

the city.

In July of 1912, the City Plan and Improvement Commission

and the city council still agreed that the city should tear down

“all of the houses which now crowd this 200-foot strip” to put in

a boulevard.51 The Free Press reports that this would be an

“addition to the park system,” and that the plan is “one of the

most elaborate schemes proposed by those interested in a ‘city

beautiful.’”52 The commission and council recognize the

magnificence of the station and they want the surroundings to

50 Ibid.51 “City Plan and Improvement Association Plans Beautiful Approach to New Station: Station Will Be Fine Structure,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), July 14, 1912, sec. Part One, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565132977/abstract/D156F01AB974E8EPQ/2?accountid=14925.52 Ibid.

40

match, because “In too many stations in the country passengers

are dumped down into the very worst section…. We have had quite

enough of this in Detroit in the past.”53 Though the Free Press

writes that the homes “crowd” the area needed for a boulevard,

neither the commission or council suggest anything negative about

the neighborhood other than that it will not match the grandeur

of the station. They believe adding a park in the middle of the

neighborhood will improve the view. If they saw the neighborhood

as an eyesore, why lay down the traffic esplanade in the middle

of it and leave the surrounding homes standing?

The first suggestion that the neighborhood was unsightly

appears in the Free Press only a month after the article mentioned

above, but the characterization is likely the result of a

stressful situation for the parties involved with planning the

approach to the station. At this time in the proceedings, the

council was still waiting on advice about how to legally obtain

the land they needed for the approach. The previous article notes

that the MCRR had no intentions of helping pay for the approach,

53 Ibid.

41

but an article from August of 1912 suggests that the city was

hoping the MCRR would change their minds. The title reads:

Lock Horns on New Station PlanCity Beautifiers and Michigan Central Interests Cannot Agree

on IdeasQuestion of Approach Seems InsurmountableRailroad Officials Think if City Wants Beautiful Plaza It

Should Pay the Price54

The article itself does not quite follow the title, as the city

already knew the MCRR was not interested in paying for a special

approach and did not care much about the plans. They were,

however, “willing to co-operate with the city in beautifying or

improving the surroundings.”55 This article is not really about

an argument between the MCRR and the city, but about the

pressures of solving the problem of approach.

The article is more about the opinions of the City Plan and

Improvement Commission and the Real Estate Board after the

commission invited the Real Estate Board to their planning

meetings for the MCRR approach. Though the commission and city

54 “Lock Horns on New Station Plan: City Beautifiers and Michigan Central Interests Cannot Agree on Ideas. Question of Approach Seems Insurmountable. Railroad Officials Think If City Wants Beautiful Plaza It Should Pay the Price.,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), August 8, 1912, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565117579/abstract/E1FF5B5AE3634FC2PQ/5?accountid=14925.55 Ibid.

42

council were optimistic about their plans in July of 1912,

President Judson Bradway of the Real Estate Board suggests in

August that “the city should not have consented to the location

of the station there until the railroad company had agreed to buy

the property through to Michigan avenue.”56 He is very concerned

that “there is no portion of the city which would give newcomers

into the city a worse impression” than the neighborhood in front

of the station.57 It is likely Bradway was being hyperbolic

because there is no previous mention of this neighborhood being

in such a state, but his characterization of the neighborhood

here starts to stick.

It is important to recognize the historical context when

dealing with such vague descriptions of an early 20th century

neighborhood as described by a contemporary. Today, describing a

neighborhood as a place that would give visitors to Detroit the

worst impression, one can unfortunately think of dozens of

locations, and they are likely all dangerous, at least somewhat

abandoned, and dilapidated. In the early 20th century, Detroit

was growing rapidly and had a reputation as a beautiful city. 56 Ibid.57 Ibid.

43

Detroit city officials were proud of this and clearly wanted to

keep this reputation in tact and improve it where possible.

Bradway’s description of the neighborhood above should be taken

in the context of the City Beautiful movement. Some of Detroit’s

mansion districts would probably serve the City Beautiful

movement, but neighborhoods like the one in question filled with

mostly simple wood framed houses would not give the impression of

a grand city, no matter how clean and well-kept.

By the end of 1912, Free Press reporters still reported on the

esplanade’s progress, but they were skeptical that it would ever

happen. The plan was originally estimated to cost $1,000,000,

but a reporter writes that the “buildings that will have to be

razed or removed are of a very modest nature” and that they will

not cost anything near the estimate. The reporter notes that “if

the esplanade ever becomes a reality,” the city would have to

remove 30 brick buildings, 72 wood framed one story houses, 67

wood framed one and a half story houses, and one brick church,

totaling 170 buildings. The writer valued most of the houses at

less than $1,000. As momentum built up for a magnificent

esplanade during 1912, the neighborhood’s reputation dropped, but

44

as the planning continued slowly over the course of several

months, the Free Press started to lose interest and even faith that

the plan would ever be completed. The neighborhood went from

being described as the most embarrassing entry point possible to

a neighborhood of modest buildings.

