Carriage Town tour

[dnast]

Well, I was gonna do a random Flint tour, but I only liked how the pics taken in Carriage Town came out. So here it is:

I started out near the site of the Rosewood Riverside Townhomes. It's a small 39 unit project, but the area needs it. In the first pic you can see Hurley Medical Center in the background from about 6 blocks away.

You can see where it is in relation to downtown in this shot

Here you can see how it was squeezed in next to a small apartment complex. The river is on the other side of the townhouse site

Just a shot of one of the apartment buildings. I believe they were built in the late 90s. You probably can't tell, but I took this shot from the street sitting in my car. No zoom used, so while it's not urban, it's still not overwhelmed by parking.

Looking toward the Riverfront Character Inn

A few random buildings across the street from said apartments

Further down the street

The Durant-Dort Carriage Company office building. It's one of the reasons this neighborhood has its name. Before the birth of the automobile, Flint was producing more carriages and wagons than any other city in the world. This neighborhood was the hub.

A pedestrian bridge and statues at the end of the street

Zoomed out

Close up of the statues. I forgot to check, but I'm sure that is Mr. Dort and Mr. Durant

A better shot of the bridge

Looking northeast. From left to right: Marion Hall, Manhattan Lofts, the long abandoned Durant Hotel, Northbank Center, and a smaller building owned by U of M - Flint

A closer shot of Manhattan Lofts. The project seems to be in limbo and the city plans on suing the developer to get its loan money back from him. Could've been a great project...

A closeup on the mural on Marion Hall

Looking down the river. As you can see, the park is lined with a huge parking garage. I love it!

I believe this used to be the Dort-Durant Carriage factory. It's now used as office space

This house apparently sits on the land where Flint's founder, Jacob A. Smith, used to live

A typical house in Carriage Town - except a lot of them have been neglected for years. There was a surge in renovations some years ago, but that seems to have slowed down.

Next time, I'll try to show more residential. There are some lovely homes there, but way too many homes that are badly in need of repair. The neighborhoods biggest problem is the high number of rehab places it has. It's hard to get people to invest when there are so many vagrants walking around all the time.

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

[VeeFan]

I guess we know the identity of the mystery photo building now.

Those are really great pictures. Is part of the street in that area paved with bricks also? I always though it was just Saginaw Street that has the red bricks.

The red house towards the end, that's not the Whaley House on Kearsley, is it?

Outside of Carriage Town, Flint still has some gorgeous homes, especially out near what was Cooke Elementary. I wouldn't mind buying one of those homes and renovating it!

[dnast]

Thanks.

Yeah, those houses on Welch near Cook are beautiful. The funny thing is that as soon as you start going down most of those sides streets, the other houses look awful.

I did a tour of Fairfield Village (across Court St. from Mott) today. Those are some of the nicest houses in the city next to Woodcroft Estates. I'll probably post them tomorrow since Allan showed me the trick of batch converting with Photoshop.

[RustTown]

So THAT's where I ended up when I got lost north of downtown. lol

That area looks a lot like Old Town Lansing. Even the new townhomes look fairly nice. Could you post a map of the area?

[dnast]

Is part of the street in that area paved with bricks also? I always though it was just Saginaw Street that has the red bricks.

The red house towards the end, that's not the Whaley House on Kearsley, is it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oops. I guess I didn't answer any of your questions, lol!

Yes, Water St. in Carriage Town is paved with bricks. Actually there are many other streets in Flint paved with bricks, but they're all covered with asphalt. I know for a fact that streets like Court, King, and Dupont have brick underneath. And everybody thinks potholes are a bad thing.

No, that pic of the red house isn't the Whaley House. All of these pics were taken west of Saginaw/King. I'm not sure what the name of that house is. I just remembered part of the historical marker when I was taking my pics to get my info.

LMich, here's a map. Carriage Town is highlighted in red:

[RustTown]

Thanks. BTW, where'd you get that map? I'd like to make on of downtown Lansing and mapquest just isn't good enough.

