Early Detroit...and beyond...

-a little O'Brien family history-

Woodward Ave., looking north, circa 1908, a scant three years before the O'Briens migrated south. In the 1911 Detroit City Directory, the following information is provided: 

The executive staff of the Detroit Life Insurance Company:

M.E. O?Brien, President

H.J. Guthard, VP

F.H. Watson, Gen?l Attorney

J.H. Carstens, MD, Medical Director

Alva E. Fisher, Sec-Treasurer

Kathyrn H. Harrington, Nell?s sister, is also listed in the Directory as boarding at 234 King Ave. and working as a stenographer at her brother-in-law's company. 

A year later, other family members joined the company:

Nell?s brothers John and Victor Harrington were now clerks there, living along with their father, Sylvester, and fellow employee, sister Kathryn, at 63 Calumet Street.  Interesting that these former residents of Copper Country would end up on a street with that particular name (M.E. was born in Calumet, right in the heart of the Keeweenaw Peninsula.)

Meanwhile, M.E. had moved from Chandler into a home at 286 Putnam (see map below) with Nell and the kids, reuniting the family.

Ironically, the day I was at the library digging up this information, I had unwittingly parked at a meter on Putnam Street, directly across the street from where number 286 should have been, between Cass and Woodward. (At the time, I didn't notice what buildings were there -- it was only when I plugged the address into Mapquest and got the above map that I learned where I'd been. Weird!) As you can see, Wayne State now owns most of the property in the area, including, I learned, the land where the house once was.  Not surprisingly, a parking structure has swallowed the space.  

Note how strategically close the O'Briens lived to Woodward...scroll back up to the vintage postcard "Bird's Eye View of Woodward Ave, North of Michigan Avenue" and check out the trolley cars (and the dearth of automobiles).  M.E. had only to walk a half-block, hop on a southbound trolley, and he'd be at his office in a few short minutes.  

This seeming tranquility was doomed however.  Henry Ford and friends were at that moment setting the foundation for the profound changes that would soon transform the city into automotive capital of the world.

The O'Briens lived at 286 Putnam until at least 1919 -- and maybe even into the early 20s.  Unfortunately, the Burton Detroit City Directory collection skips from 1919 to 1923-24, so it's impossible via this method to ascertain exactly when the family moved down a few blocks to 1158 Putnam (see map below):

We know for sure that they living at 1158 Putnam in 1923-24 and suspect that the home, right at Trumbull, was also gobbled up by Wayne State (or as it was called in those days, Wayne University).  We'll clarify this as well on our upcoming spring tour.  We'll also try to ascertain by then when they made their next move, to 2244 Edison, but my inital calculation puts it at about 1925.

 By the mid-20's, the O'Briens had moved to what is now known as the historic Boston-Edison District, but back then was a very comfortable middle-to-upper-middle-class neighborhood.  An interesting side note is that their home is only three blocks away from 12th and Clairmount, one of the hotbeds of activity during the 1967 Riots, giving one an idea of just how much the area changed in the years after WWII. The good old days.

Came across this shot (actually a postcard) of Grand Circus Park in 1909, a couple of years before M.E.'s move to Detroit.  What a scene of tranquility -- and right in the center of the city!  Unfortunately, this configuration of the park is no longer in evidence, gone the way of the trolley cars down Woodward, the Big Stove on Jefferson, and tours of the Vernors' bottling plant, but back in Grandpa's day, it was,well, you can see what it was....  In any case, I added this photo because The Detroit Life Building (below) is just a short walk away from here, and Grand Circus may well have been visible from Grandpa's office. Nice view!

click here:The Detroit Life Building

The calm before the storm...

The Detroit Life Insurance Company was thriving, as this circa 1924 ad in the Detroit City Directory displays.  The company owned its newly-constructed home office on Park Ave. (a now-historic structure being renovated by its current owners, the Illitch Family), and it had written millions in policies by this time, some 13 years after M. E. migrated to Detroit from the Keweenaw.  It was smooth sailing...for now. Growing up, we were all exposed to Grandpa's surplus business stationery, a portion of which Mom had taken possession of, probably as she was helping move M.E. out of his house on Atkinson into the Maroun Nursing Home (which is still in operation on East Jefferson).  The envelope of that stationery, seen above, featured a line drawing of the Detroit Life Insurance Co. building, and the ill-fated proclamation: "owned by the company."  Ever since I began searching out details of our family's history, I've wondered what became of this structure, which was lost to the firm at some point in the early 1930s, during the Depression. Getting an answer was as simple as plugging its address and mine into Mapquest, doing a little googling, then making a quick detour up Woodward on a recent trip to Detroit with Amira....

Firstly, it's still there at 2210 Park Ave. (on the corner of W. Columbia St., where it says END above).  As you can see, it has a prime location directly behind the fabled Fox Theater, which is on Woodward. This entire area, known as the Park Avenue Historic District, is being renovated, mainly due to the efforts of the Illytch family, owners of Little Caesar's Pizza, the Detroit Red Wings and Tigers, Second City-Detroit, and much property in the vicinity, including the Fox and, yes, the Detroit Life Building, as it is officially called. Just across Woodward from the Fox, of course, are Ford Field, site of Superbowl XL, and Comerica Park, home of the so-called Tigers, which itself hosted the MLB All-Star game in 2005.

