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I am always stunned by the transformation of the east side of Detroit from beautiful, quaint and well manicured homes to a rank and abject shithole. We arrived in 1964 in the Conner corridor. We finally moved closer to Harper Woods in winter of 1977/78. By then, it was too dangerous to be white. My dad, mom, sister and me all were robbed in separate incidences. The most egregious had to be mine. Me and four others were robbed at gunpoint by two men in the office of a Catholic grade school off East Warren in the summer of 1979. One of the assailant attempted to SA the nun principal. I had recently graduated from the high attached to the grade school that year. Now I’m buying a house south of 10 mile in a bordering suburb called Warren. I just can’t leave the metro Detroit area, I guess.
@@Chicago48 There were apartments back in the 70's. Grosse Pointe Park had a few streets along Alter Rd that were divided into flats for rent. There were a few apartment buildings along Vernier Rd (8 mile rd) between Mack and Harper. Grosse Pointe Farms had a few small buildings scattered around in the neighborhoods. I suspect many of those have converted to condos. I went out with a girl that lived in an apartment in the Farms and knew a girl in my class that lived in apartments on Vernier Rd.
It's really tragic! Detroit really is (or was once) a beautiful and great city! It still has immense promise! This city (with the federal governments help) resettle all immigrants into Detroit to live and rebuild it! No whites though...they'll just destroy it again with drugs and homelessness like they've done to the West Coast! The whiteman destroys anything or anybody... that he can't use or benefit from! He steals and takes from others, and when he's done draining the use out of anybody (or anything) he leaves a desolate carapace in place! NO B.S. JUST PLAIN FACT(S)!
When I used to live in Detroit, I was joking about it to someone who doesn't live there. Drive down Cadieux from 94 going east, and half the houses are boarded up or burnt down. Cars parked in front lawns, loud music, and so on. As soon as you cross into the Pointes, all the sudden there's families riding bicycles in matching outfits, manicured lawns and landscapes, the air smells different, kids carrying balloons.... It's like driving into Sesame Street from Beruit.
Also, the zip code that's on the east side, in the area south of 8 mile, east of Gratiot has one of the highest murder rates per capita in the country.
That is a very funny and accurate version of the drive you describe. I bought my first home on Bishop in 1993 in what is now called East English Village after growing up in Grosse Pointe Farms. The home appreciated very well until Governer Engler abolished residency requirements for city employees in 1999. By then I was living in Chicago with the great proceeds of that first home. After that ruling, the neighborhood suffered a great deal of property value losses. Today it's on an upswing. A home that in 2012 could fetch 30,000 is now, if it's in good shape is 200,000, but it is still a bargain but comes with the kids needing private school and a club for recreation.
@@Barryburton63 I used to do 'side work' for a woman that lived in GP farms in the mid 90s. But the last time I drove down Cadieux was about 2 years ago. Looks like a war zone going through Detroit. I moved several years ago to Phoenix after retiring from the Macomb county Sheriff's department. Couldn't do that cold/ice/shitty roads/high taxes thing anymore. I don't even like going back there. I lived all over SE Michigan, and made money in every house I sold until the crash in 2008. I sold and broke even but just barely. Now I live in front of a mountain and when it gets cold, that means highs in the 60s in January.
Grosse Pointe is populated by educated,privileged Anglo Saxons,while Detroit is populated by undereducated,non-privileged aAfricans!! O have a picture of Detroit Southeastern and one of Grosse Pointe South,two schools less than a mile away,but WORLDS different in lifestyle!! 😮
@@christianlibertarian5488 I often wondered that myself and came to the conclusion that the police department sprayed those trees in Detroit with agent orange after the riots to better monitor criminal activities from the air in helicopters.
My Grandmother's house was on the west side of Detroit. She lived there in the mid 60s to early 70s. Her street was very well kept, clean, nice lawns, very low crime. No bars on windows, no burned out buildings, no junk burned out cars littering the streets. Today, there are only a couple houses left in her former entire neighborhood! Gee, I wonder what the problem could be ....LOL
Appreciating what you have. Taking care of what you have. Working, paying taxes, not trashing, striving to improve...WTH is wrong with those values? That is what people do when you want society( civilization) to march foreward.
Im from GPP you drove past my old street a few times. With all these cheap subdivisions and atomized neighborhoods today I was glad to live in a real city with such a strong identity and rich history, that can never be replicated today.
Thank you! Grew up on the Detroit side until I was 8 in 1964. Then we moved to GPP on Barrington about 7 houses from Windmill Pointe Drive. Supposedly our garage behind the house was technically in Detroit (Alter was the street behind us and that was Detroit.) It was a great place to grow up at the time. My old neighborhood about a mile away on Marlborough is as mentioned, a waste land.
As a resident I can give some extra context on the roundabout: While yes, it does give off a very certain impression just on face value alone, I guarantee the main motivating factor was to keep that stretch of Kercheval more walkable. The whole thing cropped up during a time when "Walkability" became a big trend and buzzword in urban planning - such as Downtown Detroit blocking off the connection between Jefferson and Woodward a few years later. The roundabout begins where the main restaurant/retail district of the Park is and it's often promoted as this highly walkable area, where they regularly block off traffic for events such as After Six On Kercheval. Contrast this with Charlevoix two blocks up, where residents have been calling for the street to be redesigned due to the inability to see oncoming traffic and semi-regular accidents occurring due to people just barreling through on both ends. I personally have been nearly t-boned dozens of times on that stretch alone. This could possibly be due to people often coming fresh from the freeway (Alter connects to I-94) and speeding as a result, because on 94 "55" really means "70", which really means "80". The city has been adding more stop signs on both stretches to avoid just adding more eyesore traffic barriers like the roundabout, to make people slow down and drive less recklessly. So long story short, it's a very not self aware attempt at urban planning. Sure, "keeping out the riff-raff" might have been in there somewhere, but "motivate people to shop and dine here" was a much much bigger idea
Hmm. Good point. Right at the start of the “walkability” trend during urban planning, but also right at the start of woke-ism. I just remember seeing a bunch of media headlines of how Detroit residents who lived near Grosse Pointe Park felt a certain type of way about it, and I could see why. I can also see how the leaders behind the project would be oblivious to thinking about something like that being offensive. Well they fixed Kercheval and made it 2 way now so hopefully everyone can be happy.
@@ChrisHarden Oh absolutely a weird thing to see out of context and I don't blame people for jumping to that assumption. A lot of the leadership in town has been weirdly tone-deaf about things like that. Very quick to jump onto city planning buzzwords and trends, but very slow to think about the application. Currently happening all over again with parking developments. And yeah, supposedly they're working on widening the roundabout too, since all the restaurant/retail establishment kept having problems with commercial trucks getting through to supply them.
Thank you for the great image quality, stable and clear. Lots of people try to do the same but ends up giving us nausea from the shaking and bad filming. Good info! Thanks from Montreal Canada
Grosse Pointe has always had affordable places to live for working-class families, thankfully. My family moved there from Detroit when I was thirteen in 1986; my Dad was an electrician and my Mom was a social worker, so we were blue-collar types for sure. It was a culture shock adjusting to GP schools, and there's a super elite subsection of society that I never got a sniff of, but to be honest I'm glad for that. I'd rather be eating government cheese sandwiches around a dumpster can fire than be subjected to socialite dinner party socials. Overall a 10/10 place to grow up, it's beautiful and safe and like I said, very affordable compared to other parts of the country.
^^A statement for these 2 egotistical eggplants, For a family-orated nice place, Yes, it’s very affordable compared to Beverly Hills, Ca. But why even go that far? Subjectively speaking, for the most part, GP is actually even affordable compared to lots of places in Michigan itself. Such as Beverly Hills Mi, Franklin, Downtown Detroit, Ann Arbor Charter Township, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Bingham Farms, East Grand Rapids etc. It’s a good bang for your buck for the quality of life and the other necessities that come with it.
$390,000 median home price in one of the nicer suburbs is affordable. My middle class/working class California suburb you can’t get anything under $500,000…and my county is not even the central Bay Area
If you are a resident or renter in Grosse Pointe Park, you can easily get a park pass. There are two major parks, both on the water. One is a passive park for playing, kayaking, picnics, skating, and such. The other has a marina, exercise and gymnasium facility, pool, picnic area, tennis, volleyball, community center and two movie theaters. Amenities... I think we have a few. When we aren't working, we are home on vacation. Bubble??... heck yah!