[dnast]

I got it from maps.google.com

It's pretty nice. I just have to remember that not everybody has their resolution set to 1600x1200 since it scales to your screen size.

[VeeFan]

Begole Street is in Carriage Town? Is there a second part of it somewhere, maybe on the other side of Hurley? I volunteered with Salem Housing last Spring, and some of the houses we worked on were on Begole Street, and that's supposed to be the heart of the Flint ghetto.

I remembered that Court has brick underneath it, from when they were repaving it last year. It's a pity they don't leave all of the bricks uncovered. It's like brick-paved roads in industrial cities are the equivalent to cobblestone roads in colonial cities.

[dnast]

Yeah, Begole goes into Carriage Town and its either ghetto or abandoned. The funny thing is I was raised one block away from Begole, but west of Ballenger Hwy. It's amazing how much a street can change the further you go down it. It was considered walking distance from my school (from Flint Schools' perspective) when I was attending Longfellow Jr. High which was only a few blocks from Chevrolet and Mackin where you could easily see Hurley. Where I lived was very family friendly and had nice diversity (for Flint) with a nice mix of educators and other professionals and elderly people that cared for the neighborhood. Now it's mostly black, but still well kept. I hope it stays nice. It's one of a handful of nice neighborhoods north of 5th Ave./Flushing Rd.

I'm wondering why they don't just expose the brick. They didn't look like they were in bad shape. It could do wonders for morale and respect for tradition. Ironically, last year the grocer that was considered to most comply with rules for a grocery establishment was not too far from Hurley.

It's definately an area that needs some investment. It right between Smith Village, Kettering, and the nearby Summerfield Elementary and Longfellow area. When Smith Village gets redeveloped and the "University Drive" area gets fixed up, all eyes will be on this area.

I wish I had some money to invest.

[VeeFan]

We should all start writing to The Don and get him to invest some of his millions into downtown...like that'll ever happen.

[dnast]

He criticized the city for investing in the Saginaw St. streetscape project and the arches. That's why I was so suprised he was okay with supporting a new parking ramp downtwon. Makes you wonder if kickbacks were involved. His lack of interest in downtown was one of the first things that made me wary of the mayor.

[VeeFan]

He's probably too preoccupied with his casino/racetrack/sports complex/whatever else it is, to get into fights now with city council and the nonprofit groups.

[Allan]

Nice tour, Dnast! I am not very familiar with the Carriage Town area. I will definately have to check it out the next time I make the drive up to Flint.

[dnast]

Wow, I'm late.

But thanks, lol

[Pachuco]

4 people working on the carriage town restoration happen to be some of my relatives and I see why it's taking so long.

[dnast]

I'm hoping it'll pick back up. It seemed like there was some momentum going, but I guess people were frustrated with their non-caring "neighbors". I think when the Smith Village project starts going again, and if something happens with Hurley East Village (the area just east of Hurley) interest will return to reviving Carriage Town.

Just by looking at Carriage Town's message board, you can see how quickly the interest dropped. If I had the money I'd buy a whole block and make tons of money selling the refurbished homes. Right now it seems like most people are waiting for new residents to buy and repair the homes themselves. I don't think people realize that most people would rather just let somebody else get the work done before they invest in the middle of the inner-city.

[Pachuco]

I'm hoping it'll pick back up. It seemed like there was some momentum going, but I guess people were frustrated with their non-caring "neighbors". I think when the Smith Village project starts going again, and if something happens with Hurley East Village (the area just east of Hurley) interest will return to reviving Carriage Town.

Just by looking at Carriage Town's message board, you can see how quickly the interest dropped. If I had the money I'd buy a whole block and make tons of money selling the refurbished homes. Right now it seems like most people are waiting for new residents to buy and repair the homes themselves. I don't think people realize that most people would rather just let somebody else get the work done before they invest in the middle of the inner-city.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

When I said " I see why it's taking so long" is beacause my cuzs and tios take so many breaks,It was a joke you were suppose to laugh !

[dnast]

LOL! I did laugh, but I didn't want to go insulting them.