Michigan Street adjacent to downtown
Michigan Street was a steep hill ending at Monroe Avenue. The neighborhood business district ended at Barclay/Coit just before Butterworth Hospital. On the NW corner of Coit Avenue and Michigan Street were some fine homes including the one owned by the Goetz family who owned the German Brewery. The brewery was closed when I was a child but I was amazed that Alcoholics were housed there, police cars were stored there and the police department was right next door on Crescent St.
As a child, I thought this was a real castle! Michigan Street is to the right and Ionia to the left. Now the site of State of Michigan building, a hunk of concrete.
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This shows the police department on Crescent Street which was adjacent
to the brewery.
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Bridge Street adjacent to downtown
The West Side was the working class.
This photo shows an overhead view westward across the
bridge..
There are many working class hotels above the main floor stores intermingled
with factories and churches. Bridge Street would be renamed Michigan east of
Monroe Avenue.
This overhead view is looking easterly from around Mt. Vernon Avenue postmarked 1912.
Looking east
This view is more close up near Mt. Vernon.
Michigan at Monroe
This view is from just west of Monroe. The big red hotel was the Hermitage now the site of the Grand Rapids Press. The hotel across the street is the fomer Olds Manor/Manger Rowe Hotel which still exists but is vacant. The buildings on the right side were mostly small shops on the first floor and working class hotels above. The brewery with the tall smoke stack can be seen on the right with the steeple of Lutheran Church just peeking out beyond. It is postmarked 1910.
This postcard is looking north towards Bridge Street bridge. Postmarked 1907
This postcard shows the ice jam at the same bridge in 1907. The view is towards the west as St. Mary's German Catholic Church is shown. This area of the city was German Town destroyed when the freeway went through about 1965. Postmarked 1907
This next series of postcards show different views of the Grand Trunk Terminal which is in front of one of the Berkey Gay Furniture Factories and next to a flour mill. Now the site of the US Post Office. .
Clearly shows German Town of the west side of the river which still existed when I was a child.
From article Downtown
From Heading History and the City of GrandRapids
From web site: MyCityofGrandRapids.info