A lost neighborhood still lies underneath Roosevelt Park. What was life like for the people who lived there? Were its residents mostly Irish immigrants as the Corktown name suggests?
Roosevelt Park is located in front of the historic Michigan Central Train Depot at 2001 15th Street. The park is neither well maintained nor neglected and it seems innocent enough, but it is hiding a secret history. Before the train station and park were built, dozens of single-family homes lined streets some of the existing streets and streets that no longer exist. The turnover from densely packed neighborhoods to vacant parks and train stations was long and difficult.
The neighborhood is known as Corktown today and is often recognized for its Irish ethnic associations. Recent archaeological excavations in Roosevelt Park along with historical research reveal that by the turn of the 20th century, the neighborhood was more diverse ethnically and class-wise than popular portrayals of the neighborhood in the 19th century suggest. In addition to families of Irish ancestry, second-generation Americans, and a mixture of European immigrants and African Americans also lived in the neighborhood. Working-class people, lawyers and business owners lived together in the small neighborhood. The lost neighborhood was home to numerous boarding houses and hotels, and several homeowners rented rooms to boarders, which meant the composition of the neighborhood was always changing.
Archaeological excavations between 2012 and 2016 by Wayne State archaeologists recovered over 20,000 artifacts that illustrate daily life in the neighborhood before its demolition in 1917. The archaeologists found glass bottles that once held alcohol, stacked in a vacant lot. Fragments of plates, crockery, and animal bones provide information on what the residents’ foodways. Ceramic tobacco smoking pipes were also abundant. More remarkably, archaeologists found two tiny Cracker Jack pipes among other toys, indicating that the neighborhood was home to many children.
Construction on the train station began in 1909 and the process of clearing the neighborhood commenced soon after. The city planned to auction the houses to buyers that would salvage them for building materials and then demolish the houses, but this plan did not work as well as the city hoped. Several homeowners resisted and fought for their homes and then eventually better prices for their homes in court. Some of the auction buyers rented the houses out instead of demolishing them. Three such homes remained occupied until 1917 and were the last of the houses to be demolished when a WWI Britannia tank leveled them on its tour through Detroit in June of 1918.
Roosevelt Park was constructed as an esplanade between 1919 and 1921, and it was meant to impress visitors to Detroit with a grand entrance to the city as they left the train station. Some potential developers of the area planned for the esplanade to become a grand cultural center with opera houses and theatres, but the park design prevailed, and the area has always been just an empty park since the demolition of the houses. The inside of the train station itself was never fully realized because it was bigger than necessary and there was never any need to finish the top floor. Today this park and building emulate the economic decline and failed urban renewal projects of 20th century Detroit, but this is in contrast with the neighborhood around it. Corktown is now one of the most populated and popular areas in the city. Some businesses play up the Irish theme, and the Gaelic League is located in Corktown, but the residents today come from many different ethnic backgrounds.