Except it isn't. The border is between the streets of Wayburn and Alter. You can tell by where the pavement changes and how some of the GPP park streets had a wall put up at that point.
What killed Detroit was not the 1967 events. It was the city income taxes on top already high property taxes. Then the the Young's boys nailed the coffin.
Craig, I toured a PHD student from Oxford in England who grew up in South Africa in a gated community as so many communties are there. He was studying community boundaries. He could not believe the fact that Grosse Pointe in this section (or others to mention) were not walled off. I was able to tell him how somtimes social boundaries were stronger than walls. However, the real reason was that Grosse Pointe was 100% white and Detroit was then 90% black. The police knew this. That was the wall.
@@Barryburton63 we have large scale immigration from SA to New Zealand 🇳🇿 ( all SA ethnicities) and the culture shock they have here is very amusing, it’s amusingly called the 6 month syndrome, and explains the initial trouble SA people have when looking for somewhere to live. It’s takes them roughly 6 months of desperate house hunting to realise that not only will they not find gated communities with electric fences and security. But that every house, in every neighbourhood rich or poor has gently sloping lawns, open to the streets and massive glass walls and giant windows. It then takes them another 6 months to realise that they sleep all night and no longer live in fear.
@@Barryburton63even if you make the way up to gpw and Harper woods the difference is night and day. Hell even the majority black neighborhoods in gpw are pretty dirty.
I was just in Grosse Pointe over the weekend with family. It is insane how nice that area is. I’m just lucky to have family that lives there so I’ve been able to enjoy it.
I lived in Grosse Pointe City from 1987 to 1991. Going across Alter Rd. was a stark transition even then, but going the other way, across Mack Ave., not so much. Very nice mid-middle class housing on the Detroit side at the time. I lived there because it was near my workplace. Grosse Pointe City has six streets, and at the time had ten police cruisers. They drove golf carts with dumpers into your back yard to pick up your garbage. The city park had swimming pools, tennis courts, picnic areas, and a nice boat dock which had decent fishing. Home prices were low compared to other toney suburbs.
I moved to the Detroit area in 1978 and while out checking the lay of the land I drove out Jefferson Avenue from downtown Detroit into the Grosse Pointes. East Jefferson as you approached Alter Road was desolate. Mostly abandoned commercial buildings and the ones that weren't had bars on all the windows and doors. No greenery to be seen and graffiti everywhere. And then, literally from one block to the next as you crossed Alter, there were no empty buildings, no graffiti, virtually no bars to be seen, and well maintained lawns and shrubbery. Mind blowing.
Watch how in Detroit the "locals" throw garbage out of cars in the neighborhood and streets. I see it almost daily. Across mack in GP, the culture of doing this is not there. Ot isn't just money, it is the culture. They are simply different
I was born on the east side of Detroit and grew up in Grosse Pointe Park. What is not visible today is that before the late 1960s, the neighborhoods on either side of the city limits looked virtually identical. The Detroit side was destroyed by poor law enforcement, resulting rampant crime and what a friend of mine calls "rioting in slow motion", which involved lots and lots of arson. Some years, during the Halloween season, Detroit had over 400 arson fires. Local merchants along the Kercheval strip told me they were against the barricade because it made it impossible for their suppliers' large trucks to turn around. As for street closures, about half the closed streets do not continue across Alter Rd. One of the streets has a canal bridge that is unsafe for vehicle traffic, and one of the streets was blocked off by Detroit to replace another dangerous bridge with a modern safe one. Nonetheless, there are still about 40 locations that make Grosse Pointe Park accessible from Detroit. So if someone thinks closing five or six streets will confuse things so much that it keeps blacks out, I wonder what they think of blacks.
I graduated in 1972. at that time Detroit near Alter was still nice. Chris Hardin has outlined many of the issues that destroyed Detroit. In my opinion, Coleman Young was VERY divisive and accelerated Detroit's deterioration.
@@foxfly23 When it comes to Detroit and other inner cities in America, yes. Poor blacks bring gangs, violent handgun crime, drugs, out of wedlock births, high unemployability, failing schools, and an overall blight to the area. That's not a racist statement. Ask the people who actually live in those areas if their area is more dangerous and they will say yes, and long for wanting to escape. They aren't stupid. They see what's going on too. Regular hard working blacks are not an issue. It's the underclass that makes the neighborhood bad to the point where regular blacks also leave (known as black flight).
"The Detroit side was destroyed by poor law enforcement," LOL it got a LOT worse when Mayor Archer let the cops move out of the city. We lived in 48224 when that happened, and it was like someone threw a ghetto switch. We had to leave. Don't blame the cops, blame the jobless fatherless, educationless, felons.
Can you blame them for wanting to protect their neighborhoods, streets and children???? Not at all. Society can make up any flashy words they like, but I call it common sense not wanting your city to turn to a pure hell, all because some people don't give a damn about anything other than themselves. And I even question that!!!
Chris. I grew up in Grosse Pointe Farms and now I live in Detroit after a stint in New York and Chicago. You hit the nail on the head with your videos for the most part. If there is any chance we could meet up on your next tour of Detroit, and I would recommend (sp?) it I would only be too honored. I have renovated the gardens in many Detroit parks as my job requires including the park in front of the newly renovated Michigan Central Train station. The changes since your last visit are remarkable and not all due to gentrification as most cities see as their hallmarks of revitalization.
Thanks Chris Harden! This was another interesting video. I had a great aunt who lived in Ferndale. When I was young, we would drive to the Detroit area to visit. That was in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Detroit’s decline was already well under way by that time. The urban decay made an impression on me then. And I was also a bit shocked when my aunt told me people set houses on fire in Detroit for Devil’s Night… I had always heard that the Grosse Pointes were some of the well-to-do suburbs. I never had an opportunity to visit any of the Grosse Pointes, so I appreciated being able to see Grosse Pointe Park. I was also interested in your commentary. As usual, well done!
Chris, good job. Growing up on the east side of Detroit. I have been telling people for several years that did not live in metro Detroit area the stark difference between Detroit and the Grosse Pointes.
Very nice video! I watched it earlier today on my other device but can't comment from it so I'm commenting now. Love those old homes and the great history lesson.
I really enjoy your work Chris. This one is home. At 13:08 It’s Provençal, the name of french family that emigrated/settled there. 16:25 They say “DeFur” school, again, french-ish. 17:40 Yea, the inter urban track was pretty much the route of jefferson ave up well into Macomb Cty. When digging along Jeff Ave rr spikes are found. You are right. No public lakefront amenities (limited to residents and guests) and no hotels - zoning restrictions. To your point, Alter Road has been referred to for years in the press as a singular example of Home Rule governance and local funding of public education. In other towns when I see a street/border between two municipalities I can’t help but compare it to the great disparity of fortunes across Alter Road. I still hold out hope for stabilization and growth between Connor’s Creek, GPP and the river. But probably too optimistic to think it will improve substantially in my lifetime.
As previously stated, someday there will be a great appreciation for these snap shots of America as it is today.. Also, I'm sure the crime rate went down after John Cusak left town post reunion weekend 😂. Great episode 👏
really sad to see that Janet's Lunch diner on Kercheval in GPP is no longer there, they had some of the best diner food ive ever had, and thier homemade pies were ridiculously good. sometimes progress isnt always better
Used to regularly go to the Punch and Judy theater for R H P Show midnight showing. And occasional concerts. Lived near Harper and Cadidux for a while.
Whenever I take people to GP through Detroit they are always amazed, one minute you are going through hell and then boom, mansions. I have never seen anywhere else where you see such a massive contrast. I still love The D though for its charm.
If you live in Grosse Pointe, the park pass comes to you, you don't have to go looking for them. Also, the residents can apply for guest passes when they get the application forms every year.
@@ChrisHarden I really love your videos. Almost addicted to them! I've been to so many of the places you explore and I notice some of the places you miss while you're there but I also understand you don't have weeks to explore everywhere based on what you do. Keep up the GREAT work exposing the America we live in today!
The only other part of the country that reminds me of the Grosse Pointes is the north shore suburbs of Chicago (Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park), would love to see you focus on Chicagoland, another fascinating area of the Midwest.
