Corktown History by: Korin Cox

The Corktown neighborhood is Detroit's oldest surviving neighborhood. The surviving residential fragment is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is designated as a City of Detroit Historic District. The district includes about 300 structures housing about 2,000 people. 

WHERE IS CORKTOWN?
The Corktown Historic District is located directly south of Michigan Avenue, and directly west of Lodge Freeway (US 10). The buildings of the Corktown Historic District are largely private residences, although some Michigan Avenue commercial buildings are open to the public.
  

Most Holy Trinity Church (1)
Corktown's oldest house (2)
new townhouses (3)
Labrosse Street (4), most intact block of Detroit's oldest houses (4)
Clement Kern Gardens (5)
Bagley-Trumbull Market (6)
St. Peter's Episcopal Church (7)
Tiger Stadium (8)
Roman brick rowhouse group (9)
1705 Sixth Street (10)
 

ORIGINS OF THE NAME CORKTOWN
At mid-century, the Irish were the largest ethnic group among Detroit's newcomers, prompted by the Potato Famine in Ireland in the mid-1840's. The Irish moved into the near West Side. Since many of these came from County Cork, their neighborhood came to be known as "Corktown."
 
 
 

ARCHITECTURE OF HOUSES IN CORKTOWN
The neighborhood was first known for the housing style - small Irish workman's cottages.  Houses in Corktown are typically built close to each other on narrow 25-foot lots extending perhaps 130 feet from front sidewalk to back alley. This is a land pattern dating back to the London of King Charles II over 300 years ago.

        
Leverette Rowhouses in the Corktown Historical District
 

TRANSPORTATION IN CORKTOWN
Our first horse-drawn trolley cars appeared on Michigan Avenue in November 1863. More important to Corktown was the Baker Street Trolley line, opened in 1873. It passed along Bagley Avenue (originally "Baker Street" in Corktown).

Horse-drawn street car
 
 

TIGER STADIUM
Whether the name was Navin Field to Tiger Stadium, the building and it's team - The Detroit Tigers have been a defining feature of Corktown and the city surrounding it.  Although the stadium now sits empty of a major league team, Corktown has survived.
 

View of Tiger Stadium from Michigan and Trumbull

MICHIGAN CENTRAL STATION
The vacant Michigan Central Station waits impatiantly along the slowly reviving Michigan Avenue in Corktown.  The station, closed since 1988, has been slowly deteriorating ever since.

 
Michigan Central Station on Michigan Avenue

OTHER INTERESTING VIEWS FROM CORKTOWN
 

favorite local pub and rock venue The Lager House on Michigan Avenue
 
 

            
this house was built c. 1850 by John Mason - site of the Great Sauk Trail and Route One of Underground Railroad
 

old Coca Cola ad on the side of this building on Bagley Ave.

Corktown Tavern in the shadows of the old Tiger Stadium
 

some local Irish Pubs on Michigan Avenue
 

one of the many "Corktown" signs in the area

the CPA building on Michigan Ave. - now vacant

an old Lounge
 
 

the Gaelic League - Irish American Club
 
 

CORKTOWN TODAY:
Corktown suffered in the 1950s and 60s, however, when "urban renewal", highway construction, and business district encroachment swallowed up or flattened dozens of blocks. Today the homes, businesses, and churches that form the Corktown Historic District offer a glimpse of the lives of generations of immigrants who helped build Detroit.

Active Neighborhood groups:

THE CORKTOWN CITIZENS DISTRICT COUNCIL   project..corktowndetroit.org/
The Corktown CDC acts as a liaison between Corktown, the oldest neighborhood in Detroit, and the City government by representing community views on zoning issues, historic preservation, and other development issues. 

DETROIT HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS COALITION   project..neighborhoodlink.com/org/dethistoric
The DHNC is a collaborative group of Detroit's historic neighborhoods. They focus on improving city services such as police protection, lighting, garbage pickup, school clean up, & more.

GRAFFITI-FREE COLLABORATIVE
This group promoting a "clean and safe" message in Southwest Detroit is working very hard. More than 75 graffiti sites have been successfully painted over or power-washed.  They work with the help the community to eliminate graffiti and build a graffiti-free ethic among businesses, residents and youth to improve the quality of life and encourage investment in Southwest Detroit.

WORKERS ROWHOUSE MUSEUM
An Oral History Project is underway to assemble information about the people who lived in Corktown. The Workers Row House Museum is said to be the oldest house in Detroit. It is a fine example of how laborers and workers lived from the 1840's-1960's. The restoration and development of the project continues while the quest for "Corktown Memories" is in progress.

Comments from the Press:

"Corktown afloat" in Metro Times  
by Tricia Woolfenden  6/5/2002

Safety is a top priority in Corktown. “Everybody looks out for one another here. The community helps each other, everyone gives a helping hand,” Formosa says. His comments echo those of his neighbors and reflect the sense of security that most Corktown inhabitants feel. Because Corktown is such a small area, encompassing roughly one square mile, suspicious activity is quick to be noticed; residents are even quicker to act upon it.

Rob McDonald, owner of Eph McNally’s sandwich shop at the corner of Brooklyn and Porter, says that safety was just one of the many factors that attracted him to the area 10 years ago. “You have small businesses that don’t have bulletproof glass. It’s a throwback to 40 or 50 years ago,” McDonald says. He also enjoys the crowd that makes his shop a popular neighborhood hangout, from artists to police officers to the White Stripes.

Corktown continues to move forward, while simultaneously holding on to the past. The quiet streets lined with renovated Victorian-style houses seem as though they belong in small-town U.S.A. rather than a major city such as Detroit.

"Corktown lofts attracting renters to Detroit" in The Detroit News
by Christopher M. Singer 11/20/2002

Corktown, since the 1830s a neighborhood of conventional homes, has attracted new investment in loft developments.   In the last few years five such buildings, some brand new, have opened in the area that comprises less than a square-mile west of downtown Detroit. 

All this is great stuff as far as Tim McKay of the Greater Corktown Development Corp. is concerned.   "The lofts have brought new interest in living in the city," McKay said. "It adds more people living downtown. It's a great reuse of buildings that would otherwise go unused."    The development corporation recently moved in to the landmark CPA Building at Michigan at Vernor. McKay heads the Workers Rowhouse Museum project and the area's newly developed recycling center.