The reporter noted that the City Plan and Improvement

Commission would have their design plan for the esplanade ready

within a week. Four days later, the commission learned that the

only way to claim the property was through condemnation

proceedings. Any land condemned by the city would be owned by

the city and “always subject to change or modification by the

common council.”58 It is easy to understand why the MCRR would

not want to spend money on anything more than a simple approach

since they would not own the land or have any control over it.

After condemnation, the city could either use the land for a

highway, street, or park. They believed that if they chose to

build a park, “the park commissioner might bargain with the

58 “Plan Would Give City Control of Esplanade: Condemnation of Property New Michigan Central Station Will Give Power to Council,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922),December 5, 1912, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565209448/abstract/1DE5AA9AE91747B7PQ/1?accountid=14925.

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property owners and thus avoid litigation.”59 This is when the

city council first revealed its plans to condemn the whole

neighborhood, and not just a 200-foot strip, for a park.

Over these two years as the MCRR completed their new

station, the city council realized that the MCRR was not

concerned with the approach, and that the council should have

considered the approach question earlier. The city wanted to

gain control of this land to guide development to fit the City

Beautiful ideal. The current neighborhood certainly did not meet

requirements, but as the process was drawn out, the Free Press lost

interest and began describing the neighborhood more charitably.

When the city learned they could demolish the whole area fronting

the station, they fully embraced the idea. This was not a class

struggle in the usual sense of the phrase. It was not about the

working class fighting for rights from an employer, or even from

a corporation. This was a struggle of city against citizen.

59 Ibid.

46

The Plans

By 1913, the city council endorsed a plan that would use the

three blocks between the station and Michigan Avenue for a park.

At this point the station was still under construction and the

MCRR was not interested in financing the approach; however, city

officials were convinced that the MCRR should help pay. The City

Plan and Improvement Association, led by Frederick Barcroft, had

been working on their boulevard plan with Chicago landscape

architect E. H. Bennett since early 1912 and they were fully in

favor of the boulevard over the park idea. The MCRR was also in

favor of the boulevard, as their main concern was moving

passengers. In opposition to the MCRR and City Plan and

Improvement Association, the city alderman, residents that lived

around the station, the Federation of Civic Organizations, and

possibly Mayor Oscar Marx were convinced that razing the whole

neighborhood for a park would be a better idea. Ultimately, the

park idea was successful, but only after several years of arguing

about at least four plans.

There were at least four approach proposals but only two

main contenders: the 200-foot boulevard, and the park. In

47

January 1913, a committee from the Federation of Civic

Organizations took Mayor Marx to Frederick Barcroft’s office to

show him “Plan no. 4,” or the park plan.60 It called for the

complete demolition of the properties between Seventeenth and

Fourteenth Streets and the station and Michigan Avenue. The

mayor was “much impressed with the desirability of the project,”

but he wanted to make sure the city would be able to obtain the

land before making any recommendations.61 This is the first

mention of Plan 4 in the Free Press and the article does not

mention any of the other plans. The mayor’s tentative approval

and the lack of any mention for the other plans somewhat

legitimizes Plan 4 over the other plans.

Ten days after Mayor Marx visited Barcroft’s office to see

the plan, the Free Press reported that the city assessed the value

of the properties in the area needed to complete Plan 4. The

reporter writes that the neighborhood is “thickly populated,” but

makes no judgment on the quality of the neighborhood. By this

60 “Civic Workers Ask Esplanade: Tell Mayor-Elect Marx They Have Approved Commission’s Traffic Arrangement Plan.,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), January 9, 1913, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565148140/citation/2C093F7E46D543B3PQ/7?accountid=14925.61 Ibid.

48

time, plan 4 was “the one that was adopted by the old council

committee and which has been approved by practically every

improvement organization interested in this section of the

city.”62 This illustrates how keen the Free Press, the city, and

various organizations and committees were to approve a plan and

start work in 1913. The City Plan and Improvement Commission

only finished their plan proposals in late 1912 but by late

January the Free Press reports it as the favorite.

Even though there was a lot of excitement about Plan 4,

there was still confusion as to how the land would be used. In

February, the Free Press reports that the aldermen still believed

the MCRR should help pay for the esplanade and that they were

still working out the legality of condemning the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, a man named David Lewis was planning to “erect a

seven-story hotel at Sixteenth street and Michigan avenue to care

for passengers who desire accommodations close to the station.”63

62 “Esplanade Cost Is Fixed At $500,000: Assessor Nagel Estimates Expense of Acquiring Michigan Ave. New Depot Zone,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), January 19, 1913, sec. PART ONE, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565133203/abstract/1DE5AA9AE91747B7PQ/8?accountid=14925.63 “Want Railroad to Pay Part for Esplanade: Aldermen Oppose Michigan Central Plan to Let City Give All for Traffic Park,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), February7, 1913, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565241876/abstract/2C093F7E46D543B3PQ/4?accountid=14925.

