Information AboutBlack Bottom |
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Black Bottom (also known as '''Paradise Valley''') was a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan where Black migrants from the South were forced to live because of deed restrictions that made it illegal for them to own or rent property in most of the city. It was demolished in the early 1950s as part of Urban Renewal , and was replaced by the Chrysler Freeway ( Interstate 75 ) and Lafayette Park, a mixed-income development designed by Mies Van Der Rohe as a model neighborhood combining residential townhouses, apartments and high-rises with commercial areas. Black Bottom was located on Detroit's East Side, was approximately 0.5 mile² (1.3 km²) in area, and was bounded by Gratiot Avenue, Brush Street, Vernor Highway, and the Grand Trunk railroad tracks. Its main commercial strips were on Hastings and St. Antoine streets. Black Bottom was the cultural and economic heart of the Black community in Detroit from the 1920s through its demolition. Most of the residents, as a result of Urban Renewal , were displaced ended up in large Public Housing projects such as the Brewster Homes and Jeffries Homes. Hastings Street, which ran north-south through Black Bottom, was the center of , Billy Eckstine , Pearl Bailey , Ella Fitzgerald , and Count Basie —regularly performed in the bars and clubs of Paradise Valley entertainment district. Before the Civil Rights Movement began to change Northern segregation in the 1960s , " Negroes " could be thrown in jail if they were seen by the police west of Woodward Avenue—Detroit's main street, which divides the east and west sides of the city. Hastings Street had one of the highest concentrations of black-owned businesses in the United States , and the neighborhood was full of run-down and expensive apartments and multi-family homes owned by Caucasian landlords, with a mix of classes and backgrounds so typical to the urban Black communities of the time. Black Bottom suffered more than most areas during the Great Depression since so many of the wage earners worked in the hard-hit auto factories of Detroit. During World War II both the economic activity and the physical decay of Black Bottom rapidly increased, and in the 1950s, the City of Detroit conducted an urban renewal program to combat what it called "urban blight" that bulldozed Black Bottom. Other historical Detroit black neighborhoods include Conant Gardens , Russell Woods , and Elmwood Park . EXTERNAL LINKS |
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