@@ChrisHardenYou should also do some videos of the inner ring suburbs in Chicago like Oak Park, River Forrest, Evanston, and Ciero (that are in Cook County Illinois).
Yes please, videos on Chicago and suburbs would be great. I’d also be interested in some of those inner ring suburbs. I currently live in one of them, although I am moving to the Indianapolis ‘burbs next year.
You are spot on. Having lived in the Detroit area and the Chicago area, there are a lot of similarities between the metro areas. The north shore suburbs of Chicago are similar to the Grosse Pointes near Detroit.
I would absolutely love to move to any of the Grosse Points. I had some interest in Grosse Point Woods, due to some all but walkable distance to some property in Moross-Morang, Detroit. Some things have happened but I still plan to move to Metro Detroit close to Detroit proper, and I am excited about this series beginning. Personally. Thank you for your hard work, I hope I contribute positively to your algorithm.
It depends upon how much money you have that sorts you into which of the Pointes you can live in. All are nice, but Grosse Pointe Shores (right along the water) is for the 1% of the 1%. Ford Mansion is there. For the lowly 1%ers, Grosse Pointe Woods is the place. For the merely very well to do, Grosse Pointe City, Grosse Point Farms or Grosse Pointe Park.
@@christianlibertarian5488 I was looking at a an all original 1950 home 2 story home with the ubiquitous east side brick and white aluminum siding with an attached two car garage in Grosse Point Woods, it sold for more than it was listed for, and likely is finishing a full renovation at this point if I had to guess. Thanks for the advice. It’s ultimately about the school district while being close to the actual city for me. Not the status symbol of it.
20 years ago i went for an interview just west of this area. I drove in and passed a burned out car. About 2 months later i started working and passed the same buned out car. After driving around the area i passed any number of buned, abandoned, and junked cars. The number derelict houses even then would be too great to recall. The people in the house behind the business would occasionally throw dead pit bulls into the alley. That area today seems to have more empty lots than houses as well. I hope this video commends Gross Point for stemming the tide.
I grew up on the wrong side of Alter Rd. You actually drove by my old neighborhood at Chalmers and Mack. It was a bad neighborhood back then. But it was still filled with houses. Many those got burned down on devils night. People left and boarded up their houses because of crime. Our house got robbed three times. Our cars were stolen on the regular. My neighbor was stabbed to death on her front lawn. Gangs would terrorize the neighborhood. Once in a blue moon, we would go to Grosse Pointe to Baskin-Robbins to get some ice cream. To us, going to Grosse Pointe was like going to a different country. It’s crazy that it was only a couple miles away.
Mack & Outer Drive, 1967-1978. Attended Clark Elementary (Detroit) & St. Clare (GP). That area of Detroit was a great place to live. Court ordered school busing, in the name of desegregation, forced us to move to the suburbs. Most houses on my old block are gone - last time I drove by (2012) saw a pack of wild dogs.
You have to realize Hedge Fund Bankers have pages of property lists on their Portfolios. It’s money whether they do anything or write them off as loses.
Back in the 80s, I took my uncle and his wife, who had not been in the Detroit area for many years, for a ride down Jefferson from the Pointes into Detroit. I advised them to really pay attention to the scenery as we crossed Alter Road. Talk about gobsmacked!
$10,000 per pupil is low for an urban school district with horrible performance but not low for general small town America. You can't claim that Detroit doesn't have money to pay for decent education or to upkeep the schools. They just end up with even less than other school districts after the rampant graft that occurs in horrible urban districts.
Where is this place you call Nuevo Barrio? I grew up in phoenix az. There is no place called Nuevo Barrio in phoenix. There is the Marcos de niza projects which are in buckeye and central. Grant Park Barrio. Central Park Barrio. None of these places looked as bad as Detroit. I have been to Detroit and I have never seen anything so bad in my life. Yes a mile south of downtown phoenix is poor but not even close to Detroit it looks like tanks went in there trying to kill people. Phoenix az is a beautiful city and the crime rate is way lower then Detroit. Detroit is a city that is like no other, parts of Philadelphia looks like that but it still looked better then Detroit.
Also the city of phoenix az is buying up all that land and paying home owners to move because they need that land to extend the airport. Those home owners were paid to leave not crime forcing them out. My mother's house is still in that neighborhood and waiting for the city to buy it up. My mother died 3 years ago and left my 2 brothers and me the house. It's valued at $180,000 not like in Detroit those houses wouldn't sell because the crime is to high.
@@rosemontano8705 It's located at 33.43312585693815, -112.05857662041778, and I meant to say Nuestro, and yes it is not as bad as detroit but still ugly. Also thanks for the insight as to why it is abandoned, I had no idea they were trying to expand the airport.
Quality of school districts is a big factor in this line. Grosse Pointe Public Schools are considered excellent; but by any objective metric, DPS is one of the worst in the entire country.
Amazing video and yeah I have never seen a stark difference like this from one side of (Mack) street to other. Berlin Germany was like this before reunification from one side of the street to the other but there was a heavily armored wall running down the middle of said street. We had something close like this in Chicagoland but it was a railroad. Another superlative video! Where does one see such great filming with a fact filled narrative. One minor difference of opinion. I do not think the music is elevator type but the type to help emotionally connect everything together and represents the best of your past career. I want to make a plug for vocational schools. We had a lot of them 100 years ago and they worked then and work today in Germany in particular. A special thank you to you Chris for enriching my life! Craig
I'm pretty sure o lived in the highlighted section of the Detroit map in the late 1960s. I've been in Muskegon since 1970. I was 10 when my family moved here.
If you want to see at large scale how the lands were divided during French were in Notrh America, check out the satelite view of the province of Quebec along the St-Lawrence River. We can still see this heritage almost 300 years they quitted the New France
Great watch, back in Detroit??? Speaking of French names for places, what does "Grand Tetons" mean when referring to Grand Tetons National Park??? LOL Chris, how about a vid on ZUG ISLAND, it looks like a charming place to live. It has a lot of river front property. All kidding aside, while looking around the Groose Point area, close to Windmill Point there is a long creek "Fox Creek" that ends at the Detroit River and goes through a neighborhood just to the west of Alter Road and ends at Moe's Bait Shop on E. Jefferson Ave. Thanks for your time, work and posting.... mike
Police of Grosse Pointe Park do a good job of keeping the crime low considering Detroit is a hop, skip, and a jump from them. Nice area. The homes remind me of the Edgebrook or Old Norwood Park areas of Chicago. Thanks for the facts and figures Chris!
My friend lived on Lake Shore drive in GP and said they had an under a minute or under 3 minute guaranteed response time from the police department and they really did. Police always were up and down Lake Shore.
I do see an answer worth considering. That's a lot of empty acreage. Why not set up some independent townships? Let them govern themselves, tax themselves, develop themselves. Yeah, give up the maintenance burden and create a positive growth potential.
The stark contrast between one block is fascinating. Same thing happens in ATL, but it's more patchwork. I'm a bit curious why some of the immediate blocks just across Alter aren't in better shape. Seems like some developers might put in housing -- maybe tiny house type villages -- in the empty lots very close to GPP. Try to benefit from the proximity.
I saw an article about a big factory closing along the Ohio River. It was the #1 employer and property tax contributor for the rural county. The school superintendent reported that losing the factory meant losing high-end professional families that valued education. They'd volunteered to lead school activities. And their kids raised the bar for academic performance. The mayor said the same "losing the revenue hurts, but the average educational level of our voters is falling fast. No matter what party you're in, these voters will make worse decisions".
I’m sure part of the reason the border between the two cities is so drastic is because of laws and taxes and stuff like that but I’m still surprised that the contrast is so stark. You also said it’s hard to imagine what those huge empty lots looked like before being abandoned but I’m guessing the pointes are exactly what they used to look like to some degree. I think it’s sad that so many people look at Detroit and just see the blight and don’t see what it was/could be again and would rather just leave it as it is. But I’m sure I can’t fathom the amount of money and time it would take to repopulate and urbanize these empty lots
Btw there IS one other place in the US that you didn't mention with pretty extensive ribbon farms (still used as farms in this case) and now residential areas as well. And that is along much of the Rio Grand (and some tributary streems) in New Mexico and and even along parts of the border in Texas to an extent, which is a feature of the deeply rooted Hispanic farming communities there many dating as far back as the 1700's. That's where the prized Hatch Chillies prefered fo many sauces and salsas are grown!