49

This corner was clearly in the footprint for the park plan. Did

Lewis know this and plan to capitalize on the short amount of

time he might have before the city claimed the land? Did he

think the city would never go through with the plans, or at least

Plan 4? Lewis was a successful real estate agent64 but perhaps

this was the sort of establishment city officials were worried

about.

In mid-February, less than a month after the Free Press

reported Plan 4 as the favorite, the 200-feet wide boulevard plan

returned to the forefront. The City Plan and Improvement

Commission along with the Detroit Council Committee on Street

Openings preferred this plan. It “provides an adequate approach”

to the station while not being “so wide as to make it a barrier

to development of business along Michigan avenue.”65 It would 64 “Classified Ad 6 -- No Title,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), December 27, 1913, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565613568/citation/B20F8DEF890A47D5PQ/22?accountid=14925; “Classified Ad 2 -- No Title,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), March 19, 1915, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565825295/citation/B20F8DEF890A47D5PQ/18?accountid=14925; “Property Sales ComeTo $92,500: Deals Closed by David Lewis Include Brick Terrace of Six Houses.,”Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), December 27, 1914, sec. Part Five, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565835280/abstract/B20F8DEF890A47D5PQ/2?accountid=14925.65 “Approved Plans for Approach to the New Michigan Central Depot,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), February 16, 1913, sec. PART ONE, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565203219/abstract/3F7E07A06E1D4750PQ/7?accountid=14925.

50

also leave enough room for parking and aesthetic improvements

like fountains. If this plan had succeeded, David Lewis might

have had a chance for a successful hotel business at Sixteenth

and Michigan.

Again, a month later, the preferred plan switched back to

the park. In a meeting in early March, the committee on street

openings “threw the boulevard plan into the discard” in favor of

the park.66 Interestingly, residents “living in the vicinity of

the new station” were at the meeting, and they agreed that the

park was the better plan.67 The article is not more specific on

whether these residents lived in the footprint of the park plan

or not. It is possible the residents were under the impression

they and their neighbors would be the only people taxed to pay

for the boulevard plan, and they would rather the whole city bear

the burden, even if it meant losing their home. By the early

19th century, many homeowners on the west side of the park area

rented out their houses and lived elsewhere, so perhaps they were

66 “Committee Again Flops on Esplanade Plan: Aldermen Discard New Boulevard Idea; Now Favor Park.,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), March 14, 1913, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565262811/citation/3FAA46BC722D4E4DPQ/8?accountid=14925.67 Ibid.

51

willing to take a buyout. Maybe the residents thought about how

inconvenient and noisy it would be to live next to such a major

train station. Either way, it is clear that by March of 1913,

the boulevard plan was no longer quite as viable as it was in

December.

This article also reveals how tired people were of the

approval process. The council did not just change their minds;

they “turned another ‘flip-flap.’”68 Tensions ran high as the

kaleidoscopic changes in the plans ‘peeved’ some of the aldermen

and numerous ‘run-ins’ resulted.”69 The construction of the

station was moving along and completion was in sight, but city

officials were still arguing about plans for the approach, and

people from all interested parties wanted to see a quick

solution.

Throughout this long process, the rationale behind the

boulevard approach was clearly expressed, while the reasons for

building a large park are somewhat vague. This is clearly

illustrated in two letters written to the Free Press and published

two days apart, about a week after the council “flip-flapped” on 68 Ibid.69 Ibid.

52

the plans. The first writer, signed by “Reader,” is against the

park plan. Reader sees the large esplanade as “too useless and

costly to the citizens of Detroit.”70 The park would make for a

good first impression, but over time would become a “loafing

place.”71 The article argues against the park because it would

back up traffic on Michigan and then Michigan would have to be

widened. Reader felt strong enough about this to get quite

sarcastic:

Is this passenger going to walk around and enjoy the sceneryfor an hour before he leaves Detroit? Or will one on their arrival do the same? Or follow the natural American instinct to hurry and transact business?72

Still, Reader makes a good point in saying that the esplanade

would be “beautiful for a block or two and then show off the

defects [of the city].”73 The park would be expansive and grand

while one stands in the middle of it, but it would be obviously

out of place as one exits. A boulevard and small park might fit

70 Reader, “Opposes Plan for Depot Esplanade: Writer to The Free Press Suggests Wide Street Should Lead to M. C. Terminal,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), March 23, 1913, sec. Part Two, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565205386/abstract/760FA34344294A1DPQ/1?accountid=14925.71 Ibid.72 Ibid.73 Ibid.

53

easily into the current surroundings, and the expansion of the

boulevard towards what today is Midtown might divert some traffic

from Michigan Avenue.

