Brush Park Are Neighborhoods Ons to Founders of De- Near to Downtown De- Partment and Dry Goods Troit, Both Marked by Stores
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Both Lafayette and Brush Park are neighborhoods ons to founders of de- near to downtown De- partment and dry goods troit, both marked by stores. Albert Kahn, the their significant archi- German-American in- BRUSH PARK tecture. Lafayette is lo- dustrial architect, also cated just south of the known as the archi- Eastern Market Historic tect of Detroit, built his District; Brush Park is own house there in 1906. south of Mack Avenue The William Livingston were part of the ultimate and east of Woodward. house, located on El- demise of the neighbor- liot Street, was Kahn’s hood. As transportation the city of Detroit sta- Development in Brush first commission. In the into the downtown core bilized and ‘mothballed’ Park began in the late house’s history, it was became more accessible several homes, but since 1800s, by the Brush fam- moved twice, and eventu- and easier, the wealthy then, there has been no ily. Edmund Brush, son ally demolished in 2007 inhabitants of Brush restoration. of Detroit’s second may- on account of the struc- Park moved to the sub- or, Elijah Brush, began tural damage inflicted urbs. During the Great Three hundred homes to construct the family during the moves. Depression, many of the were originally built in home in the area in the houses were convert- the area; 80 remain to- 1850’s. The peak of devel- The area includes Guil- ed into apartments, but day. opment was in the 1870s ded Age, Victorian, High many homes were aban- and 1880s. By the late Victorian, French Re- doned after WWII. In the 19th century, the area naissance Revival, Sec- 1990s, the area began ex- was known as the Little ond Empire and Itali- periencing a Small reviv- Paris of the Midwest on anate architecture built al. When the Superbowl account of the architec- by notable architects XL played in Ford Field tural style of the hous- such as Henry T. Brush, (2005-2006), es there. It became home Albert Kahn and George to many influential and D. Mason. The street car wealthy citizens of De- and later the automobile troit, from lumber bar- Built as a post-WWII, modern housing de- velopment, Lafayette was one of the first urban renewal projects in the United States. Intended for professional and mid- dle class families, it is part of the Mies van der Rohe Historical District, located di- rectly south of Eastern Market. The blog- ger and photographer Jim Griffioen of SweetJuniper.org is among its residents. Under the original 1946 plans, the neigh- borhood was to be named Gratiot Park. It replaced the Black Bottom neighborhood (named for its rich farming soil), which was considered an African American slum. The most notable developments of the plan were the 186 town homes, two high-rise towers, shopping complex and 19-acre park L A F the homes and towers surround. The proj- ect was designed by three architects: the German-American architect Ludwig Mies AYE van der Rohe, German urban planner Lud- wig Karl Hilberseimer, and American land- scape architect, Alfred Caldwell, who was TTE particularly active in Chicago, Illinois..