Detroit: A Walking Tour of Brush Park - Urban Prairies and New Housing Developments

My morning walking tour on October 18, 2008 was followed up by another walking tour of Brush Park, one of Detroit's fascinating neighbourhoods. Bob Goldsmith from Detroit Tour Connections was our guide again and explained this area to us.

During Victorian times this era featured many affluent mansions for upper-class families in Detroit. The neighbourhood encompasses 24 city blocks and originally included 300 homes, 70 of which were Victorian mansions. With the development of suburbs and an extensive highway network, people started moving further afield and Brush Park began to lose its appeal. Many of the houses were then subdivided into multiple apartments, and in the post-war years many of the houses started to become abandoned.

Some houses turned into crack-houses and the city decided to demolish many of them, leaving behind large empty plots of grass, often referred to as "urban prarie". Today, many of the buildings are now being restored and new townhouse developments have also sprung up. Brush Park is a fascinating neighbourhood in transition.

In addition to private residences we also admired some historic church buildings and a recently opened upscale grocery store called Zaccaro's. After our tour my friend Linda and I relaxed a little at our hotel, and in the evening we embarked on an exploration of downtown Detroit. We went on one entire loop of the Detroit People Mover, a single-track, one-way public transit system that covers 13 stations in downtown Detroit.

Then we explored the Renaissance Centre, the world headquarters of General Motors. We strolled past the large showroom on the main floor into the Wintergarden which faces the Detroit River. Then we made over way into the 73-storey Marriot Hotel which makes up the central tower of the seven-building complex. The top of the hotel is crowned by the Coach Insignia restaurant where we enjoyed a phenomenal sunset and a nice collection of appetizers at the bar. The view from this rooftop restaurant was absolutely gorgeous and provided us with a night-time vista of Windsor across the river, as well as Detroit. Further west the Ambassador Bridge was all lit up and twinkling in the distance a great ending to an action-packed day.

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[kblopp]

I bet that was a beautiful place at one time.

[youngmoneyrealist05]

i think once u get the downtown area up and nice thats when people come to the city and then thats when the whole city like neighborhoods get up and done and thats what i think they doing to detroit and it will become a very nice to live, work, entertainment and bring businesses into the city like there should be

[sassy3ify]

I feel that they should had restore the older buildings next to the new ones ' why can't they just fixes them rent them out ',theres nothing wrong with the old buildings Nothing.'

[1988scottcarey]

lol i live 2 hours away from detroit.

[MooPotPie]

When are the descendents of Detroit's builders going to clean up their legacy?

[rickster348]

Progressive leadership.

[plaguex1]

I'm gonna have to take a ride down there again. I've only went through Brush Park once. Going to have to take my camera this time.

[detroitbboy671]

Detroit is as cheap as it can get

if investors wanted they could get together and buy most of the

end of the world looking parts and property and build all kinds of

things. you dont have to have lots of money to own some land in Detroit lol

one day it will bounce back up but not till people downtown are replaced with

some new honest people

[wesen345]

It looks like East Germany after 1990. Now in 2011 were better then west Germany.

[BoyScout1960]

@SadieMirsade

There was an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal last month about how affluent Black people, fed up with the drug dealing, burglaries, violent crime and so on, are now leaving the city in droves for outlying communities. They are following in the footsteps of the earlier "White Flight," and pretty much for the same reasons. They do not consider those crumbling neighborhoods to be "their" communities. This, of course, is gutting a large portion of the tax base.

[goodozog]

@dmonks21 come too ann arbor on maple road it's a beautiful safe feeling ghetto public housing complex.

[Bwah2012]

@SadieMirsade snap up all that cheap land ,, things will pick up again someday