Owen McCabe wrote the Free Press two days later, disagreeing

with Reader. McCabe is heartily in favor of Plan 4 and is

“surprised” to read that someone would have a different

opinion.74 He notes that Reader should have taken advantage of

the public meeting held by the aldermen (the meeting described

above with residents in attendance) if he wanted to express his

opinion. McCabe was in attendance, and he is sure that if Reader

was present, “he would agree that the majority of persons present

voiced their sentiments heartily in favor of improvements

according to plan Number 4, and objected to all over plans.”75

McCabe clearly prefers Plan 4, but his reasoning is difficult to

understand. He sees it as a “public improvement and a

necessity,” and that it is “for all the people, and not for a

74 Owen McCabe, “Disagrees with ‘Mr. Reader’ on Esplanade: Writer to The Free Press Wants to Know Why Critic Did Not Attend Council Hearing.,” Detroit Free Press(1858-1922), March 25, 1913, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565195656/abstract/2C3A814A138345F5PQ/1?accountid=14925.75 Ibid.

54

few.”76 Though McCabe is vague on the particulars, he seems to

believe the boulevard plan would only benefit a few people, maybe

visitors to Detroit, while the park would be for the whole city.

This is certainly how officials supporting the park plan tried to

sell their argument, and it seems it worked on McCabe and most of

the people at the meeting.

The debate about the approach continued through April of

1913. The Free Press reports that the “park and boulevard

committee adopted plan No. 4 at its meeting Tuesday.”77 Even

though the City Plan and Improvement Commission still was still

in favor of the boulevard plan, the aldermen wanted the park. At

the meeting, Alderman O’Brien and the council approved a

resolution to start condemning the neighborhood. Despite this,

the City Plan and Improvement Commission continued to release

reports recommending the adoption of their boulevard plan.

These articles illustrate how out of touch the MCRR was with

the process. This was about the city council getting what they

76 Ibid.77 “Aldermen Want Esplanade Plan: Favor 200-Foot Boulevard Approach to New Michigan Central Depot,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), April 9, 1913, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565290680/abstract/1DE5AA9AE91747B7PQ/6?accountid=14925.

55

wanted: control of the whole area fronting the station. Even the

residents in the area were swayed by the council’s arguments,

demonstrating once again that the contested condemnation

proceedings were not the work of a unified group. By mid-1913,

everyone was ready for the meetings and arguments over proposals

to end so the approach could be built.

Condemnation Proceedings

The city began the process to condemn the neighborhood in

mid-1913, but it would take five years before all of the houses

were cleared. In July of 1913, the aldermen asked the city

council to approve a $975,955 budget to condemn the homes. This

figure is the sum of prices named by 77 out of 87 property owners

affected by the condemnation. Ten would not cooperate and did

not name a sum. The city council immediately denied this because

“the jury awards will be far under the price asked.”78 This was

only the beginning of a drawn out legal battle between the city

and property owners.

78 “Council Refuses Price Asked for Esplanade Land: Turns Down Offers Totaling$975,955 for M. C. Approach,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), July 23, 1913, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565354935/abstract/D516F4D2A61945FDPQ/1?accountid=14925.

56

Even though the park approach was approved and the city

started the condemnation proceedings in mid-1913, the City Plan

and Improvement Commission published a report in October of the

same year promoting the boulevard approach. The commission was

planning the Center of Arts and Letters (what today is the

Detroit Institute of Arts and Detroit Public Library in Midtown),

and they wanted to make a cohesive plan to tie together all of

the splendors of Detroit. This included Belle Isle and the new

train station. The commission had plans to lay wide diagonal

roads between these major hubs, and the 200-foot wide boulevard

approach was part of this plan.79 They still promoted the plan

even though the city was taking steps to begin construction on a

park.

As in 1913 when reports about planning progress changed

daily and citizens wrote in to the Free Press advocating for their

favorite plan, the Free Press offers a wealth of opinions on

progress in the condemnation proceedings in 1914. On April 23, a

Free Press journalist argues that the requested $600,000 bond is

still too much to be taken at once from the taxpayers. The 79 Detroit (Mich.)., Reports, 1913-14. (Det., 1913), http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100337068.

57

journalist is conflicted because the “idea of Beautiful Detroit”

will “jar harshly upon the nerves of those of them who have heard

so much about the attractiveness of this city of ours,” when they

arrive to a working and lower middle class residential

neighborhood.80 Yet the journalist understands why the MCRR is

not eager to back the project financially because “it would not

matter a dollar to the company if the exterior surroundings were

beautified by the best landscape gardener in the world or if they

should be forever left to be the eyesore they are now.”81 The

real problem with the approach is that “it is Detroit, not the

Michigan Central, that stands to gain or lose by the approach.”82

Interestingly, the journalist describes the neighborhood as

an “eyesore.” This is the first mention of the station as an

“eyesore.” In 1914, the station was complete and passengers were

coming and going frequently. It is possible the neighborhood was

changing for the worse as the condemnation proceedings were

underway, but it is also clear that this journalist is passionate

about the appearance of the city. Anything that did not match

80 “Why Not Begin It This Year?”.81 Ibid.82 Ibid.

