Sugar Hill Historic District (Detroit)


The Sugar Hill Historic District is a historic district in Detroit, Michigan. It contains 14 structures located along three streets: East Forest, Garfield, and East Canfield, between Woodward Avenue on the west and John R. on the east. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

History

The area where this district is now located was originally settled by Detroit's wealthier citizens in the 1880s, seeking suburban homes near Woodward Avenue and well out of downtown. Early residents included Detroit Edison Company presidents Alex Dow, president of ; Herman Kiefer Hospital founder Dr. Guy L. Kiefer, and Detroit College of Medicine professor Dr. Nathaniel Webber. Around 1900, the area was a major center for Jewish Detroiters, as well as medical staff working at the hospitals nearby. The neighborhood remained substantially Jewish through the 1930s. As population pressure increased, however, apartments were constructed and what once were large single family homes were subdivided. In 1936, the first nightclub in what is now the Sugar Hill District opened, the Harlem Cave.
Meanwhile, Detroit's first African American residents settled in Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. As the black population grew into the 1930s, the Paradise Valley area expanded up Hastings Street to Warren Avenue, and developed onto the parallel streets of St. Antoine, Beaubien, and Brush. Rebuilding caused many residents living near downtown to move northward. However, the areas where black residents could move were limited due to enforced housing restrictions and covenants, and the areas on John R and westward remained segregated.
In 1941, however, Ernest White purchased the Gotham Hotel at the corner of John R and Orchestra Place just south of this district. Although the purchase was apparently a case of mistaken racial identity, it set a precedent, and more African-Americans began moving and establishing businesses in the area. At the same time, more clubs opened in the Sugar Hill district, some Jewish-owned, but an increasing number owned by African-Americans. By 1950 what had been a quiet residential neighborhood became a thriving entertainment district. The area east of Woodward where the Detroit Medical Center now stands became the center of the nightlife jazz scene in Detroit. Some of the greatest musicians of the time stayed in hotels and played in clubs in the area. These included Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Dinah Washington, and John Lee Hooker. In addition, the entertainment world became gradually integrated as "black and tan" clubs - nightclubs open to patrons of both races - opened in the 1940s.
The Sugar Hill jazz district flourished into the 1960s, and played a major factor in the early careers of Berry Gordy, Al Green, Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye, and other young performers who would go on the establish the Motown sound. However, the targeted urban renewal of the 1960s decimated Paradise Valley, and the expansion of the hospitals in the Detroit Medical Center area caused the demolition of what had been the heart of the entertainment district. In particular, a number of former clubs were razed to make room for the construction of the John Dingell Detroit Veterans' Administration Hospital in the 1990s. The remaining structures in the Sugar Hill district were considered for demolition as late as the 1990s.
However, there has been recent investment in the district. In June 2010, the rehabilitation of the Garfield Manor Apartments was completed. The building is intended as artist residences and studios and includes solar power, solar water heaters, water reclamation, and geothermal heating. Plans call next for a residential and commercial building to be constructed on the corner of John R. and Garfield. The building will be dubbed the "Sugar Hill Building."

Description

The Sugar Hill Historic District contains 14 structures constructed between 1885 and 1938, including single-family houses, apartment buildings, a church, and commercial buildings. The district is the largest portion remaining of a flourishing 1940s and 1950s neighborhood which had a large concentration of black-owned or operated jazz venues other commercial enterprises.
The Garfield Building stands at the corner of Woodward and Garfield in the center of the district, as does the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. These buildings, although physically adjacent to the Sugar Hill Historic District, are not included in the district proper.
Two of the structures in the district have been demolished: the York Apartments at 74 Garfield, which was demolished after a fire in the summer of 2008, and the Randora Hotel at 92-98 Garfield, demolished in 2009.
The structures included in the district are:

Houses