The Detroit Life Building as it appeared in 1923, the year it opened.  Grandpa's insurance company, which had been operating in Detroit for some 13 years by then, occupied the top four floors. (Looks like parking was as much a problem then as it is now.) Note Cadillac Restaurant conveniently situated right across the street. As president, M.E., no doubt, occupied prime space on the top floor looking south towards Grand Circus Park, Campus Martius, and the river beyond.  In those early days, skyscrapers were still the exception, as even the Penobscot Building, which was Detroit's tallest structure for 50 years, wasn't completed until 1928.

M.E. O'Brien:  Would you have bought insurance from this man? 

The Detroit Life Building as it appears today, without the exterior window treatments and with plywood nailed over the lower-level windows.  Given the commitment to rehabilitation of its owners, its survival, unlike that of Hudson's and the Statler Hotel, among others, is, for now, assured.  Although the immediate area is sill quite rough around the edges -- seeming somehow off the beaten path despite its proximity to busy Woodward -- the nearby stadiums, theaters, clubs, and restaurants all increase its chances for a strong revival.

Click here for a series of fascinating interior photos of the Detroit Life Building. 

  O'Brien & O'Brien

The Final Fate of Tiger Stadium

Click here for WOM's April 2006 photos and more info on the Old Ballyard.

 Also check out a great article on the legendary voice of the Tigers.

 Mother Waddles

 So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.     [F. Scott Fitzgerald]

 Michael E. O?Brien?s Detroit Life Insurance Company was first listed in the Detroit City Directory in 1911.  A large collection of these massive, heavy, hardbound books, published by R.L. Polk, is available to researchers in the Burton Historical Collection at the Detroit Public Library on Woodward Avenue across from the DIA, which is where I got all of this information.

The 1910 book contained nothing of M.E. or his company, so at that point, he still must have been based in Laurium.  He was, no doubt, up to his elbows in all that confronted him:  closing down his business interests in Calumet and Laurium; setting up the new company in Detroit (i.e., finding an office building, outfitting it with furniture and equipment, hiring a staff, etc.); finding a home in Detroit; and planning with Nell the move of their five children, (and possibly his mother and sister, though they may have come later) and all their possessions from the UP.  Since he and Nell and and the kids had been born and bred in Copper Country, the decision to leave must have been painful.  Complicating matters, Nell was pregnant with their sixth child, Martha, and was hardly ready to travel.

     When he first arrived in Detroit, M.E. O?Brien lived at 55 Chandler Ave. (above), just off of Woodward, north of downtown.  The house is no longer there,

and its space is now occupied by the  Metropolitan United Methodist Church parking lot.  I surmise that he commuted for a while, living alone in Detroit, establishing

the Detroit Life Insurance Company, and waiting until Nell gave birth, so he could safely move her and the kids downstate.  This is pure speculation, of course,

but given that his company was by that time established enough to be listed in the 1911 directory with an impressive executive staff  (see below) and

 that early the same year, Martha was born in Laurium, not Detroit, it certainly does make sense. 

THEN

The company's first office was in the Majestic Building (above, circa 1912, just the time when the O'Briens were establishing their Detroit roots), adjacent to Campus Martius.** 

The address was 733-44, so one can assume it was on the 7th floor, or about halfway up this 14-story edifice, the second-tallest structure in the city at that time. 

While I was browsing about, I came upon a site that features vintage postcards of Detroit; the card above is the first of the lot.  The Majestic Building, incidentally, was razed in

1962 to make way for the First Federal Building (AKA, 1001 Woodward), seen just below.

**From its creation in 1847, Campus Martius (Latin for "Field of Mars" or Military Grounds") was Detroit's city center and main plaza. As such, it was the point of origin

for Detroit's address system and spoke roads' system. After enduring years of alterations and neglect, Campus Martius was restored in 2000 as the center of Detroit. 

A family-friendly park, which includes an outdoor ice skating rink, has succeeded in bringing people back into the downtown area -- at least during the day. 

It continues to be an active zone of redevelopment, encompassing 9.2 acres of vast potential.

NOW: The not-so-majestic building  "In the days before the Majestic, this corner housed Fred Sanders's ice cream parlor

 where he invented the ice cream soda.Sanders's concoction became famous across America, giving Sanders the means to start a chain

 of ice cream parlors hat spread across the Detroit area. Cherished by generations of Detroiters, Sanders Ice Cream gradually succumbed

to 31 Flavors, Dairy Queen, TCBY, et al. The last store closed in 1995. In the panorama photo, the building to the right of the Majestic is the home

of the flagship Sanders store." James B. Moran, Detroit Historian

The Fredster himself

Sanders at 1525 Woodward, back in the day

Note:  Since the above was written, Sanders has had a reversal of fortunes:  Click here.