58

the grandeur of the station would probably be an eyesore. Also,

the journalist puts forth the opinion that the city should start

with a much smaller budget and make minor improvements over a

long stretch of time to appease the taxpayers. The appearance of

the neighborhood is a problem, but one that can be put off with

some small improvements.

The next day, the Free Press reports again on the condemnation

proceedings and $600,000 bond issue, though this time the article

describes the differing points-of-view of two city officials.

Edmund Atkinson, Assistant Corporation Counsel, worries that the

condemnation proceedings are at stake if the bond is not approved

because “it is difficult to make condemnation proceedings stick

without having the aldermen and the estimators divided on their

advisability.”83 Richard Kramer is one of the estimators against

the bond. He argues, “despite all Henry Ford has done for the

city, the people would not vote to buy a park for his factory, if

it were in Detroit.”84 Kramer has an interesting point, but he

83 “Board May Kill Depot Approach Despite Council: Plan to Get Land Already Under Way; Issue of Bonds Fought,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), April 24, 1914, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/565620583/abstract/432B98AC671D402CPQ/5?accountid=14925.84 Ibid.

59

is in the minority. The article notes that the estimators living

in the west side “will fight almost to a man to have the approach

approved.”85 His wording is significant because the approach

already was approved by 1914 and the city had begun the

condemnation proceedings. These two back-to-back articles show

that Detroiters are really interested in the proceedings, if

skeptical that they will ever be fulfilled.

The City Plan and Improvement Commission continued promoting

their boulevard plan as late as 1915, illustrating a lack of

faith in the city’s park plan. In a booklet outlining their plan

of Detroit for 1915, the commission introduces their

architectural plans with a brief introduction explaining their

reasoning for certain changes and improvements, but they get

passionate when describing the approach, calling it the “Michigan

Central Station problem.”86 Even though they point out that the

council began condemnation proceedings, they argue that their

plan would only cost $160,000 ($60,000 paid for by the MCRR),

while the park plan was estimated at $600,000, all paid for with

85 Ibid.86 Edward H. (Edward Herbert) Bennett, Preliminary Plan of Detroit (Detroit : City Plan and Improvement Commission, reprinted by City Plan Commission, 1921), http://archive.org/details/cu31924024414900.

60

taxes. They note that the MCRR does not want a park, and also

that the “business property beyond the Michigan Central certainly

should not want a park at that point because it will depreciate

the value of property for a considerable distance beyond it.”87

Not only did the condemnation usurp all the land between the

station and Michigan Avenue, it also appropriated land on

Michigan Avenue, destroying existing businesses and arresting

business development.

The property owners under threat of condemnation also lacked

faith in the city’s plan. Maps from 1911 and 1915 show

differences in the neighborhood from before and after the park

plan and condemnation are announced (Figures 9 and 10). A brick

building labeled “hotel” appears between 1911 and 1915 on

Fifteenth Street near the station. It seems curious that someone

would go through the trouble of building a brick building when

they knew it would be condemned in a matter of years. It is

possible it was built before 1913 and the announcement of the

park and condemnation, but it is also possible that whoever built

87 Ibid.

61

it did not take the city seriously and decided to capitalize on

the opportunities presented by the new station.

Figure 9: 1911 Baist Map, no brick building present Figure10: 1915 Sanborn Map, brick building appears

Another brick building appears in or by 1909 on the west

side of the park area near Rose and Seventeenth Streets. This

was before the city planned to condemn the neighborhood, but

after the houses in the footprint of the station were demolished

and during the station’s construction. Reports from the 2014

excavations indicate that the building was a duplex. According

to Detroit city directories, the western half was occupied from

1911 to 1917, and the eastern half from 1914 to 1917. 88 Since it

was a residence built before the condemnation announcement, it is

88 Athena Zissis, Lot 10 Excavation Report (Detroit: Wayne State University, 2014); Amanda Roach, Historical Background (Detroit: Wayne State University, 2014).

62

probable that the owner never thought that he would have to part

with it so soon.

The city eventually demolished the last buildings at 311,

315, and 317 15th Street in 1918.89 It took five years for them

to carry out the condemnation part of their plans. Further

historical and archaeological research on the Hoffman

Boardinghouse (also referred to as a “rooming house” or “rooms”)

on Fifteenth Street and the outbuildings that appear between the

1911 and 1915 maps would give more insight into the building

owners’ thoughts on the condemnation proceedings as well as the

residents’ lived experience during this tumultuous time.

Clearly, the city wanted complete control over this area.

