Midwest Cities Eviscerated By Expressways & "Urban Renewal": 1950 vs. Today sliders

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Ok good point, but I still don't think it compares to NYC's losses (or Paris's). Would you say it would have been equivalent to the loss of Over the Rhine in Cincinnati? This is indeed sad.

i would say that the loss of the STL riverfront is at least comparable to the losses in over the rhine. not because the architecture was necessarily "better" than over the rhine's, but because it was the only such district in STL and, as i said earlier, the second largest such district (cast-iron fronted) in the US. although the density of the two areas looks to have been similar, the riverfront was smaller and is almost completely gone whereas it looks like much of over the rhine still stands.

but again, STL lost much more than just the riverfront. although i don't think any of the losses were as dense as over the rhine, large swaths of 2-3 story row houses and victorian homes were razed. For example, the STL Mill Creek Valley neighborhood that Centropolis posted above was basically a denser Lafayette Square replete with three-story Italianates and elaborate stone and marble-faced "painted ladies". And as STL's wealth moved westward, several "private places" lined with mansions (e.g. Lucas Place and Lewis Place) were abandoned and bulldozed. Check out some of the remaining private places for reference: From the New York Social Diary: Big Old Houses: Oz in St. Louis.

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

In NYC, Penn Station could have been the US' Pantheon [sic], 1000-2000 years from now it should have been standing for tourists to look at. Same for many of the park avenue mansions. Instead, gone in a short 60 years. These buildings would be almost impossible to recreate now, the sheer volume of stone alone.

Certainly NYC is the king of large/tall buildings, which would be much more difficult to recreate using traditional materials than smaller ones. Agreed. As for Penn Station, while it's a nice looking building, and quite large, I don't see it as particularly more attractive than many other historic train stations across the US, many of which could serve as our Parthenon IMHO.

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

We could easily recreate the urban experience these pics show in most US cities, if not the architecture. 2-3 story rowhouses and small apartments are very easy to build. Sure they would lack the cast-iron, but from a functionally urbanist standpoint, they would be identical.

Well, we could recreate the form at least, but I think the "urban experience" derives from more than just the form. I mean, by that logic we could replace all of NYC with buildings of similar form (but, say, much lower quality) and the experience would be the same.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by IWant2BeInSTL

i would say that the loss of the STL riverfront is at least comparable to the losses in over the rhine. not because the architecture was necessarily "better" than over the rhine's, but because it was the only such district in STL and, as i said earlier, the second largest such district (cast-iron fronted) in the US. although the density of the two areas looks to have been similar, the riverfront was smaller and is almost completely gone whereas it looks like much of over the rhine still stands.

but again, STL lost much more than just the riverfront. although i don't think any of the losses were as dense as over the rhine, large swaths of 2-3 story row houses and victorian homes were razed. For example, the STL Mill Creek Valley neighborhood pictured above was basically a denser Lafayette Square replete with three-story Italianates and elaborate stone and marble-faced "painted ladies". And as STL's wealth moved westward, several "private places" lined with mansions (e.g. Lucas Place and Lewis Place) were abandoned and bulldozed. Check out some of the remaining private places for reference: From the New York Social Diary: Big Old Houses: Oz in St. Louis.



Certainly NYC is the king of large/tall buildings, which would be much more difficult to recreate using traditional materials than smaller ones. Agreed. As for Penn Station, while it's a nice looking building, and quite large, I don't see it as particularly more attractive than many other historic train stations across the US, many of which could serve as our Parthenon IMHO.



Well, we could recreate the form at least, but I think the "urban experience" derives from more than just the form. I mean, by that logic we could replace all of NYC with buildings of similar form (but, say, much lower quality) and the experience would be the same.

Holy f'ing shit. The neighborhood in that link is the most beautiful and impressive i think i have ever seen. WOW!

[Buckeye Native 001]

My internal map could be wrong, but I'm not really sure Over the Rhine in Cincinnati lost a whole lot during urban renewal. If anything, Queensgate and the West End saw much larger losses due to the construction of I-75 and the Sixth Street Expressway. OTR, IIRC, remained mostly intact except for whatever was torn up to make way for I-71.

[ColDayMan]

^Bingo. OTR lost very few structures except for the widening of Liberty Avenue, I-71 (which followed the old Duck Creek), and random abandonment lots. Queensgate was annihilated along with most of the West End.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

i imagine that there may have been a few apartment districts around the immediate downtown though.

indeed there were. detroit in 1950 was way more than just a neat collection of pre-war skscrapers downtown and endless neighborhoods of single family homes. there was a sizeable transitional zone of old school real-deal midrise urbanism. so much of it has been completely obliterated that it it now often forgotten.