I now see I did a few serious typos here but glad you found my comment helpful. If I were to edit it now youtube would remove the heart. Makes sense actually since you can "edit" a comment to completely change it. Anyway love your channel and keep up the great videos!
I grew up in the Detroit neighborhood in the 1960’s it was a thriving neighborhood home business nice area. Grosse Pointe people went to shop and eat in the neighborhood. This neighborhood was a Grosse Pointe feeder the kids brought their starter homes and eventually they would move to the Points.
People who know how to live together. Just how a community should be. Full of responsible people. Too late for the others, they just pop kids by the tens, abandon their responsibilities and hey presto another 7 mile is born.
Playboy Magazine had an article back in the 1980’s basically proclaiming that this border of Detroit/Grosse Pointe was the ‘starkest’ border in the entire USA!!! The most night and day difference by simply crossing the street!
(Leaving this comment here too in case anyone has any input.) Hey Chris! My comment is actually about something a little bit further down the road from Ecorse/Rouge. i know youve extensively covered Detroit, and with your attention to detail plus all the homework you've done on the city, i thought you might be the perfect person to ask. Took my son through Detroi a few weeks ago to show him some of the different areas and how drastically everything changes North of 8 mile. But he noticed those green lights flashing on SOME of the businesses, not others. I thougt he was joking when he said its probably to give preferential treatment by the police. I laughed thinking yeah right.. Well, he looked into it and sure enough thats exactly what it sounds like. Are you aware, or have you ever looked into this? Would love to hear your input on this. Appreciate your work..
Where does Westland fit into the picture now? Played hockey there in the 70's when it was nice. Visited later near the year 2000 and it had definitely changed.....
The juxtaposition of the two cities is stark, but GP didn’t do that to Detroit. There is a 20-30 mile ring of suburbs around Detroit that are all part of the disinvestment story. Grosse Pointers pay Wayne County Taxes and disproportionately work in downtown detroit, supporting the city. The same is not true of other suburbs.
My Dad grew up just S of Jefferson about 10 blks W of Alter Rd. Visiting from California it was still a neighborhood in the mid-70s. By the mid-90s nearly every house on the street was gone. Around 2010 they built some Section 8 housing there.
@@ChrisHarden Coplin St, near Frued. 2 blks S of Jefferson. Coplin still exists - in a sense - N of Jefferson, but not to the south. The entire neighborhood was redeveloped early 2000s. I have a pic of the house - standard 2-story wood box built 1919 or so. But no neighborhood pics.
@@ChrisHarden East Detroit near E. Jefferson looked a lot like Grosse Pointe Park "Wayburn to Somerset and Mack to Jefferson" does now. I grew up in East Detroit in the late 60's early 70's before moving to the area of GPP mentioned above in 75. East Detroit started going downhill about 1970. My Grandparents lived in Indian village which still has a Grosse pointe look to it also.
@@jimmydee1130 I lived on Eastlawn from 1966-72 between Jefferson and Freud in a two story brownstone flat, it had a fireplace French doors and nice decorative moulding.
You use "eh" correctly. Basically where Americans use "huh." Watching from Toronto. Last visited Detroit in 1982 for a Tigers game and steak at Carl's Chop House. Great game and wonderful restaurant. The restaurant seemed to be a fortress surrounded by a scary neighbourhood, but we still had fun and never stopped for red lights as we were instructed.
Detroit was a good city as many have commented about. The late 60's after the riots was the beginning of white flight. The 70's saw high inflation, the gas shortage, auto emissions and a downturn for the auto companies. The 80's brought crack and the Poletown plant. The GM plant ripped out numerous neighbors and cut the city in half. Crack started the wholesale burning of houses to stop rival dealers. The 80's saw the great destruction of countless neighborhoods. Detroit never had a mayor who didn't rob the city blind. It's starting to turn around. Dugan serms to be a decent mayor. The city is too big to service now. I don't live there anymore. I used to walk down Chene St. for lunch or the market at Ferry. Everyone was super chill and you knew most people. I miss that.
Not cool. It's pretty harsh to denigrate a population of 600k people as thugs. Detroit similarly has some beautiful neighborhoods, and many good, hardworking, and honest people.
Cool or not, it's the DAMN TRUTH, weather it ruffels your feathers or not. Look at the numbers. Everything you need to know is there!!!!!!!!!!@@djb5689 Nothing is ALL, that goes without saying, but it sure as heck is the overwhelming majority!! FACTS!!!
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I am always stunned by the transformation of the east side of Detroit from beautiful, quaint and well manicured homes to a rank and abject shithole. We arrived in 1964 in the Conner corridor. We finally moved closer to Harper Woods in winter of 1977/78. By then, it was too dangerous to be white. My dad, mom, sister and me all were robbed in separate incidences.
The most egregious had to be mine. Me and four others were robbed at gunpoint by two men in the office of a Catholic grade school off East Warren in the summer of 1979. One of the assailant attempted to SA the nun principal. I had recently graduated from the high attached to the grade school that year.
Now I’m buying a house south of 10 mile in a bordering suburb called Warren. I just can’t leave the metro Detroit area, I guess.
I saw no apartment buildings. Are the Grosses only for housing?
@@Chicago48 There were apartments back in the 70's. Grosse Pointe Park had a few streets along Alter Rd that were divided into flats for rent. There were a few apartment buildings along Vernier Rd (8 mile rd) between Mack and Harper. Grosse Pointe Farms had a few small buildings scattered around in the neighborhoods. I suspect many of those have converted to condos. I went out with a girl that lived in an apartment in the Farms and knew a girl in my class that lived in apartments on Vernier Rd.
It's the people not the magical land
It's really tragic! Detroit really is (or was once) a beautiful and great city! It still has immense promise! This city (with the federal governments help) resettle all immigrants into Detroit to live and rebuild it!
No whites though...they'll just destroy it again with drugs and homelessness like they've done to the West Coast!
The whiteman destroys anything or anybody... that he can't use or benefit from!
He steals and takes from others, and when he's done draining the use out of anybody (or anything) he leaves a desolate carapace in place!
NO B.S.
JUST PLAIN FACT(S)!
When I used to live in Detroit, I was joking about it to someone who doesn't live there. Drive down Cadieux from 94 going east, and half the houses are boarded up or burnt down. Cars parked in front lawns, loud music, and so on. As soon as you cross into the Pointes, all the sudden there's families riding bicycles in matching outfits, manicured lawns and landscapes, the air smells different, kids carrying balloons.... It's like driving into Sesame Street from Beruit.
Also, the zip code that's on the east side, in the area south of 8 mile, east of Gratiot has one of the highest murder rates per capita in the country.
Wow!
That is a very funny and accurate version of the drive you describe. I bought my first home on Bishop in 1993 in what is now called East English Village after growing up in Grosse Pointe Farms. The home appreciated very well until Governer Engler abolished residency requirements for city employees in 1999. By then I was living in Chicago with the great proceeds of that first home. After that ruling, the neighborhood suffered a great deal of property value losses. Today it's on an upswing. A home that in 2012 could fetch 30,000 is now, if it's in good shape is 200,000, but it is still a bargain but comes with the kids needing private school and a club for recreation.
@@Barryburton63 I used to do 'side work' for a woman that lived in GP farms in the mid 90s. But the last time I drove down Cadieux was about 2 years ago. Looks like a war zone going through Detroit. I moved several years ago to Phoenix after retiring from the Macomb county Sheriff's department. Couldn't do that cold/ice/shitty roads/high taxes thing anymore. I don't even like going back there. I lived all over SE Michigan, and made money in every house I sold until the crash in 2008. I sold and broke even but just barely. Now I live in front of a mountain and when it gets cold, that means highs in the 60s in January.
Grosse Pointe is populated by educated,privileged Anglo Saxons,while Detroit is populated by undereducated,non-privileged aAfricans!! O have a picture of Detroit Southeastern and one of Grosse Pointe South,two schools less than a mile away,but WORLDS different in lifestyle!! 😮
I love those tree-lined streets. Most people don't appreciate the value a tree adds to your property.
Me too! Makes it look good, smell good, and something that people don't realize is that adding trees makes it quieter.
Agree but be careful of the tree roots getting in the old clay sewer lines.