The houses may have been eyesores, especially by 1915 as the

condemnation proceedings were underway and the neighborhood

became more transient, but they were still occupied by families

contributing to Detroit’s work force and tax base. The only way

for the city to ensure the land between the MCS and Michigan

89 “Britannia Crashes Through 3 Houses: 35,000 See Land Boat Demolish Structures on M. G. Esplanade. Detroiters Visualize Consternation of Kaiser’s Hordes on Flanders Fields.,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), June 24, 1918, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/hnpdetroitfreepress/docview/566137169/abstract/E8EBF43D8F4A4D18PQ/1?accountid=14925.

63

Avenue would not develop differently than they wanted would be to

condemn the whole area and make a park out of it so no one could

ever buy it. A boulevard, though beautiful, useful, and one-

sixth the cost of the park would not get rid of the surrounding

homes and business, and would only encourage more station related

business. Unfortunately for the diverse group of people who did

not want to sell their homes, there was no legal recourse to

fight the city and unlike a relationship between a worker and a

company, they had no bargaining chip to make the city reconsider.

The MCRR was the catalyst in this struggle and it restructured

part of the neighborhood, but it kept its distance from this

condemnation struggle. The MCRR’s lack of involvement as

illustrated in the written sources clearly demonstrates how this

struggle was solely the cause of the city and its obsession with

control over this area.

Interpretations

Urban archaeology of modern cities is a relatively recent

phenomenon, and though Wayne State archaeologists working on

Detroit like Arnold Pilling were pioneers in the subfield,

64

Detroit is left out of the literature.90 Wayne State has dozens

of urban collections, but much of the research on these

collections is preliminary and unpublished, as the archaeologists

had so many salvage excavations to attend to before they would be

lost because of construction. As a result, there is a backlog of

material that could greatly contribute to studies of urban

archaeology.

Detroit is different from other major modern cities

frequently studied by archaeologists such as Boston and New York

City for many reasons, including its enormous physical size

compared to its population size, and its accelerated abandonment

in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Using case studies

from New York City and Philadelphia, Tadhg O’Keeffe and Rebecca

Yamin note that doing archaeology in an urban setting can give

the archaeologist a visceral feeling of the lived experience of

the site that documents alone cannot match. They note that

“landscape revealed through excavation in the midst of the

contemporary suggests the dynamic nature of urban life,” using

sites in the middle of dense urban areas consisting of highly 90 Nan A. Rothschild and Diana diZerega Wall, The Archaeology of American Cities (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2014).

65

populated high-rises. Unfortunately for much of Detroit

including Roosevelt Park, the contemporary location is different

from early 20th century Detroit, and the immediate surroundings

are not indicative of urban life as described by O’Keeffe and

Yamin.

Today, Roosevelt Park is considered part of Corktown, one of

the more popular and populated neighborhoods in Detroit.

Restaurants, shops, and organizations line Michigan Avenue at the

northeast corner of the park to downtown, but the atmosphere of

the park itself is completely dissimilar from how the residents

would have experienced daily life in the 19th and late 20th

century. Though areas of Detroit are still urban, the city is

unlike other modern cities where historical urban archaeology

takes place and it provides a different prospective on urban

archaeology.

In the case of Roosevelt Park, maps, written documents, and

photographs help recreate the feeling of urban life more fully

than just being present at the site. The Detroit Baist and

Sanborn maps exemplify the sort of map that archaeologists find

most useful. At the Roosevelt Park site, they add a level of

66

detail difficult to obtain from other documents or materials and

they also convey a sense of the long passage of time during

building and displacement. We are aware that it took about a

decade for the process to be complete, but seeing changes in the

maps as buildings appear and disappear every few years gives a

sense of the anticipation and frustration the residents must have

felt as they slowly lost their neighborhood.

Newspaper articles vividly recreate this sense. In

documentary archaeology, newspapers are often used to find

economic or dating information about specific artifacts.

Mrozowski’s chapter about the allegory from the Rhode Island Gazette

demonstrates how newspaper articles can also be helpful for

getting an emic understanding of culture, but he uses just one

article. This study demonstrates how using dozens of articles

covering a decade can illustrate various opinions, their nuances,

and how they change over time. This also contributes to the

feeling produced by using detailed maps over time. Roosevelt

Park has been empty and basically unchanged for decades, hiding

any evidence that would betray its contentious development, but

67

contemporary newspaper articles recreate the feelings of unease

and impatience during the prolonged and indirect process.

