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Carpenter Mark Craven works in a new business in downtown Detroit's Corktown. The historic district is labeled as a "cool city" for suburban residents interested in Detroit's rock scene.City's oldest neighborhood thrives on new creativity
Corktown area boasts diverse mix as new shops, taverns, restaurants sprout.
Corktown was founded by Irish immigrants from Ireland's County Cork 171 years ago.St. Patrick's Day celebrations
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Corktown developers Ryan Cooley, left, his brother Phil Cooley and Dean St. Souver are restoring three empty storefronts on Michigan Avenue.
Brian Brincat bought his grandparent's house on Church Street in 1980. Brincat owns the Mercury building, with two lofts and a storefront.
DETROIT -- The Irish pubs in Corktown expect packed crowds today to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but the former Irish enclave west of downtown Detroit represents something more than Gaelic pride.
These days Detroit's oldest neighborhood -- situated between the moldering Tiger Stadium and the looted Michigan Central Depot -- is showing signs of an unexpected cultural and financial emergence.
Many in the neighborhood believe Corktown is "cool cities" defined -- the creative, bohemian mix of people often hailed as the new economic engine for urban areas.
"It's certainly one of those points of light within the city that needs to be focused on because they are doing wonderful things," said Kurt Metzger, research director of the Center for Urban Studies at Wayne State University.
"It's mainly either immigrants or young people who are developing inner-cities neighborhoods these days. So the base is definitely there."
Housing prices range from $20,000 to $950,000 and businesses run the gamut from immaculately restored Irish pubs to underground rock bars. The neighborhood is home to vigilant community groups and nonprofits that promote everything from planting gardens to publishing a literary magazine.
There is talk of opening wine bars, new eateries and launching syndicated cable shows based around garage rock and cooking.
Dozens of lofts have been carved out of renovated industrial space and there's steady renovation of homes.
Much of the money infusing the turnaround is private investment.
It's the kind of energy Gov. Jennifer Granholm is trying to tap into by creating Cool Cities, a program aimed at keeping young people from moving away.
There remain plenty of big vacant buildings and potholed roads, but there's also quiet, tree-lined streets filled with well-kept homes.
Corktown is one of the most diverse areas in Metro Detroit in terms of race, ethnicity and class. About half of the neighborhood's 1,300 residents are white, a third are black and the rest Hispanic, according to 2000 census data.
Founded by Irish immigrants from Ireland's County Cork 171 years ago, almost 70 percent of the area was cleared by the opening of the Lodge Freeway and other urban renewal plans in the 1960s.
The Michigan Central Depot, the city's 18-story train station that opened in 1913 shut permanently in 1988. It's been vandalized thoroughly since then, its plaster and brass details lifted by scavengers. There is talk that it may become the new Detroit Police headquarters.
Corktown's surviving residential area 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.
Many thought the closing of Tiger Stadium in 1988 would be the final blow to Corktown. But third and fourth generations of Irish, Maltese and Hispanic descents refused to leave the neighborhood.
Fifty years ago, Church Street was filled with Maltese families. It still is. Many are the children or grandchildren of the same Maltese families that lived there half a century ago, like the Formosa, Brincat and Tabone families. Many Irish families also remain.
Felix Formosa Sr. moved to Church Street in 1957, moving from the next block, the only other street he's ever lived on in Detroit since arriving from the island nation of Malta, located in the Mediterranean near Sicily. Formosa owns four houses on the street that he rents. He claims not to have raised the rent in more than 30 years. He said he'll never leave Church Street.
"I don't understand suburbs," Formosa said. "I don't understand being stuck in your car in a freeway for so long and then going to a home that looks like the other houses on a street that doesn't go anywhere. That's like being trapped in cage."
Detroit pride runs fierce in Corktown.
"Detroit is like a warm blanket to me, I've loved since I bought my first place," Scott Martin said.
That was 14 years ago, when Martin was a graduate student who became entranced by the former worker's cottages and colorful clapboard homes that mark Corktown. Martin and many others have fought hard to preserve Corktown.
"Parts of Corktown used to scare me, well, actually my wife. There is no street in Corktown that people should be afraid of now," Martin says.
As executive director of the Greater Corktown Development Corporation, Martin is also heavily involved in keeping affordable housing in the neighborhood. The nonprofit has some $12 million in the pipeline for upcoming housing and commercial projects in the area.
The organization is overseeing the construction of 30 homes in what is now called "North Corktown" -- the area north of Interstate 75. The homes will sell for about $80,000 to $90,000.
"If we can get Tiger Stadium addressed, Corktown can explode as no one can imagine," Martin said.
Yet even as the stadium sits empty six years after the Tigers moved to Comerica Park, the ragged section of Michigan Avenue between the ballpark and the long dormant Michigan Central Depot is showing much life, thanks largely to people 35 and younger.
Many believe a turning point came shortly after Tiger Stadium shut and Lager House, a 90-year-old shot-and-a-beer joint, started booking local bands from Detroit's burgeoning garage rock scene. The Lager now has a loyal following, many of them suburban kids.
One was Phillip Cooley, a former model who tended bar at the Lager. Cooley, 27, and his brother Ryan, 29, have poured more than $750,000 into restoring three empty storefronts on Michigan Avenue, in the stadium's shadow. He and his brother live in separate lofts above the store fronts.
Many lofts in Corktown rent in $750 to $1,100 range.
"I went to film school in Chicago and I'm thinking I want that energy here in Detroit," Phillip Cooley said.
One of the storefronts will house a slow-cooked barbeque restaurant slated to open in May. Phillip Cooley met his partner in that venture, Brian Perrone, when Perrone was selling burritos at the Lager.
Across the street from Cooley's storefronts is the renovated Mercury building, with two lofts and a storefront that may become a wine bar. The building is owned by Brian Brincat, whose parents lived on Church Street. He bought his grandparent's house in 1980 on Church.
Still Wayne State's Metzger says much work needs to be done in Corktown.
"I don't think it's turned the corner. It needs to attract retail business and it lacks basic services," he said. "The old Tiger Stadium is the wild card. It can't be left there to rot."
You can reach Louis Aguilar at (313) 222-2760 or laguilar@detnews.com.
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