AERIAL PHOTO: The North End, by Fred R. Conrad in The New York Times
The New York Times, which has provided readers with copious coverage of Detroit in the year since the city filed for bankruptcy, launched a project Monday that will show how the city evolves by focusing on the North End neighborhood.
For the paper's purposes, the neighborhood -- north of Midtown -- extends from from I-94 on the south to the Highland Park border on the north, and the John Lodge Expressway on the west to the Chrysler Freeway on the east. The area is sometimes called the Grand Woodward Corridor.
Reported by John Eligon and photographed by Fred R. Conrad, the series begins with an overview of the North End, which Eligon says "still has some of the city’s most glorious homes bordering some of its harshest blight. While it counts judges, doctors and other professionals in its ranks of homeowners, its remaining residents are mostly low-income blacks who bear the brunt of Detroit’s economic decline because of a legacy of confinement to the lowest-paid, least-skilled and least-mobile jobs."
Mayor Mike Duggan, who took office in January, promised immediate improvements after the city hit a low point last year, becoming America’s largest to file for bankruptcy. The North End captures both the hope and challenge of the mayor’s pledge. So tracking what happens in this neighborhood this year and next will tell a lot about whether this metropolis, with nearly 690,000 residents, can rebuild.
“The North End is an area that has real potential to come back,” the mayor said in an interview. “It’s got a proud history in this city.”
Older residents remember when Oakland Avenue, the North End’s main north-south drag, was a crowded strip of businesses and bars, such as Phelps Lounge, where some of black music’s hottest acts, like the Temptations, performed in the 1960s. Or when the likes of Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson and Diana Ross lived in the well-to-do neighborhood alongside Detroit’s black elite, who migrated there after World War II, exceptional for a time when racist policies generally kept black residents crowded into the city’s most tattered sections.
Now there are more open fields than buildings along Oakland. And the most notable concerns operating on the street are a liquor store, a few churches and an old Jewish bathhouse.
“I drive over occasionally just to look at the old neighborhood,” said Ms. Franklin, who lived in the North End in the 1950s when it was thriving with affluent blacks. “You wouldn’t even recognize it now.”
Still the city has targeted the North End as among the first neighborhoods for renewal. Situated just above the city’s vibrant Midtown and Downtown corridor, the North End is a ripe location for commercial and residential development.
Part of Monday's story focuses on Banika Jones, whose family has deep roots in the North End. In a case that received considerable publicity, Jones' 2-year-old daughter, Bianca, disappeared three years ago from a car driven by the girl’s father, who was later convicted of killing her. Banika Jones believes he had nothing to do with her disappearance. Eligon depicts Jones coming to grips -- and eventually collaborating with -- groups of young white people bringing agriculture and other projects to the area.
More than 80 readers commented below The Times' article by noon Monday.
Add your voice: "Times reporters are looking to talk to current residents of the area about their experiences living in the neighborhood and what they would like to see improved as the city moves forward." This form has questions and invites photo submisssions.
Map of the North End, by Haeyoun Park/New York Times
Previous NYT coverage of Detroit's bankruptcy