Even when Roosevelt Park was populated, there was plenty of

open space. It was not as dense as other big cities like Chicago

and New York City, where multiple families lived in the same

house or in tenement buildings. The Roosevelt Park site

consisted mostly of single-family homes housing single families

or couples, sometimes with a boarder. Every lot had room for a

small yard and an out building or a stable. In 1897, just a

decade before the MRCC started looking for a place to build their

new station, there were whole blocks of empty lots less than 10

blocks west of Roosevelt Park. Urban renewal projects in United

States cities often target working class neighborhoods or

neighborhoods primarily composed of ethnic or racial minorities

in their urban renewal projects,91 and this is especially obvious

in Detroit because there is so much empty space. The MCRR’s

placement of the station brought the city’s interest to this

91 A. J. C. Mayne and Tim Murray, eds., The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorationsin Slumland, New Directions in Archaeology (Cambridge, U.K. ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Paul R. Mullins, “Racializing the Commonplace Landscape: An Archaeology of Urban Renewal along the Color Line,” World Archaeology 38, no. 1 (March 1, 2006): 60–71.

68

area, but there were excellent solutions avoiding mass demolition

(such as moving the station down a few blocks to an undeveloped

area or renovating their original site) that the city chose not

to implement.

The city’s obsession with the City Beautiful movement and

coverage of the movement in the Free Press spread this ideal as the

dominant ideology when it came to the city’s visual reputation.

When the MCRR began construction on the new station, the city

immediately realized the entry point to the station would not fit

the ideal. City committees, the Free Press, readers of the Free

Press, and neighborhood residents all agreed. No one suggested

the city leave the neighborhood as-is, but the multiple solutions

would affect the area in different ways. A wide boulevard with

some greenery seemed like a good plan until the city learned they

could take the whole neighborhood in late 1912. The City

Planning and Improvement Commission stayed the most committed to

the City Beautiful ideal, incorporating the boulevard plan into

their Center for Arts and Letters and connected all of the most

beautiful points of the city, but the city council firmly

campaigned for the park, even swaying neighborhood residents.

69

Up to and during the early years of proposal negotiations,

the Roosevelt Park site was home to people of various national,

ethnic, and economic backgrounds. Micro-neighborhoods of people

with similar ethnic backgrounds existed within the area.

Residents may have been friendly with each other, especially in

the micro-neighborhoods, but the Roosevelt Park site was not a

unified neighborhood. When the park proposal succeeded, the

residents did not band together to fight for the interests of

their class, but for themselves and their homes. The struggles

over this area were less about class and more about ideology as

the city attempted to realize the City Beautiful ideal by

removing an entire working and lower class section of the city to

lay down a park.

Though the condemnation and demolition struggle was more

about ideology than class, Wurst’s relational concept of class

still helps to identify the acting parties and situate their

goals among each other. Judging by what is left on the site

today, it seems the two opposing forces would be the neighborhood

and the MCRR, both eventually losing. In reality, the city

displaced and demolished the area, leaving the residents no

70

option but to move, and ruining any business potential

immediately in front of the station. Free Press articles provide

nuance to this understanding of the park’s history. They show

the transformation of this area’s reputation over time from a

commonplace residential neighborhood to an eyesore as the city

became more desperate to gain control.

These articles also give an emic understanding of

contemporary thought about the conflict. Like Mrozowski’s

example of the allegorical newspaper article from the Rhode Island

Gazette, the “Reader” writing to the Free Press to argue against the

park plan uses exaggeration and sarcasm in his opinion piece

discussed above, but it reinforces his point-of-view and we get

an emic understanding of a resident’s thoughts on this divisive

issue. He cared enough to write the paper a lengthy response

that lays out his opinion on various parts of the plan. He

thinks the American business people who this park is supposed to

attract will not even notice it, and that it will only become

another empty place for loitering. It was also not worth the

expensive price.

71

Conclusions

Michigan Central Station is an icon in Detroit, a grand ruin

symbolic of the rise and fall of the city. The history of the

station and the park in front of it is poorly understood, but

careful study of historical documents clarifies common

misconceptions. As Roosevelt Park is today considered to be part

of Corktown, it is often assumed that this area was predominantly

Irish. Since Irish immigrants to the United States in the mid to

late 19th century often found working-class jobs, it is also

assumed the neighborhood was working-class. In the late 19th and

early 20th century, Corktown’s western border ended about three

blocks from the eastern edge of the park, and six blocks from the

western edge. There were still a great deal of Irish immigrants

and Irish Americans in the park area, especially in the eastern

portion, but there were also Germans, Scottish, British, Maltese,

and other immigrants, as well as Americans in the area.

Many Irish that immigrated to Detroit found employment at

many levels, so the assumption that the Irish in the park area

were working-class is suspect. In fact, the area was home to

people from diverse occupations such as laborer, police officer,

72

business owner, and post office clerk. What is often assumed to

be a crowded run-down neighborhood shifts with this demographic

information. Historical newspaper articles further dispel this

myth. Very few articles reporting on this neighborhood describe

it in derogatory terms, and those that do often suggest a

stressful urgency regarding the city’s difficulties in carrying

out their plans. Out of the 20 articles covering the area during

the approach-planning phase (1912-1913) discussed in-depth above,

only two give negative descriptions. If it really was in poor

enough condition to deserve complete demolition, it seems likely

the Free Press would mention that in its reports.