A thing not mentioned is that a lot of those trees are Dutch Elms. They somehow survived the Blight.
@@christianlibertarian5488 I often wondered that myself and came to the conclusion that the police department sprayed those trees in Detroit with agent orange after the riots to better monitor criminal activities from the air in helicopters.
My Grandmother's house was on the west side of Detroit. She lived there in the mid 60s to early 70s. Her street was very well kept, clean, nice lawns, very low crime. No bars on windows, no burned out buildings, no junk burned out cars littering the streets. Today, there are only a couple houses left in her former entire neighborhood! Gee, I wonder what the problem could be ....LOL
You are clearly not an MSNBC watcher. LOL Hey I know, let's bring more of the third world here....what could possibly go wrong!
Same
You just described my current neighborhood, in Detroit. In 2023.
The riots changed everything.
Appreciating what you have. Taking care of what you have. Working, paying taxes, not trashing, striving to improve...WTH is wrong with those values? That is what people do when you want society( civilization) to march foreward.
Not wanting criminality in your neighborhood is not racist!
assuming a certain ubset of the population is the same as criminality can be
@@toothsweet5839 assuming violent behavior happens more in a violent neighborhood is common sense
Facts 👏🏿 👏🏿. Look what happened to East point. Enough said
Im from GPP you drove past my old street a few times. With all these cheap subdivisions and atomized neighborhoods today I was glad to live in a real city with such a strong identity and rich history, that can never be replicated today.
Thank you! Grew up on the Detroit side until I was 8 in 1964. Then we moved to GPP on Barrington about 7 houses from Windmill Pointe Drive. Supposedly our garage behind the house was technically in Detroit (Alter was the street behind us and that was Detroit.) It was a great place to grow up at the time. My old neighborhood about a mile away on Marlborough is as mentioned, a waste land.
My paper route was Barrington to 3 mile Dr. South of Jefferson 80 - 83
I lived on Marlborough also before we moved to Wayburn in GPP in 1975.
As a resident I can give some extra context on the roundabout: While yes, it does give off a very certain impression just on face value alone, I guarantee the main motivating factor was to keep that stretch of Kercheval more walkable. The whole thing cropped up during a time when "Walkability" became a big trend and buzzword in urban planning - such as Downtown Detroit blocking off the connection between Jefferson and Woodward a few years later. The roundabout begins where the main restaurant/retail district of the Park is and it's often promoted as this highly walkable area, where they regularly block off traffic for events such as After Six On Kercheval. Contrast this with Charlevoix two blocks up, where residents have been calling for the street to be redesigned due to the inability to see oncoming traffic and semi-regular accidents occurring due to people just barreling through on both ends. I personally have been nearly t-boned dozens of times on that stretch alone. This could possibly be due to people often coming fresh from the freeway (Alter connects to I-94) and speeding as a result, because on 94 "55" really means "70", which really means "80". The city has been adding more stop signs on both stretches to avoid just adding more eyesore traffic barriers like the roundabout, to make people slow down and drive less recklessly.
So long story short, it's a very not self aware attempt at urban planning. Sure, "keeping out the riff-raff" might have been in there somewhere, but "motivate people to shop and dine here" was a much much bigger idea
Hmm. Good point. Right at the start of the “walkability” trend during urban planning, but also right at the start of woke-ism. I just remember seeing a bunch of media headlines of how Detroit residents who lived near Grosse Pointe Park felt a certain type of way about it, and I could see why. I can also see how the leaders behind the project would be oblivious to thinking about something like that being offensive.
Well they fixed Kercheval and made it 2 way now so hopefully everyone can be happy.
@@ChrisHarden Oh absolutely a weird thing to see out of context and I don't blame people for jumping to that assumption. A lot of the leadership in town has been weirdly tone-deaf about things like that. Very quick to jump onto city planning buzzwords and trends, but very slow to think about the application. Currently happening all over again with parking developments.
And yeah, supposedly they're working on widening the roundabout too, since all the restaurant/retail establishment kept having problems with commercial trucks getting through to supply them.
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Thanks, I do my best with it and am always looking for ways to get even better with the camera shots!
Grosse Pointe has always had affordable places to live for working-class families, thankfully. My family moved there from Detroit when I was thirteen in 1986; my Dad was an electrician and my Mom was a social worker, so we were blue-collar types for sure. It was a culture shock adjusting to GP schools, and there's a super elite subsection of society that I never got a sniff of, but to be honest I'm glad for that. I'd rather be eating government cheese sandwiches around a dumpster can fire than be subjected to socialite dinner party socials. Overall a 10/10 place to grow up, it's beautiful and safe and like I said, very affordable compared to other parts of the country.
Very affordable compared to what? Beverly Hills?
Yea and Birmingham is known for its crime! What are you talking about 😂😭
^^A statement for these 2 egotistical eggplants, For a family-orated nice place, Yes, it’s very affordable compared to Beverly Hills, Ca. But why even go that far? Subjectively speaking, for the most part, GP is actually even affordable compared to lots of places in Michigan itself. Such as Beverly Hills Mi, Franklin, Downtown Detroit, Ann Arbor Charter Township, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Bingham Farms, East Grand Rapids etc. It’s a good bang for your buck for the quality of life and the other necessities that come with it.
$390,000 median home price in one of the nicer suburbs is affordable. My middle class/working class California suburb you can’t get anything under $500,000…and my county is not even the central Bay Area
@@joeplonka6568 Sounds like he was using 1986 + 5-6 years as a benchmark for his comment.
If you are a resident or renter in Grosse Pointe Park, you can easily get a park pass. There are two major parks, both on the water. One is a passive park for playing, kayaking, picnics, skating, and such. The other has a marina, exercise and gymnasium facility, pool, picnic area, tennis, volleyball, community center and two movie theaters. Amenities... I think we have a few. When we aren't working, we are home on vacation. Bubble??... heck yah!
I grew up in Detroit, and Alter Road was commonly known as the boundary line between the two cities.
Except it isn't. The border is between the streets of Wayburn and Alter. You can tell by where the pavement changes and how some of the GPP park streets had a wall put up at that point.
What killed Detroit was not the 1967 events. It was the city income taxes on top already high property taxes. Then the the Young's boys nailed the coffin.
Two different cultures , two different
demographics ,
Two different worlds !
Edit: i grew up on the Westside (Grand River/Shaefer.
You said the magic word, CULTURE!!!!! That is the ultimate defining word that no one wants to hear, TRUTH!!!!!!
Wow that cross over in Alter Road into Grosse point is absolutely incredible. Grose Pt is beautiful
Craig, I toured a PHD student from Oxford in England who grew up in South Africa in a gated community as so many communties are there. He was studying community boundaries. He could not believe the fact that Grosse Pointe in this section (or others to mention) were not walled off. I was able to tell him how somtimes social boundaries were stronger than walls. However, the real reason was that Grosse Pointe was 100% white and Detroit was then 90% black. The police knew this. That was the wall.
@@Barryburton63 we have large scale immigration from SA to New Zealand 🇳🇿 ( all SA ethnicities) and the culture shock they have here is very amusing, it’s amusingly called the 6 month syndrome, and explains the initial trouble SA people have when looking for somewhere to live. It’s takes them roughly 6 months of desperate house hunting to realise that not only will they not find gated communities with electric fences and security. But that every house, in every neighbourhood rich or poor has gently sloping lawns, open to the streets and massive glass walls and giant windows. It then takes them another 6 months to realise that they sleep all night and no longer live in fear.
@@Barryburton63even if you make the way up to gpw and Harper woods the difference is night and day. Hell even the majority black neighborhoods in gpw are pretty dirty.
I was just in Grosse Pointe over the weekend with family. It is insane how nice that area is. I’m just lucky to have family that lives there so I’ve been able to enjoy it.
I lived in Grosse Pointe City from 1987 to 1991. Going across Alter Rd. was a stark transition even then, but going the other way, across Mack Ave., not so much. Very nice mid-middle class housing on the Detroit side at the time.
I lived there because it was near my workplace. Grosse Pointe City has six streets, and at the time had ten police cruisers. They drove golf carts with dumpers into your back yard to pick up your garbage. The city park had swimming pools, tennis courts, picnic areas, and a nice boat dock which had decent fishing. Home prices were low compared to other toney suburbs.