WSU Virtual Motor City Collection

[memph]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

indeed there were. detroit in 1950 was way more than just a neat collection of pre-war skscrapers downtown and endless neighborhoods of single family homes. there was a sizeable transitional zone of old school real-deal midrise urbanism. so much of it has been completely obliterated that it it now often forgotten.


WSU Virtual Motor City Collection

Went through the foreground (N of Fisher, W of Woodward) on google maps to see what's left.


Blue line is the area I looked at.
Red X means building is gone, and most likely a vacant lot
Orange X means building is abandoned as of when the street view car rolled by (generally 2013/2014), many of them are in such bad shape there's little hope for them.
Green swoosh means building appears occupied.

Not shown are the buildings that have been built since the picture was taken.
-2 single storey buildings (one now appears abandoned)
-a 2 storey modernist building
-a 4 storey seniors home that looks abandoned or at least run down
-Cass Technical High School

[Steely Dan]

^ very interesting. thanks for taking the time to do that.

on a quantitative basis, i don't think any US city has lost as much pre-war urbansim by percentage as detroit. the subjective qualitiative argument that the 19th century stuff lost in cincy or st. louis might have had greater "value" can still be made, but those cities at least still have areas of functional pre-war midrise neighborhood urbanism left (OTR in cincy, CWE in st. louis). midrise pre-war detroit was absolutely gutted.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

^Bingo. OTR lost very few structures except for the widening of Liberty Avenue, I-71 (which followed the old Duck Creek), and random abandonment lots. Queensgate was annihilated along with most of the West End.

yeah I was referring more the hypothetical case of it having been removed (which it wasn't)

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

indeed there were. detroit in 1950 was way more than just a neat collection of pre-war skscrapers downtown and endless neighborhoods of single family homes. there was a sizeable transitional zone of old school real-deal midrise urbanism. so much of it has been completely obliterated that it it now often forgotten.


WSU Virtual Motor City Collection

Wow, absolutely disgusting. Every time I think I've seen the worst of what we did to our cities then I see a photo like this or the one of Denver after it was eviscerated.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

WSU Virtual Motor City Collection

here's a google earth view of the area above today:

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Hmmm, you can already begin to see Detroit's demise in that pic.

The transitional apartment area has quite a few surface lots. Even when Detroit reached its zenith around 1950, the demands of the automobile (which would have - because of Detroit's sizable and materially-advanced middle class - been seen in Detroit earlier and with more intensity than other cities) would have already begun to take its toll on the urban fabric.

The other thing I have begun to wonder is if cities like Detroit or St. Louis ever had dense, long Victorian retail strips? Streets like Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago's Wicker Park, Carson St. in Pittsburgh or Queen St. West in Toronto: mile-long strips of storefronts with a consistent street wall of 2-3 storey buildings with narrow, sometimes intricate facades. Unless these areas were ploughed under by urban renewal, these retail strips had a surprising resiliency about them and are still vibrant today. From the pictures I've seen, Detroit's street retail was a lot more spotty, and so was St. Louis'.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

The other thing I have begun to wonder is if cities like Detroit or St. Louis ever had dense, long Victorian retail strips? .

Not really. There are shorter strips, though. Even today, Vernor in SW Detroit has exactly that feel (just streetview anywhere from around Clark Park to the city limits). Or look at Joseph Campeau in Hamtramck.

And certainly Woodward, Gratiot, Grand River, and all the major arterials have (or had) some semblance of that built form.

There were also some strips like Dexter, Davison, Linwood (all in the old Jewish apartment house corridor) and Chene (on the East Side, originally Polish) that had this feel, but these streets are wrecked (Chene is almost totally gone; it's as bad as it gets in Detroit).

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Not really. There are shorter strips, though. Even today, Vernor in SW Detroit has exactly that feel (just streetview anywhere from around Clark Park to the city limits). Or look at Joseph Campeau in Hamtramck.

And certainly Woodward, Gratiot, Grand River, and all the major arterials have (or had) some semblance of that built form.

There were also some strips like Dexter, Davison, Linwood (all in the old Jewish apartment house corridor) and Chene (on the East Side, originally Polish) that had this feel, but these streets are wrecked (Chene is almost totally gone; it's as bad as it gets in Detroit).

