After I finished writing about my Grahams in the 1940 Census yesterday, I looked at some maps of the enumeration district. Here are some photographs I put together from Google maps showing what the area looks like now and what streets were included in their enumeration district. My cousin Barbara and I visited the area in 2004 and it looked just like this.
The Enumeration District is outlined in red. My grandparents house is the “A”. The yellow line traces the route to the elementary school.
An ariel view from google of my grandparents block. Their house was located where the “A” is. There used to be an alley but it is now overgrown as they don’t maintain alleys in Detroit any more. The Jordan house and the Graham house shared the enclosed space. There was another alley next to the Jordan house which is included inside the fence.
The site of my grandparents house. Now a storage area.
Unmaintained side alley next to the house site.
The factory across the street from my grandparents house.
Thomas Elementary school. The school my mother and her siblings attended. Now deserted and burned.
Looking down the street from elementary school toward the ruined Packard plant. My Uncle Mershell was hit and killed by a truck on the way back to school with his older sister, Mary Vee after lunch. I think she always felt she was somehow responsible.
Sad to see it crumbling away, but surprising that so much is still there.
Guess it takes a city a long time to disappear totally.
The pictures and text do a wonderful job of showing how the area has changed from a neighborhood with homes, to an industrial area, to an area that is crumbling away. It’s amazing (in a sad way) that it could have changed so much since your grandparents lived there. The way you went from the general (the maps) to the photos, and then to the very specific incident (the accident) really engaged me with the story you were telling.
Thanks Sheryl. It was always a mixed industrial/residential area, but both the factories and the homes were functioning back in the 1920s when my grandparents bought their home. We used to go over there every Saturday during the 1950s so I was familiar with the slow change that crept over it. By the time my grandparents moved out in 1968, it was a dangerous place to live. They experienced several home invasions and shootings but were never hurt. By the time my cousin and I rode through the area in 2004 the only people we saw in the immediate neighborhood, were some men hauling scrap out of the old Packard plant. Until then I had never realized that the elementary school was so close to the house and that I had passed it often during the 1950s and nobody ever said “There’s our old school.” Something I annoy my family with whenever we are driving through some place I used to live. I’m pretty sure it was because of the accident.