I moved to the Detroit area in 1978 and while out checking the lay of the land I drove out Jefferson Avenue from downtown Detroit into the Grosse Pointes. East Jefferson as you approached Alter Road was desolate. Mostly abandoned commercial buildings and the ones that weren't had bars on all the windows and doors. No greenery to be seen and graffiti everywhere. And then, literally from one block to the next as you crossed Alter, there were no empty buildings, no graffiti, virtually no bars to be seen, and well maintained lawns and shrubbery. Mind blowing.
Working hard, paying taxes and living in a nice suburb does not make you a racist.
Agreed it absolutely does NOT! make you that whatsoever.
Exactly mate
True, it does not. Making policies preventing hard-working people from living in nice areas, however, sometimes does.
Welcome to the official insecure racist white people thread 💩
Race and Class and De Industrialization in a nutshell
Thank you for the tour. 👍🤠
Watch how in Detroit the "locals" throw garbage out of cars in the neighborhood and streets. I see it almost daily. Across mack in GP, the culture of doing this is not there. Ot isn't just money, it is the culture. They are simply different
ALL OF IT IS CULTURE!!!!!!!! Every single bit of it!!!!!!!
Great video Chris! I would never rip you a new one in the comments! Very interesting and well done.
A mini version of the same scenario in western Michigan between St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. It was even studied for a book.
Yup that's a good example.
Home of the longest bridge in the world
Great video and it's good to show the difference so people can judge for themselves but leaders of Detroit can do better
Judging from just the results, I think it's safe to say that at least the current Detroit mayor has been way better than any of the prior mayors.
I was born on the east side of Detroit and grew up in Grosse Pointe Park. What is not visible today is that before the late 1960s, the neighborhoods on either side of the city limits looked virtually identical. The Detroit side was destroyed by poor law enforcement, resulting rampant crime and what a friend of mine calls "rioting in slow motion", which involved lots and lots of arson. Some years, during the Halloween season, Detroit had over 400 arson fires.
Local merchants along the Kercheval strip told me they were against the barricade because it made it impossible for their suppliers' large trucks to turn around. As for street closures, about half the closed streets do not continue across Alter Rd. One of the streets has a canal bridge that is unsafe for vehicle traffic, and one of the streets was blocked off by Detroit to replace another dangerous bridge with a modern safe one. Nonetheless, there are still about 40 locations that make Grosse Pointe Park accessible from Detroit. So if someone thinks closing five or six streets will confuse things so much that it keeps blacks out, I wonder what they think of blacks.
Are you saying blacks are the same as crime?
I graduated in 1972. at that time Detroit near Alter was still nice. Chris Hardin has outlined many of the issues that destroyed Detroit. In my opinion, Coleman Young was VERY divisive and accelerated Detroit's deterioration.
10 years later it was over
@@foxfly23 When it comes to Detroit and other inner cities in America, yes. Poor blacks bring gangs, violent handgun crime, drugs, out of wedlock births, high unemployability, failing schools, and an overall blight to the area. That's not a racist statement. Ask the people who actually live in those areas if their area is more dangerous and they will say yes, and long for wanting to escape. They aren't stupid. They see what's going on too. Regular hard working blacks are not an issue. It's the underclass that makes the neighborhood bad to the point where regular blacks also leave (known as black flight).
"The Detroit side was destroyed by poor law enforcement," LOL it got a LOT worse when Mayor Archer let the cops move out of the city. We lived in 48224 when that happened, and it was like someone threw a ghetto switch. We had to leave. Don't blame the cops, blame the jobless fatherless, educationless, felons.
Can you blame them for wanting to protect their neighborhoods, streets and children???? Not at all. Society can make up any flashy words they like, but I call it common sense not wanting your city to turn to a pure hell, all because some people don't give a damn about anything other than themselves. And I even question that!!!
Chris. I grew up in Grosse Pointe Farms and now I live in Detroit after a stint in New York and Chicago. You hit the nail on the head with your videos for the most part. If there is any chance we could meet up on your next tour of Detroit, and I would recommend (sp?) it I would only be too honored. I have renovated the gardens in many Detroit parks as my job requires including the park in front of the newly renovated Michigan Central Train station. The changes since your last visit are remarkable and not all due to gentrification as most cities see as their hallmarks of revitalization.
You should make some videos showing what you're talking about. Would be interesting and probably gain a lot of attention quickly.
Thanks Chris Harden! This was another interesting video. I had a great aunt who lived in Ferndale. When I was young, we would drive to the Detroit area to visit. That was in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Detroit’s decline was already well under way by that time. The urban decay made an impression on me then. And I was also a bit shocked when my aunt told me people set houses on fire in Detroit for Devil’s Night… I had always heard that the Grosse Pointes were some of the well-to-do suburbs. I never had an opportunity to visit any of the Grosse Pointes, so I appreciated being able to see Grosse Pointe Park. I was also interested in your commentary. As usual, well done!
What a big difference between two cities! I've never seen anything quite like it. I enjoyed this video.😊❤
I know right? Pretty crazy, thanks!
the people who live in and run it.
@@ChrisHarden completely not "crazy".... it all has reasons.
Chris, good job. Growing up on the east side of Detroit. I have been telling people for several years that did not live in metro Detroit area the stark difference between Detroit and the Grosse Pointes.
From experience a lot of people that have never been to the area hear about Detroit’s crime rate and then assume that all of Michigan is that way.
Very nice video! I watched it earlier today on my other device but can't comment from it so I'm commenting now. Love those old homes and the great history lesson.
Thanks for going the extra mile to comment! You rock.
Yeah the Grosse Pointe’s have a nice old fashioned charm to them no doubt.
Great video!
If a person wants to live in a nice area not racist at all.
I really enjoy your work Chris. This one is home. At 13:08 It’s Provençal, the name of french family that emigrated/settled there. 16:25 They say “DeFur” school, again, french-ish. 17:40 Yea, the inter urban track was pretty much the route of jefferson ave up well into Macomb Cty. When digging along Jeff Ave rr spikes are found. You are right. No public lakefront amenities (limited to residents and guests) and no hotels - zoning restrictions. To your point, Alter Road has been referred to for years in the press as a singular example of Home Rule governance and local funding of public education. In other towns when I see a street/border between two municipalities I can’t help but compare it to the great disparity of fortunes across Alter Road. I still hold out hope for stabilization and growth between Connor’s Creek, GPP and the river. But probably too optimistic to think it will improve substantially in my lifetime.
As previously stated, someday there will be a great appreciation for these snap shots of America as it is today.. Also, I'm sure the crime rate went down after John Cusak left town post reunion weekend 😂. Great episode 👏
Haven’t seen the movie but had a feeling you were referencing it haha
@@ChrisHardenoddly the city Grosse Pointe Park refused to allow filming there because of drinking in the reunion scenes..
really sad to see that Janet's Lunch diner on Kercheval in GPP is no longer there, they had some of the best diner food ive ever had, and thier homemade pies were ridiculously good. sometimes progress isnt always better
Bummer! I use to eat breakfast there and read the paper when I finished my paper route on Saturday and Sunday mornings back in the mid 70's.
It is what it is. And as always you've done a great job. Thanks Chris.😀
I’m from The Park! Woot Woot! Love to see the good livability score! ❤🎉😊
Used to regularly go to the Punch and Judy theater for R H P Show midnight showing. And occasional concerts. Lived near Harper and Cadidux for a while.
Whenever I take people to GP through Detroit they are always amazed, one minute you are going through hell and then boom, mansions. I have never seen anywhere else where you see such a massive contrast. I still love The D though for its charm.
Reminds me a lot of Oak Park-the west side of Chicago. Great video
20:42 “Mean Streetz” would have been the music played inside an elevator at a sketchy apartment complex I’ve been to in Camden, New Jersey.
If you live in Grosse Pointe, the park pass comes to you, you don't have to go looking for them. Also, the residents can apply for guest passes when they get the application forms every year.
Yeah figured it would be pretty easy.
@@ChrisHarden I really love your videos. Almost addicted to them! I've been to so many of the places you explore and I notice some of the places you miss while you're there but I also understand you don't have weeks to explore everywhere based on what you do. Keep up the GREAT work exposing the America we live in today!
Thank you, Ford and General Motors.... 😐
The only other part of the country that reminds me of the Grosse Pointes is the north shore suburbs of Chicago (Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park), would love to see you focus on Chicagoland, another fascinating area of the Midwest.
