Grandmont-Rosedale. Boston Edison. Palmer Woods

grandmont-rosedale. boston edison. palmer woods. palmer park. Four separate neighborhoods – Grandmont-Rosedale, Boston Edison, Palmer Woods and Palmer Park– four similar stories of survival in an economically depressed city. Each neighborhood sits a few miles north or northwest of downtown; not all of the neighborhood boundaries border each other, you’ll find similar stories of community-driven residents who do their part to keep the blight epidemic out of the area. Boston Edison on Jefferson Ave. at Woodward velopment Corporation was nis and Walsh, Richard H. Marr Located closest to downtown, Ave.), John Dodge mansion established in 2011. The cor- and later Minoru Yamasaki Boston Edison is a sprawling (Dodge founder), and Walter poration has helped prevent and Frank Lloyd Wright. Two neighborhood of impressive Briggs (auto baron and Detroit many abandoned homes from of the seven Fisher brothers homes where a diverse mix- Tigers owner). falling into ruin by raising mon- mansions are located here, as ture of residents lives. The ey to buy the home, restoring it well as Frank Lloyd Wright’s neighborhood is composed Grandmont- and selling or renting it as well Dorothy S. Turkel house (the of 36 blocks with 900 homes as raising money for residents architect’s only project in of mostly ornate mansions Rosedale to fix up their own homes so Detroit) and Detroit’s largest As the population in the city be- with personality. Constructed no house in the neighborhood home, the 40,000-square-foot gan to decline, many neighbor- by numerous architects for falls into disrepair. Bishop Gallagher Residence. hoods were left with a growing prominent Detroiters in the number of abandoned homes late 1800s, the homes are built that eventually became blight- Palmer Woods Palmer Park in English Revival, Italian Re- Named after Thomas Palmer, Palmer Park is the name of ed homes where squatters naissance, Prairie, Vernacular, a land developer, Michigan the neighborhood on the bor- claimed their stake. Citywide, Roman Revival, Greek Revival, senator and ambassador to der with Palmer Woods and a about one-fifth of homes are French Provincial and Colo- Spain, who donated the land park within the neighborhood. abandoned, but thanks to ef- nial Revival. Thanks to pres- to Detroit to build the Palmer Famous for its historic apart- forts of the residents who ervation-conscious residents, Woods neighborhood, this ment district where you once stayed, that number is a small- much of the original integrity historic district is unique in had to know someone to get er one-tenth in neighborhoods of the structures is evident to- its construction. Designed by in as a resident, it was popu- like Grandmont-Rosedale day. landscape architects William lar with the LBGT (lesbian, bi- and Boston Edison. Residents Le Baron Jenney and Ossian sexual, gay and transgender) have teamed up with an un- Among the impressive homes, Cole Simonds into trapezoidal community in the mid-20th derstaffed police department a few stand out such as Berry lines, each plot was a one-of- century. Crime and degrading to patrol the neighborhood Gordy Jr.’s mansion (pictured, a-kind shape. Building archi- economic conditions drove streets, and maintain their founder of Motown Records), tects had no choice but the most people out of the neigh- own neighborhood watch that five of the seven Fisher Broth- create unique structures to fit borhood, where the exclu- has helped prevent and catch er mansions (automotive on the plot. The current 298 sive apartment buildings off burglary and crime. moguls), Henry Ford’s man- homes features Colonial Re- Woodward sit in disrepair. The sion, J.L. Hudson mansion vival, Tudor Revival, Arts and “Hotter than July” black LBGT Dwindling city services have (founder of Hudson’s Depart- Crafts, Neo-Georgian, Medi- festival still takes place there left the maintenance of lawns, ment Store), Joe Louis’s home terranean, and Modern archi- annually. flowerbeds and clean-up ef- (American icon, heavyweight tectural styles largely built be- forts to the dedicated resi- champion of the world whose tween 1917 and 1929 by Albert dents. To coordinate efforts, fist is immortalized in bronze Kahn, C. Howard Crane, Magin- the Grandmont-Rosedale De-.

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