The lower Paradise Valley area, north of Gratiot and south of I-75, was an entertainment and business hub with a concentration of Black-owned businesses and jazz clubs. This area had both local and national historical significance.
My recent research has focused on the 1952 Booker T. Washington Trade Association Directory of Black-Owned Businesses. For the first time, the location of these businesses has been mapped. The area that is currently occupied by Comerica Park and associated parking structures once had at least 10 Black-owned businesses. One of them was the 450-room Fairbairn Hotel, a men-only hotel located close to where third base of Comerica Park is currently found.
The area occupied by Ford Field and associated parking structures once was home to at least 56 Black-owned businesses, including the Norwood Hotel and Club Congo, where Detroit be-bop jazz legend Howard McGhee played in the orchestra. McGhee was one of the first bebop trumpeters and played as a sideman for Charlie Parker. The Lucy Thurman YWCA and the Detroit Tribune are other buildings of note. The largest concentration of businesses was near the intersection of E. Adams and St. Antoine. The segment of E. Adams no longer exists and is now part of the Ford Field complex.
The map below shows there were at least 56 Black-owned businesses in 1952 where the Ford Field site currently stands and 10 Black-owned businesses where Comerica Park stands presently.
This same general area had a high concentration of jazz clubs during the 1940s and 1950s, including the El Sino, where Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie played, Three Sixes Club, Band Box, Sportrees, and Jess Faithful’s Rhythm Café. Charlie Parker discovered Betty Carter, who was a chorus girl at El Sino club, and he helped launch her career. (see Bjorn, Lars and Jim Gallert, Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit, 2001, The University of Michigan Press).
I hope that fans attending games and concerts at Comerica Park and Ford Field will remember this is hallowed ground for the Black-owned businesses that once existed in this area of Detroit. This historical context should be celebrated and considered when future development and redevelopment decisions are made in this area, including freeway improvements planned in this area (I-375 reconstruction and planned enhanced bridge crossings over I-75).
Rodney L. Arroyo, FAICP, is a city planner and photographer with City Photos and Books, Inc. He is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners. He has a Master of City Planning degree from Georgia Tech and has served as adjunct faculty in Wayne State University’s Graduate Urban Planning Program.