I’ll be uploading videos on the Chicago area anywhere from 1 to 2 years from now, stay tuned.
Been there, I agree completely!
@@ChrisHardenYou should also do some videos of the inner ring suburbs in Chicago like Oak Park, River Forrest, Evanston, and Ciero (that are in Cook County Illinois).
Yes please, videos on Chicago and suburbs would be great. I’d also be interested in some of those inner ring suburbs. I currently live in one of them, although I am moving to the Indianapolis ‘burbs next year.
You are spot on. Having lived in the Detroit area and the Chicago area, there are a lot of similarities between the metro areas. The north shore suburbs of Chicago are similar to the Grosse Pointes near Detroit.
I would absolutely love to move to any of the Grosse Points. I had some interest in Grosse Point Woods, due to some all but walkable distance to some property in Moross-Morang, Detroit. Some things have happened but I still plan to move to Metro Detroit close to Detroit proper, and I am excited about this series beginning. Personally. Thank you for your hard work, I hope I contribute positively to your algorithm.
Appreciate you watching and you most certainly have!
It depends upon how much money you have that sorts you into which of the Pointes you can live in. All are nice, but Grosse Pointe Shores (right along the water) is for the 1% of the 1%. Ford Mansion is there. For the lowly 1%ers, Grosse Pointe Woods is the place. For the merely very well to do, Grosse Pointe City, Grosse Point Farms or Grosse Pointe Park.
@@christianlibertarian5488 I was looking at a an all original 1950 home 2 story home with the ubiquitous east side brick and white aluminum siding with an attached two car garage in Grosse Point Woods, it sold for more than it was listed for, and likely is finishing a full renovation at this point if I had to guess. Thanks for the advice. It’s ultimately about the school district while being close to the actual city for me. Not the status symbol of it.
Grosse Pointe is just a pleasant place to live.@@AlexanderWaylon
20 years ago i went for an interview just west of this area. I drove in and passed a burned out car. About 2 months later i started working and passed the same buned out car. After driving around the area i passed any number of buned, abandoned, and junked cars. The number derelict houses even then would be too great to recall. The people in the house behind the business would occasionally throw dead pit bulls into the alley. That area today seems to have more empty lots than houses as well.
I hope this video commends Gross Point for stemming the tide.
I grew up on the wrong side of Alter Rd. You actually drove by my old neighborhood at Chalmers and Mack. It was a bad neighborhood back then. But it was still filled with houses. Many those got burned down on devils night. People left and boarded up their houses because of crime. Our house got robbed three times. Our cars were stolen on the regular. My neighbor was stabbed to death on her front lawn. Gangs would terrorize the neighborhood. Once in a blue moon, we would go to Grosse Pointe to Baskin-Robbins to get some ice cream. To us, going to Grosse Pointe was like going to a different country. It’s crazy that it was only a couple miles away.
Sounds crazy. Wow
Mack & Outer Drive, 1967-1978. Attended Clark Elementary (Detroit) & St. Clare (GP). That area of Detroit was a great place to live. Court ordered school busing, in the name of desegregation, forced us to move to the suburbs. Most houses on my old block are gone - last time I drove by (2012) saw a pack of wild dogs.
You have to realize Hedge Fund Bankers have pages of property lists on their Portfolios. It’s money whether they do anything or write them off as loses.
Back in the 80s, I took my uncle and his wife, who had not been in the Detroit area for many years, for a ride down Jefferson from the Pointes into Detroit. I advised them to really pay attention to the scenery as we crossed Alter Road. Talk about gobsmacked!
$10,000 per pupil is low for an urban school district with horrible performance but not low for general small town America. You can't claim that Detroit doesn't have money to pay for decent education or to upkeep the schools. They just end up with even less than other school districts after the rampant graft that occurs in horrible urban districts.
At 3:59 when you cross Alter Road, it's crazy how it literally looks like you drove into an another reality
No doubt.
I live in the burbs. Sterling Heights. MI. Grew up in Ferndale, MI.
I enjoy your videos on anything in MI. Thanks!🤚 ❤
Appreciate you watching!
Being accused of racism, especially by racists, doesn't make a situation racist.
This was shot on my graduation day in grosse pointe
Nice
Very nice
A very similar difference is between downtown Phoenix and a neighborhood known as Nuevo Barrio, just a mile south. Huge difference.
Where is this place you call Nuevo Barrio? I grew up in phoenix az. There is no place called Nuevo Barrio in phoenix. There is the Marcos de niza projects which are in buckeye and central. Grant Park Barrio. Central Park Barrio. None of these places looked as bad as Detroit. I have been to Detroit and I have never seen anything so bad in my life. Yes a mile south of downtown phoenix is poor but not even close to Detroit it looks like tanks went in there trying to kill people. Phoenix az is a beautiful city and the crime rate is way lower then Detroit. Detroit is a city that is like no other, parts of Philadelphia looks like that but it still looked better then Detroit.
Also the city of phoenix az is buying up all that land and paying home owners to move because they need that land to extend the airport. Those home owners were paid to leave not crime forcing them out. My mother's house is still in that neighborhood and waiting for the city to buy it up. My mother died 3 years ago and left my 2 brothers and me the house. It's valued at $180,000 not like in Detroit those houses wouldn't sell because the crime is to high.
@@rosemontano8705 It's located at 33.43312585693815, -112.05857662041778, and I meant to say Nuestro, and yes it is not as bad as detroit but still ugly. Also thanks for the insight as to why it is abandoned, I had no idea they were trying to expand the airport.
Quality of school districts is a big factor in this line. Grosse Pointe Public Schools are considered excellent; but by any objective metric, DPS is one of the worst in the entire country.
Detroit could have great schools, and it would'nt make a damn!!!!!!! PERIOD!!!!!
In 2017 I stopped at a brewery in Grosse point, it was a nicely renovated church. I went basically across the street to get gas and was almost mugged.
Amazing video and yeah I have never seen a stark difference like this from one side of (Mack) street to other. Berlin Germany was like this before reunification from one side of the street to the other but there was a heavily armored wall running down the middle of said street. We had something close like this in Chicagoland but it was a railroad. Another superlative video! Where does one see such great filming with a fact filled narrative. One minor difference of opinion. I do not think the music is elevator type but the type to help emotionally connect everything together and represents the best of your past career. I want to make a plug for vocational schools. We had a lot of them 100 years ago and they worked then and work today in Germany in particular. A special thank you to you Chris for enriching my life! Craig
I'm pretty sure o lived in the highlighted section of the Detroit map in the late 1960s. I've been in Muskegon since 1970. I was 10 when my family moved here.
If you want to see at large scale how the lands were divided during French were in Notrh America, check out the satelite view of the province of Quebec along the St-Lawrence River. We can still see this heritage almost 300 years they quitted the New France
Great watch, back in Detroit??? Speaking of French names for places, what does "Grand Tetons" mean when referring to Grand Tetons National Park??? LOL Chris, how about a vid on ZUG ISLAND, it looks like a charming place to live. It has a lot of river front property.
All kidding aside, while looking around the Groose Point area, close to Windmill Point there is a long creek "Fox Creek" that ends at the Detroit River and goes through a neighborhood just to the west of Alter Road and ends at Moe's Bait Shop on E. Jefferson Ave. Thanks for your time, work and posting....
mike
wow, what a difference, cool video!
No doubt, thanks!
Very impressive old homes! I'm glad you're doing videos in the Detroit area again.
Police of Grosse Pointe Park do a good job of keeping the crime low considering Detroit is a hop, skip, and a jump from them. Nice area. The homes remind me of the Edgebrook or Old Norwood Park areas of Chicago. Thanks for the facts and figures Chris!
I still need to go see those old money areas of Chicago 🙃. Started filming some videos of your city earlier this month!
@@ChrisHardenCan't wait to see what you produce. Looking forward to all your videos!
My friend lived on Lake Shore drive in GP and said they had an under a minute or under 3 minute guaranteed response time from the police department and they really did. Police always were up and down Lake Shore.
Not having criminals running your government makes a difference.
I do see an answer worth considering. That's a lot of empty acreage. Why not set up some independent townships? Let them govern themselves, tax themselves, develop themselves. Yeah, give up the maintenance burden and create a positive growth potential.
