Antique Brick Show

Charles Terrace is coming down.

Buildings that structurally could live another 100 years are being scrapped, erased and disassembled.  But there is more than what can be seen that is being destroyed.  What is being carried off in dumpsters, mixed in with the shards of wood and metal, is the stigma of what life used to be at Charles Terrace.  All the negative images that materialize when you say "public housing" are being erased.  And from this clean slate a new housing development called Emerald Springs is being born.

From a clean slate comes a rebirth, returning the site's mission to the time where providing temporary housing for the most needy took first flight.

But before this new beginning, there is still time to remember the past.   Embedded in the salvaged brick are memories of two brick manufacturing companies and their long ago industrial might.

Powell & Minnock Brick

At the turn of the century, along the Hudson River in Albany county New York stood one hundred and thirty brick manufacturers. The ample supply of clay along the Hudson river shore bank made this the largest brick making region in the world, employing seven to eight thousand workers.  These brick manufacturers fed the insatiable appetite of New York City, the fastest growing city in the world.

But by the 1950s, the brick industry was consolidating and moving to new sources of raw material in the southern United States, diminishing the appetite for Hudson River brick.  Only 10 brick plants remained operating.  By the 1970s, this was reduced to 2 plants.  Finally, in 2001, the last plant, Powell & Minnock, ceased operations forever.

But in 1895, the Powell & Minnock brick Company opened its doors in an area just north of Coeymans (pronounced Quee-mans), NY between today's New York Route 144 and the Hudson River.  At its peak it would have an annual output of 50 million brick and ship products as far north as Canada, south to Delaware and west to Ohio.  Among the many projects supplied by P&M include New York City's 320 acre Co-op City and Detroit's own Charles Terrace.

Clippert & Sons

At the turn of the century, Detroit was also reaping rewards from the demand for brick. In the 1890s, there were two dozen brick yards within or near Detroit.  Brick making centered in Springwells Township, in the vicinity of Michigan Avenue and Lonyo, due to the exceptional quality of its "blue clay."  They employed some 750 workers and made nearly 100 million bricks per year.  However, the work was available for only part of the year, from April to mid-October. It's workers, mainly German and Polish immigrants, were force to live in "appalling poverty". The State of Michigan concluded: “The inmates of our houses of correction and our prisons are better fed, more comfortably clad and housed than these people are.” (pg. 3)

Clippert Brick opened its doors in 1880 with George Clippert becoming president of the company in 1899.  Clippert owned three brick yards in southwest Detroit along the Michigan Central Railroad near the current Dearborn and Detroit border at Wyoming and Southern Avenues.  It was one of the oldest brick operators in Detroit when the company dissolved in 1989.




Clippert Brickyard is at #64
#57-#64 are Springwells Township Brickyards 1890-1905
link

Believed to be the original Clippert Brickyard Office
at Southern Avenue and Wyoming Street

The Dorais Park Velodrome

View from the top of Dorais Park's Derby Hill

It seems incredible, but buried in an overgrown, under maintained Detroit park, sits a velodrome.  Quoting from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, velodrome comes from the French word vélodrome meaning a track designed for cycle racing.  As an amateur cyclist, I couldn't believe what I had stumbled upon in the middle of one of the most blighted neighborhoods in Detroit. Sure, I'd watched a few cycle races during the Olympics trying to comprehend the sports unique strategies and incredible speeds.  But to set foot in an actual velodrome?  If I didn't have pictures I wouldn't believe it.  Here, at the corner of Mound Road and Outer Drive, sits a velodrome with a history for having trained some of our nation's most distinguished cyclist.  Names that include Frankie Andreu, former 7-Eleven and U.S. Postal Service racer and two-time Olympian John Vande Velde.



The Dorais Park Velodrome

Built by Michael Walden, a legendary cycling and track coach, it was completed the same day that Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969.  It was built on land donated by the Chrysler Corporation whose 35 acre assembly plant looms just a few wheel rotations across Mound Road.  The land is part of Dorais Park, which because it contains one of the city's few hills, was site for Detroit's 1956 soap box derby and some of the city's best winter sledding.  It's named after former University of Detroit Mercy football coach Charles "Gus" Dorais, a member of the college football hall of fame.

Sledding on Derby Hill in the 1930s.

(Soap Box Track and flagpole in background)



Derby Hill in 2012
(Note the flagpole still standing in the background)

250 meters around with 45-degree banks and a concrete surface, it was home to the 1969 U.S. National Track Championships.  For 21 years it would serve its purpose as a world class training facility. But it would host its last race, the Michigan State Championship, in the summer of 1990.

A group of good Samaritans known as the "Mower Gang" rediscovered the track in 2010.  Though the concrete racing surface is cracked, and littered with graffiti, racing returned to the Dorais Park Velodrome on October 16, 2010.  For a brief moment, racers circled the track on small motorcycles, mopeds and bicycles, bringing the dormant spirit of the Velodrome back to life.  Time will only determine how long the track's renaissance will continue.

Home to the Stars

Just off Joseph Campau Street, just before you past under the Grand Trunk Western railroad, at the edge of Hamtramck's Veterans Memorial Park, sits an old rusting grandstand.  The non-descript structure sits fenced in among the weeds and overgrown trees as Dan Street curves to avoid crossing the railroad.  It appears like just another poorly maintained urban ball field.

But from 1930-1933, this was the home to Detroit's entry into the National Negro League: the Detroit Stars.  It was built by John Roesink to replace Mack stadium which burned to the ground after a fire started to dry the infield spread to the main grandstand, injuring hundreds of fans.

A racially tolerant Hamtramck Polish community and a street car connection to Hasting Street's "Black Bottom", the heart of Detroit's Black community, instantly gave the Detroit Stars a new home. Ty Cobb threw out the first pitch at Roesick Stadium, when it opened in 1930.  Babe Ruth is said to have always paid a visit when in town.  It was also home to Detroit's first night baseball game (18 years before the Detroit Tiger's Briggs Stadium) when the legendary K.C. Monarchs paid a visit on June 28, 1930. 

But its life was short lived.  Completed just as the Great Depression began, the team, the Owner and the League would end up bankrupt by 1933.

Walking among the bleachers I can image the roar of the crowd on a Turkey Stern base hit, the shouts of a peanut vendor and the PA announcer reading off the starting lineup.

Walking the adjacent grass field one can find hints of the old pitcher's mound.  Standing on the high ground, I can imagine Satchel Paige throwing one of his trademark "bee balls" (because it would "be where I want it to be.") or Josh Gibson calling for a high and tight fastball or Cool Papa Bell racing around the bases stretching a double to a triple.

Walking along the concrete back to my car, I can hear the sound of player cleats clicking their way  to the locker rooms.  I imagine which boarded up doorway led to the player's showers.

It seems appropriate that in July of 2012, the field was finally designated an historic site.  I hope improvements follow.  Improvements that make clear Roesick Stadium's nearly forgotten history.