Thanks for the tips! I can sort of see how Vernor almost had something like the examples I showed, but it's hard to tell whether the streetwall was sustained at one point, or whether it always developed in fragments.

Streets like Milwaukee in Chicago are sort of the high point of Midwestern urbanism. Even in an example where the stores aren't quite as high rent, and where the city lost a substantial population, like the Pittsburgh example I showed, the street is still animated and feels very metropolitan. Losing streets like this would have represented the worst kind of urban loss, at least for midwestern cities.

[memph]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Hmmm, you can already begin to see Detroit's demise in that pic.

The transitional apartment area has quite a few surface lots. Even when Detroit reached its zenith around 1950, the demands of the automobile (which would have - because of Detroit's sizable and materially-advanced middle class - been seen in Detroit earlier and with more intensity than other cities) would have already begun to take its toll on the urban fabric.

The other thing I have begun to wonder is if cities like Detroit or St. Louis ever had dense, long Victorian retail strips? Streets like Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago's Wicker Park, Carson St. in Pittsburgh or Queen St. West in Toronto: mile-long strips of storefronts with a consistent street wall of 2-3 storey buildings with narrow, sometimes intricate facades. Unless these areas were ploughed under by urban renewal, these retail strips had a surprising resiliency about them and are still vibrant today. From the pictures I've seen, Detroit's street retail was a lot more spotty, and so was St. Louis'.

A lot of cities had quite a few parking lots in 1950 though. Maybe not block after block of parking like you see near some convention centres and sports stadiums, but an acre here, half an acre there? Definitely. Looking at 1947 aerials of Toronto's core it doesn't look any better than Detroit in that aerial, it might even have been worse.

As for Victorian retail strips, in Detroit, Russell was another one, completely obliterated by the Chrysler freeway. Rosa Parks seems to have been like that too for a decent stretch, but the Detroit riots (it was known as 12th street then, lots of pictures on google) seems to have led to a lot of losses along there, and the widening or Rosa Parks Blvd between Grand Blvd and Clairmount probably finished of whatever was left:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=6374772&postcount=90

It seems like it might have continued N and S of that stretch along Rosa Parks, but whatever was along those parts Rosa Parks back then is pretty much all gone now.

West of Livernois and north of McNichols seems to have been mostly single storey retail strips, but I think within about 4-5 miles of Downtown was mostly 2-4 storey.

Also, keep in mind that whereas Detroit lost a lot (most) of its 2-3 retail streets, Toronto actually gained some when many cities stopped building them. There's several from the 20s when many cities like Detroit were already largely building single storey commercial, and then continuing even after WWII, notably with Eglinton, but also smaller sections in East York, Avenue Road, Etobicoke, SW Scarborough, plus also adding retail to streets like Dundas and Danforth (and maybe Parliament) that didn't have as much retail back then, and also streets like Yorkville, Cumberland, Kensington, Baldwin, Augusta, Gerrard E Chinatown.

[nei]

I wonder if the areas surrounding downtown Toronto were more affluent than the ones surrounding Detroit in 1950. Perhaps the ring around Detroit was a poverty ring already on a downward path. Detroit had about 2-2.5 times more people than Detroit then. Memph showed numbers its density was lower than Toronto (weighted density of 15k per square mile vs 22k) but since Toronto was smaller, a Toronto-sized area of Detroit may have been similar density-wise?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by nei

I wonder if the areas surrounding downtown Toronto were more affluent than the ones surrounding Detroit in 1950. Perhaps the ring around Detroit was a poverty ring already on a downward path. Detroit had about 2-2.5 times more people than Detroit then. Memph showed numbers its density was lower than Toronto (weighted density of 15k per square mile vs 22k) but since Toronto was smaller, a Toronto-sized area of Detroit may have been similar density-wise?

You may be right. The "rich zone" of Toronto was (and is) a corridor just north of downtown.

In 1950, the poorest part of Detroit was the equivalent corridor just north of downtown (in fact the above pics show the poorest part; called Cass Corridor). This was a zone of flophouses, which existed until 1990 or so (when it just started to wither away into urban prairie).

In 2014 the poorest sections of the Detroit metro are a bit further out (largely because the original zone is decimated), while in Toronto, the rich area of single family homes is the same as before, basically off Yonge north of Bloor Street.

[nei]

Compare the amount of space taken up by expressways in Toronto vs Cincinnati:

Two Maps One Scale

The area to the west of the westernmost Cincinnati expressway was residential according to the map in the OP. You can see that Cincinnati's expressways take up much room than they could.