Politically infeasible. An option that is only slightly more feasible might be to deliver services and tax by district or ward
Former detroit mayor kwami kilpatrick gave up on the eastside of detroit.
Golly, what does Detroit have lots of that Grosse Pointe not have???
Love the Detroit videos.
Cleveland to Shaker Heights particularly on Woodland Blvd is a similarly dramatic transition.
I still remember going down Mack Ave as a kid in the 90s and soon as you'd cross Alter road you knew it was Grosse point.
The stark contrast between one block is fascinating. Same thing happens in ATL, but it's more patchwork. I'm a bit curious why some of the immediate blocks just across Alter aren't in better shape. Seems like some developers might put in housing -- maybe tiny house type villages -- in the empty lots very close to GPP. Try to benefit from the proximity.
I saw an article about a big factory closing along the Ohio River. It was the #1 employer and property tax contributor for the rural county. The school superintendent reported that losing the factory meant losing high-end professional families that valued education. They'd volunteered to lead school activities. And their kids raised the bar for academic performance. The mayor said the same "losing the revenue hurts, but the average educational level of our voters is falling fast. No matter what party you're in, these voters will make worse decisions".
I’m sure part of the reason the border between the two cities is so drastic is because of laws and taxes and stuff like that but I’m still surprised that the contrast is so stark.
You also said it’s hard to imagine what those huge empty lots looked like before being abandoned but I’m guessing the pointes are exactly what they used to look like to some degree.
I think it’s sad that so many people look at Detroit and just see the blight and don’t see what it was/could be again and would rather just leave it as it is. But I’m sure I can’t fathom the amount of money and time it would take to repopulate and urbanize these empty lots
Btw there IS one other place in the US that you didn't mention with pretty extensive ribbon farms (still used as farms in this case) and now residential areas as well. And that is along much of the Rio Grand (and some tributary streems) in New Mexico and and even along parts of the border in Texas to an extent, which is a feature of the deeply rooted Hispanic farming communities there many dating as far back as the 1700's. That's where the prized Hatch Chillies prefered fo many sauces and salsas are grown!
I now see I did a few serious typos here but glad you found my comment helpful. If I were to edit it now youtube would remove the heart. Makes sense actually since you can "edit" a comment to completely change it. Anyway love your channel and keep up the great videos!
what about rural Quebec? I understand there is some of these farms as well
@@brianmiller5444 what about it? Quebec may have them (im not sure) but Quebec isn't part of the United States.
I've been pointing out this boundary for years. glad to see a vid on it finally
I grew up in the Detroit neighborhood in the 1960’s it was a thriving neighborhood home business nice area. Grosse Pointe people went to shop and eat in the neighborhood. This neighborhood was a Grosse Pointe feeder the kids brought their starter homes and eventually they would move to the Points.
People who know how to live together. Just how a community should be. Full of responsible people.
Too late for the others, they just pop kids by the tens, abandon their responsibilities and hey presto another 7 mile is born.
Have to get that government check, right ????????
Grosse Point Park Michigan is basically Detroit's version of Webster Groves while Plymouth Michigan is basically Detroit's version of Kirkwood.
Playboy Magazine had an article back in the 1980’s basically proclaiming that this border of Detroit/Grosse Pointe was the ‘starkest’ border in the entire USA!!! The most night and day difference by simply crossing the street!
😂 Amazing how working hard following the rules raising a family makes you upper middle class and then the lazy pukes. Call you a racist.😂
Detroit should be ashamed. And the government. They need to fix it up . I used to ride the bus in those places. Grosse point is beautiful.
Same thing as you depart Saginaw for Saginaw Township.
(Leaving this comment here too in case anyone has any input.)
Hey Chris! My comment is actually about something a little bit further down the road from Ecorse/Rouge. i know youve extensively covered Detroit, and with your attention to detail plus all the homework you've done on the city, i thought you might be the perfect person to ask.
Took my son through Detroi a few weeks ago to show him some of the different areas and how drastically everything changes North of 8 mile. But he noticed those green lights flashing on SOME of the businesses, not others. I thougt he was joking when he said its probably to give preferential treatment by the police. I laughed thinking yeah right.. Well, he looked into it and sure enough thats exactly what it sounds like. Are you aware, or have you ever looked into this? Would love to hear your input on this. Appreciate your work..
Where does Westland fit into the picture now? Played hockey there in the 70's when it was nice. Visited later near the year 2000 and it had definitely changed.....
The juxtaposition of the two cities is stark, but GP didn’t do that to Detroit. There is a 20-30 mile ring of suburbs around Detroit that are all part of the disinvestment story. Grosse Pointers pay Wayne County Taxes and disproportionately work in downtown detroit, supporting the city. The same is not true of other suburbs.
Who’s Portfolio is that Neglected Property on. Property should Not be able to be listed on Portfolios without being Maintained.
So being educated, successful, and law-abiding are bad things?
My Dad grew up just S of Jefferson about 10 blks W of Alter Rd. Visiting from California it was still a neighborhood in the mid-70s. By the mid-90s nearly every house on the street was gone. Around 2010 they built some Section 8 housing there.
Dang. Would be pretty crazy if you found some photos stashed somewhere of the neighborhood from when it was full.
@@ChrisHarden Coplin St, near Frued. 2 blks S of Jefferson. Coplin still exists - in a sense - N of Jefferson, but not to the south. The entire neighborhood was redeveloped early 2000s. I have a pic of the house - standard 2-story wood box built 1919 or so. But no neighborhood pics.
@@ChrisHarden East Detroit near E. Jefferson looked a lot like Grosse Pointe Park "Wayburn to Somerset and Mack to Jefferson" does now. I grew up in East Detroit in the late 60's early 70's before moving to the area of GPP mentioned above in 75. East Detroit started going downhill about 1970. My Grandparents lived in Indian village which still has a Grosse pointe look to it also.
@@jimmydee1130 I lived on Eastlawn from 1966-72 between Jefferson and Freud in a two story brownstone flat, it had a fireplace French doors and nice decorative moulding.
The Ebonics speakers live in Detroit and the civilized societylives in the Grosse Point Park area
Well that is so black and white ,amazing.😊
quite literally
You use "eh" correctly. Basically where Americans use "huh." Watching from Toronto. Last visited Detroit in 1982 for a Tigers game and steak at Carl's Chop House. Great game and wonderful restaurant. The restaurant seemed to be a fortress surrounded by a scary neighbourhood, but we still had fun and never stopped for red lights as we were instructed.
I like “Eh” a whole lot better than “huh” personally
@@ChrisHarden You might not if you heard it 47 times a day.
Detroit was a good city as many have commented about. The late 60's after the riots was the beginning of white flight. The 70's saw high inflation, the gas shortage, auto emissions and a downturn for the auto companies. The 80's brought crack and the Poletown plant. The GM plant ripped out numerous neighbors and cut the city in half. Crack started the wholesale burning of houses to stop rival dealers. The 80's saw the great destruction of countless neighborhoods. Detroit never had a mayor who didn't rob the city blind. It's starting to turn around. Dugan serms to be a decent mayor. The city is too big to service now. I don't live there anymore. I used to walk down Chene St. for lunch or the market at Ferry. Everyone was super chill and you knew most people. I miss that.
7:02 you didnt even slow down for the squirrel.. 😢
Forgot to mention the difference in the quality of the people.
Provencal is a family name and had one of the ribbon farms.
At least they didn’t build a wall between the Grosse Pointes and Detroit, like the Birwood Wall.
It’s a no brainier that the border between the 2 is very different. Simply because there’s a difference between honest law-abiding citizens and thugs.
Not cool. It's pretty harsh to denigrate a population of 600k people as thugs. Detroit similarly has some beautiful neighborhoods, and many good, hardworking, and honest people.
BINGO!!!! We have a winner, but you can't tell the truth in todays times. You must be racist to acknowledge the truth like that!!
Cool or not, it's the DAMN TRUTH, weather it ruffels your feathers or not. Look at the numbers. Everything you need to know is there!!!!!!!!!!@@djb5689 Nothing is ALL, that goes without saying, but it sure as heck is the overwhelming majority!! FACTS!!!
@@djb5689Indian village is the only good neighborhood in Detroit and even that is being overrun.
This guy is really bold! Facts are facts! 🎉