Hastings Street

If you ask Google maps to take you to Hastings Street in Detroit, you’ll get a good view of I-75, also known as the Chrysler Freeway. That’s because Hastings Street fell victim to “urban renewal” in the 1960s, and as in Black neighborhoods in cities across the country, it was demolished to put a freeway through the city’s heart.

In the 1940s, Hastings Street was the main street in the neighborhood known as Black Bottom. Black settlement had followed Jewish settlement, in a pattern that would cause friction throughout Detroit’s history. The Detroit Historical Society has a brief history of the Black Bottom neighborhood, and also a good view of a commercial corner at the time Motor City at War takes place.