family picture

My Dad standing in front of HIS Grandpa's house. My Grandpa was born in that house in 1896. On West Grand Boulevard a few blocks from Fort Street in Detroit. Picture taken in 1988 or 1989.

IanC,

Oh, man! I'd love to see the inside of that grand ol' home!

I've been tempted to go down there and see if it is still even there now, 30 years is a long time.

Might buy it cheap now,a while back I heard houses were going for as low as $100 in Detroit.

Beautiful. I always thought houses with towers like that are so neat.
Richard

What a place ..... I suspect Grampa had a bit of money or the family did at least at one time, that would be an expensive home back in the day. If you do a Google Earth address search, you might get a street view possibly of that location and what is there now ..... maybe the house, maybe something else. Someone mentioned depressed home prices in some of the big cities that have fallen on hard times, unfortunately that's the case in some areas, very sad.

You might want to go in a tank.

That?s near Mexican village, not too far from the ambassador bridge. That area is coming up. The news says that Ford is going to buy the old train depot, just west of there.

My great-grandfather built a house that looks very similar in St Paul MN in the 1880's, it's still standing and looks good!

If you remember the complete address, you could look it up in Google Maps and see if it's still standing. Might save you a wasted trip to a dangerous place...

One thing for sure...

People that built houses back then were not afraid of hard work!

Very creative design and workmanship!

I think this is the same place, from Google maps...


<image src="http://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/photos/mvphoto13346.jpg"/>

Obviously, at one time West Grand Blvd was THE place to live. Then Detroit went to heeell. Tough city, but I hear it is coming back. Friends my age, born in Detroit were afraid to go back to the neighborhoods were they grew up.

But guess what, I grew up in a wonderful little town of 800 people, good folks, nice churches and stores.
And now there is no reason to go back, churches are empty, stores are ALL closed, and the folks that live there (still about 800), are mostly unemployed and (due to drugs and health issues) unemployable.

Times change...."You can't go home again".... Thomas Wolfe

Beat me to it. Place is deteriorating and there's lots of urban greenfield around, but it's still there.

Here's the URL so you can zoom:
Punch here

And be out of town before Sunset

To go at this from another direction, if that picture was taken in the late 1980?s, that car is pretty rusty for only being 6-8 years old.

Thankfully today newer cars still look half ways decent after 10-12 years old.

I now think it might have been 1992, as I opened another envelope that WAS marked and there are some duplicates of ones from the first envelope. I'd guessed 88 or 89 as the car in one of the other pictures was one I got in late summer '88. Great Grandpa was a doctor, the entrance to his "office" was on the side where my dad is standing in the driveway. Great grandpa had 6 brothers, 2 were doctors, the others worked for the Canadian Railway. The family was from St.Thomas Ontario. I've never heard a story as to how he ended up in Detroit. Grandpa's two sisters never married, and lived in that house till they passed. I don't trust the Google view as the one showing the farm is still on there and it is marked "image capture 2009". You are not supposed to be able to identify date or anything, but I can tell you exactly as Randy's Service's truck is there and they were putting tubes in the H and the 77D that day. Even I am in the picture. Funny side note about St.Thomas Ontario. Dad hauled Olds out Lansing from '73 till he retired, and liked to deliver to western NY (Buffalo, Rochester, etc.). They used to cut across Canada. There was a Canadian customs agent at Sarnia that he'd sometimes see three times in a week. They got to talking, and her name was Campbell also, and her family was from St.Thomas. So from then on they'd say "Hi Cuz" when they saw each other.

Holy smokes Burt ...... now don't you dare tell me that you are a private investigator !!! Amazing to find that, I would bet that it is the exact same house. Looks in nice shape, front porch and veranda has been redone I'd say. I wonder what that big building (if it is just one) is down at the corner?

Zooming in with Tony's link shows that I was wrong, front porch is much the same as it was years ago.

(quoted from post at 13:26:46 03/22/18) Holy smokes Burt ...... now don't you dare tell me that you are a private investigator !!! Amazing to find that, I would bet that it is the exact same house. Looks in nice shape, front porch and veranda has been redone I'd say. I wonder what that big building (if it is just one) is down at the corner?

Click to expand...

One problem Detroit had was that there was no zoning in the old days. So you had very nice residential areas that later had industrial or commercial built literally next door. I worked in a couple of old factories that you could look out the 2nd story windows, and look down into peoples houses and yards. Now most of the industry has left.

There are big salt mines under Detroit. The car is rusty because Michigan dumped salt everywhere all winter long. I grew up near Detroit looking at cars like that.