In 1913, the Free Press and city officials began perpetuating

the idea that the area was an eyesore, and that characteristic

stood the test of time, no matter that it was likely greatly

exaggerated. Photographs showing the neighborhood during and

shortly after the station’s construction are not common, but some

that do exist show an ordinary neighborhood of single-family

wooden homes (Figure 11). It is difficult to tell how well they

were kept, but even if they were in pristine condition, they

could not match the splendor and magnitude of the new station.

73

This makes the occasional bad characterization of the

neighborhood questionable and possibly unreliable.

Figure 11: Photograph of neighborhood in 1915, looking from 15th and Dalzelleto the northwest (Burton Historical Collection).

Considering the bad characterizations of the neighborhood in

historical context adds nuance to these descriptions. Today, a

building in Detroit described as an eyesore might conjure images

of a vacant, partially burned, boarded up building with prairie

grass and other greenery obscuring the view. In early 20th

century Detroit at the height of the City Beautiful movement and

a period of growth in Detroit, a neighborhood of wood framed one-

story plain house might be an eyesore, especially as compared to

the magnificent new train station.

74

It is difficult to imagine the neighborhood as it was when

standing in the park today. During excavations, the park is

largely empty except for archaeologists. Tourists drive up and

snap pictures of the station, never even looking at the park.

People ride bikes or walk through on their way to work.

Neighbors wander over to ask the archaeologists what they are

doing. Some people still partially live in the park, but they

sleep under bushes. Some of these people are fascinated to learn

about the history of the park, but some quickly lose interest and

walk on. It is hard to remember that the area was once full of

buildings: single-family homes with families and domesticated

animals, churches, and small businesses. Archaeologists in

Detroit have to carefully use all of the evidence to piece back

together a history so unlike the present.

The neighborhood’s condemnation was drawn out and difficult,

but it solidified Detroit’s power to repossess any land it wanted

for urban renewal projects as long as it planned to use the land

for a street or park. Some of these projects were planned well

and work today (e.g., at least in favor of the middle and upper

classes, see Lafayette Park), but many are responsible for large

75

portions of Detroit’s current urban blight problem (e.g.,

Michigan Avenue widening, the recently demolished Brewster-

Douglass projects). These urban renewal projects tended to use

the same rhetoric as descriptions of the Roosevelt Park area

during the later 1910s. Perhaps these new parks and streets were

not really public goods, but they did take care of what some

perceived as eyesores, and that gave weight to their perceived

legitimacy.

This pattern continues to today, and is especially apparent

with the construction of the new hockey arena in Cass Corridor.

The development plan calls for the demolition of the vacant Park

Avenue Hotel, a historic hotel on the National Register of

Historic Places. Its neighbor, the Eddystone, will be converted

to apartments, but the Park Avenue is slated to become a park.

If the city council approves yet another plan to demolish a

building for a park, they would not only be removing another

piece of Detroit’s history, but they might be contributing to the

oft repeated cycle of demolition, building, and abandonment.

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Appendix

Occupation for households living in the same house for 3+ years

346 17th 348 17th 352 17th 356 17th 358 17th 360 17th186918701871187218731874 Occupation

1875 begins c. 1875

1876 Schlorff1877 Family187818791880 Bruckner1881 Family1882188318841885188618871888 Occupation

1889 begins c. 1889

18901891

1892 Baxter Family

1893

1894 Nokes Family

1895 Withey Family

1896

1897 Data Begins

Data Begins

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18981899 Lindsay1900 Family Neuman19011902 Clay Family19031904 Brennan1905 Enszer1906 Family Brown

1907 Huntington

1908 Family

1909 Deveney Family

1910

1911 McIntosh Family

1912

1913 Moran Family

1914 Fitzgerald

1915

1916 Scherer Family

1917Data from 358 and 360 17th is from Amanda Roach, and her data begins in 1897. Beginning occupation dates for those houses are unknown, and it is unclear whether these men lived at their houses alone or with families. Couples, couples with children/grandchildren, or widows with children lived in the other four houses. The beginning occupation date at 356 17th is unknown, and it is possible the Schlorffs or another family livedthere earlier. Occupation at 348 17th begins around 1889. This house saw the most transience, as most residents only lived in itfor less than 2 years. Frederick Bruckner (the spelling of his last name varies in historical records) bought the land at 352 17th in 1869. Occupation at 346 17th begins around 1875 and is spotty until 1887 when the Witheys move in. The Schlorffs lived in the area the longest, at 31 years, followed by the Bruckners

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at 20 years and the Witheys at 19 years. The Schlorffs and Bruckners may have overlapped longer than the chart suggests. The chart only includes residents that stayed for longer than 2 years.

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