MIDTOWN
Midtown has been an area shaped by
Detroit’s cultural and educational institutions, including the Detroit Institute of
Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
(MOCAD), The Detroit Historical Museum,
Orchestra Hall, the Detroit Public Library,
the Detroit Science Museum (now The
Michigan Science Museum), the Charles
H. Wright Museum of African American
History, Wayne State University, and College for Creative Studies.
Midtown includes the Cass Corridor, a strip
of development along Cass Ave., now one
of the most vibrant areas where businesses compete for space and residential rent
rates are going up. Although, in the 1970s
and 1980s, Cass Corridor was as bad as it
got in Detroit. The area was rampant with
drug addicts, prostitutes, and homeless
people while car theft and robberies/muggings were normal. Yet, small businesses,
initiatives by large Detroit companies to
encourage employees to live in Midtown
and individuals in the community brought
the Corridor back to life.
Planning for Midtown began after the 1805
fire, when the government began to sell
land north of Woodward. Land parcelling
began, settling title disputes that arose after the departure of the British. Many parcels were ribbon farms—long, thin strips
of land that began at the water ‘s edge and
radiated away from the river for irrigation
purposes.
Cass Farms was one of the ribbon farms
that ran through Midtown. Lewis Cass
purchased the lot in 1816, and the land
was slowly settled by himself and his family up until the 1860s, when his settlement
reached where present day MLK Boulevard is.
Development in Detroit had, until this time,
been focused east and west of Woodward,
along Fort and Jefferson Avenue in particular. It wasn’t until 1852 that the first eastwest boulevard was built through south
Midtown, in Brush Park. During the civil
war, downtown began to build as a business hub. This was when Midtown began
to develop as a residential neighborhood,
typically for wealthy residents who wanted to live farther away from the noise and
bustle of downtown. In 1860, the introduction of the streetcar made Midtown
much more accessible, leading to an increase in urban growth in the 1870s, with
many prominent families building homes
in the West Canfield Historic District. As
cars became more popular and accessible in the 1910s-1930s, Midtown became
more commercial and richer families began moving to other neighborhoods. The
nearby auto plant at Milwaukee Junction
made Midtown amenable to housing factory workers, larger apartment buildings
were built to accommodate them, and
single family homes were converted into
boarding houses. Commercial space began to develop, especially connected to
Some of the towers that make up BDHP
have been demolished since the 90s.
In November of 2012, Detroit’s mayor
announced the planned demolition of
the final buildings, and plans to renovate and rebuild the recreation center
associated with it. As of August 2013,
the remaining buildings still stand.
the auto industry—such as service stations
and showrooms. The construction of Orchestra Hall along with the DIA (Detroit
Institute of Arts) and the Detroit Public Library in the 1920s began the movement
to create a cultural center in Midtown.
The approach of the Depression in the
1930s saw a new shift in the area, with
factory workers losing jobs, banks foreclosing on newer buildings, and larger
homes being converted into apartments.
Once a boom neighborhood associated
with WWII arms production, most factory
jobs had left Midtown for the suburbs.
The decades from the 50s to the 80s saw
many out-dated homes bulldozed. Wayne
State University had more influence in
the area; it renovated older buildings and
built new ones to accommodate its expansion. The Chrysler Freeway was built
in the late 50s-early-60s along Hastings
Street, a vibrant part of African American
Detroit. The Brewster-Douglas Housing
Project was built southwest of Midtown
to accommodate the people displaced by
the freeway construction. These buildings
housed many prominent Motown musicians including Diana Ross, Mary Wilson,
Florence Ballard, Loni Love, Etterlene DeBarge and famous comedian Lily Tomlin.
Strict policies originally required families
who lived in the BDHP to have at least one
employed parent; as these restrictions
were relaxed, crime rose in the buildings.
Today, Midtown is experiencing a renaissance. Wayne State draws many
students to the area and is one of the
largest employers in Detroit, other than
the hospital networks. Whole Foods
opened in the summer of 2013, fulfilling the area’s need for a grocery store.
Several locally-owned businesses have
stabilized the neighborhood, including
cafés (Avalon, Great Lakes), Run Detroit
and the rather upscale boutique Shinola, which sells locally made products
such as $10 juice and $2,000 bicycles
(American-built frames assembled in
Detroit). As Midtown Detroit Inc. says,
“[Midtown is] home to 80 restaurants,
13 theatres, 12 galleries, 8 museums, 2
historic inns, 2 hardware stores, 2 radio
stations, 2 dry cleaners, and a symphony orchestra.”
Wayne State University originally
started as several educational institutions founded at different stages. In
1868 the Detroit Medical College was
built; in 1881, the school of education;
in 1896, Detroit’s Central High School
which expanded to provide college
classes in 1913 and four-year degrees
in 1923. It wasn’t until 1933 that they
were all pulled under the same administration as Wayne University and
later renamed Wayne State University
in 1956. In 2009, it had almost 30,000
students enrolled in undergraduate,
graduate and professional programs.
photo: Dig Downtown Detroit