Woodward Avenue, circa 1917
by amy • November 13, 2009 • Local History, metro Detroit • 6 Comments
Shorpy — the online archive of vintage photos from the 1850s to the 1950s — ran this photo yesterday of downtown Detroit looking north/west on Woodward across Campus Martius.
Take a look at this photo full-size: I love the streetcars and early Model Ts, the incredible clothes, the electric signs and billboards. (Also, apropos of yesterday’s post, you can see the long-gone Old Andrew’s Hotel/Schubert Opera House, and a commenter on the post tips off that the Merrill Fountain in front of it is now in Palmer Park.)
Favorite details:
The size of the pants on this Army uniform;
This girl’s boots;
Early pedestrian traffic control devices;
A comforting declaration from the dairy industry.
Amazing find. My favorite part is the typography on the signs and the millions of little tiny lightbulbs on them.
I know! I wish I could see what it looked like at night.
Amy, this picture is amazing! In fact, I had to press my nose almost to the computer monitor to verify that it WAS a picture. It’s so clean looking that I thought it was a drawing. Did someone restore it?
Find more of these, please!
Wow that is incredible. Really gorgeous.
Is it cynical to be REALLY CURIOUS what the modern-day photo in the same location would look like?
I think it’s a reasonable question. I actually don’t think it would look too bad, considering the recent re-christening of Campus Martius park (the Christmas tree goes up this weekend and the ice rink opens) plus some glitzy late-20th century skyscrapers in the general vicinity.
You probably wouldn’t see the foot traffic though.
I’ll see if I can find something approximate!
Here’s my best estimation with google maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=campus+martius&sll=42.335794,-83.048905&sspn=0.005734,0.013937&ie=UTF8&hq=campus+martius&hnear=&ll=42.330935,-83.0461&spn=0,359.996516&z=19&layer=c&cbll=42.330843,-83.046468&panoid=FuTEB9IhbqMGQeXunYhoZw&cbp=12,338.35,,0,-3.42
eh?