I was impressed this week by a map of the Cass Corridor made in 1971 by the Detroit Geographic Expedition Institute, a short-lived but influential coalition of citizen geographers. (Thanks to Detroitography for collecting and reproducing a smattering of the maps that the DGEI produced, and to Model D for helping spread the word about Detroit cartography this week.) There’s a lot …
Change is inevitable, even if it isn’t always appreciated. But change in Midtown, celebrated by many as a good thing, can be an even better thing when neighbors work together to bring that change about. And when neighbors realize that it’s going to take all of them to make the neighborhood reach its potential. The veterans as …
Who says Cass Corridor had to be saved? Postscript Read More »
Long before ‘diversity’ had ever become a national buzzword, the Cass Corridor was already perfecting its version of the concept back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, according to longtime resident Bridget Tuohey. But it wasn’t just about racial diversity, it was about race, class, and just radically different sorts of people who …
The common narrative of the Cass Corridor is that it was one of Detroit’s worst and most notorious neighborhoods, known primarily for its pimps, hookers, junkies, addicts and just about any other reason why any self-respecting upstanding citizen would never want to live there. The logical conclusion of that narrative ends at the conception of …
Before the fresh, exuberant hipness of Midtown, there were the sharp edges of the Cass Corridor. And in the early days of the Cass Corridor, back in the ‘60s and’70s, there was the Cass Corridor Arts Movement, which became an internationally recognized movement. Local artist and native Detroiter Bob Sestok, who still lives in the …
“I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly.” When asked how long he has lived in Detroit, Mr. Jackson, a fixture in the neighborhood around the El Moore, responds, “I have been here since nineteen hundred and sixty nine.” Not quite elderly just yet, Mr. Jackson makes his way around his Midtown neighborhood somewhat …
So Tomboy Supermarket (some might say the ‘notorious’ Tomboy Market) is no more. Perusing the handful of articles and posts about the location over the years offer a conflicted portrait of the El Moore’s rugged neighbor on the east side opposite corner of Second Avenue. If there is any kind of common thread among the commentators, …
The El Moore which is in Midtown, which used to be the Cass Corridor, which is in Detroit, which is in Michigan. The point being that there are so many different lenses through which to view the El Moore and the surrounding neighborhood. History is not a single stream, and nothing/no one exists out of context. …