[dc_denizen]

^^
what an awesome website! but are they really always the same scale, see http://acme.com/same_scale/?37.75280,-122.44675,48.85862,2.33803,12,M,M

[memph]

Originally Posted by Crawford

You may be right. The "rich zone" of Toronto was (and is) a corridor just north of downtown.

In 1950, the poorest part of Detroit was the equivalent corridor just north of downtown (in fact the above pics show the poorest part; called Cass Corridor). This was a zone of flophouses, which existed until 1990 or so (when it just started to wither away into urban prairie).

In 2014 the poorest sections of the Detroit metro are a bit further out (largely because the original zone is decimated), while in Toronto, the rich area of single family homes is the same as before, basically off Yonge north of Bloor Street.

Well Rosedale, Casa Loma, Lawrence Park, etc were actually not that close to Downtown Toronto in 1950. Back then it would have been more accurate to describe the northern boundary of Downtown as Queen or at most Dundas Street. The areas from Queen to Bloor were no more dense (built density) than Midtown/New Centre in Detroit, and likely less so.

Most of Queen to Bloor was houses/rowhouses with a scattering of smaller 3-5 storey walk-up apartments, industrial and commercial/mixed use buildings.

The only large buildings were

Queen to Dundas:
-Old City Hall
-Eaton Centre Factories
-Sun Life Building (high-rise)
-A few larger mid rises/smaller high-rises around Dundas from Bay to Victoria
-Toronto Armories
-Osgoode Hall
-St Michael's Hospital

North of Dundas
-Merchandise Building
-Maple Leaf Gardens
-College Park
-Queens Park
-Whitney Block
-One of the hospital buildings (Sick Kids I think?)
-Royal Ontario Museum
-Park Hyatt Hotel

Other than that it was just 3-5 storey buildings maybe in the 10-40k sf range and some maybe somewhat larger 2-4 storey buildings that were part of U of T.

So you could argue that the poorest part of Toronto was also just north of Downtown - The Ward - which was slowly being chipped away at in the 20th century until the remainder was cleared out en-masse, mostly for New City Hall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ward,_Toronto

South of College east and west of Downtown was quite poor, Toronto was at one point considering redeveloping everything between Dovercourt and the Don River, but only Regent Park, Moss Park, Alexandra Park a few smaller developments ended up happening.

The areas north of Downtown between Dundas and Bloor were mostly decent neighbourhoods from what I can tell with a mix of housing types and incomes, but nothing special income wise, I think they were pretty average. Yorkville wasn't wealthy then either.

As for which areas were wealthy, I think around 1950 it included areas that were pretty close to the edge of town. In addition to Forest Hill, Moore Park, South Hill and Wychwood, you also had Forest Hill, Lawrence Park, Leaside, Hoggs Hollow, Cedarvale, Lytton Park, The Kingsway, Baby Point, Old Mill and the Riverside Drive area of Swansea.

In the 2-3 decades that followed, some of these went from upper class to upper middle class (some stayed upper class though), and some of the older upper middle class areas became more middle class since large detached houses on good sized lots became less of a rarity in the 50s/60s/70s. At the same time, new areas of wealth were built in the outwards march of suburbia, like Princess Gardens, Chestnut Hills, Guildwood, Bridle Path, York Mills, Thornhill, Bayview Village, German Mills and Southern parts of Mississauga and Oakville. Towards the end of the 20th century and especially since 2000 or so, while home sizes continued to increase a more central location (or near transit, ex GO Lakeshore W) started to come with more of a premium, and wealth start to shift back towards the pre-1950 neighbourhoods with an increasing proportion of the new high end homes being built as replacements of older homes in pre-1950 but also some of the older 50s/60s bungalow neighbourhoods.

[memph]

Originally Posted by Crawford

You may be right. The "rich zone" of Toronto was (and is) a corridor just north of downtown.

In 1950, the poorest part of Detroit was the equivalent corridor just north of downtown (in fact the above pics show the poorest part; called Cass Corridor). This was a zone of flophouses, which existed until 1990 or so (when it just started to wither away into urban prairie).

In 2014 the poorest sections of the Detroit metro are a bit further out (largely because the original zone is decimated), while in Toronto, the rich area of single family homes is the same as before, basically off Yonge north of Bloor Street.

When did Cass Corridor really go downhill? From what I can tell it got quite a bit worse when the urban renewal displaced a lot of those transients, I think especially from the areas east of Downtown? Or was it already poor before this happened but then got even worse?