WDET's J. Carlisle Larsen explores the rebranding of Detroit's Cass Corridor into "Midtown

Larsen writes:

Midtown Detroit has been held up in several media outlets as the city’s best example of revitalization. USA Today recently listed Midtown as one of the “10 Up-and-Coming Neighborhoods” in the country, referring to it as the “heart of the city”. The publication credits the upcoming M-1 light rail line along Woodward…and the growing number of small businesses. Development is booming as well…with several buildings being renovated for apartments over the next couple of years. But the neighborhood has had a long history--particularly in the area previously known as the Cass Corridor--which for decades had a reputation for crime and blight.

WDET talks to longtime Cass Corridor resident George McMahon, who says:

“Well this is the area the Detroit Free Press always referred to as the ‘Notorious Cass Corridor.’," says resident George McMahon, who been around the areas since the early 1960s.

He tells the station that the area back in the day was vibrant, brimming with children and activity. But people started moving out, and the area got a reputation as being a breeding ground for prostitution and drugs.

WDET writes on its website:

Local organizations decided a change needed to be made.

“I was at the meeting of Second Avenue Business Association’s when they talked about this. And they said we need to change the image of the Cass Corridor, because people are not going to come and want to live in the Cass Corridor. So it was a concerted effort to leave-—to erase the image of the Cass Corridor—-by naming it Midtown," McMahon says.

Not everyone is buying in to the new name.

At the Bronx bar at Prentis and Second, bartender Sharlene Dexter says:

“Midtown will always be the Cass Corridor, honey. In peoples’ eyes Midtown will always be the Cass Corridor."

“It’s coming back, but it’ll never come back in my lifetime," she says.

At the bar, another Midtown resident T.J. Smith, a Grand Rapids transplant who works at a nearby property rental company, tells WDET:

“I love it. I’m a huge Tigers fan, we’re two miles from Comerica Park. Every major event downtown, all the concerts, all the—it’s, it’s fun, it’s a good place to live because it’s safe. It’s safer than downtown, it’s safer than anywhere—the response time from the police department is twenty seconds or less. It’s phenomenal."

He's engaged and admits his time in the area will be limited. He said the quality of schools in the city is a big issue.

-- Allan Lengel



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