The following history is sourced from the Wikipedia article on Lafayette Park, Detroit.
Buildings and developments
Lafayette Park is principally composed of two superblocks, which combine low- and high-density housing, in the manner favored by the Federal Housing Administration after World War II.
The first phase, formerly known as the Gratiot Redevelopment, was bounded by Hastings Street (later the Chrysler Freeway and, ultimately, the I-375), Gratiot Avenue, Orleans Street, and Lafayette Street. The developments in this section include:
The Pavilion Apartments (Mies van der Rohe, 1959)
Mies Van der Rohe Townhouses (Mies, 1959)
Walter Chrysler Elementary School (Gould, Moss and Joseph, 1963)
Lafayette Towers (Mies, 1963)
Towers Shopping Center (King and Lewis, 1963)
Four Freedoms House (John Hans Graham, 1965)
Cherboneau Place North and South (1962-1965)
Chateaufort Cooperative (1965-1967)
Regency Square Apartments (Joseph Savin, 1965) -Now Parc Lafayette
The second phase, formerly known as the Lafayette Extension, is to the south, bounded by The I-375, Lafayette, Orleans Street, and Jefferson Avenue. The original developments in this portion include:
1300 Lafayette East (Gunnar Birkerts, 1964)
Central Park Plaza Apartments (Originally known as Central Park Plaza, Giffels and Rossetti, 1963)
Rochdale Court Apartments (1964-1967, demolished 2002)
Navarre Place Townhouses (Hausner and Macsai, 1965 and 1969)
Jean Rivard Apartments (Pastor-Fonsville, 1967)
In 1963, considerable confusion was eliminated when the two phases, along with prior contained (and overlapping) developments variously called the Gratiot-Orleans Development Area, Lafayette Plaisance, and Lafayette Park-University City, were consolidated by the Lafayette Park Development Association, under the name of "Lafayette Park."
A greenway runs through the center of the entire development, beginning at Gratiot and continuing to the two blocks to the South, and is known as Lafayette Plaisance (between Gratiot and Lafayette), Lafayette Central Park (between Lafayette and Larned), and Lafayette Entry Park (between Larned and Jefferson). From 1960 onward, both of the superblocks became known as simply Lafayette Park. The conventional city block between Larned and Jefferson also contained two of the indigenous buildings that survived the clearcutting (the University Club and the Somerset Apartments) and several pre-renewal commercial buildings and one church line Gratiot to the north.
The development also borders on the Dequindre Cut Greenway, a rail-to-trail redevelopment following below Orleans Street.
Although Lafayette Park is most commonly identified with van der Rohe, Gunnar Birkerts and John Macsai played significant roles in the south half of the neighborhood.
Urban renewal
Several factors came together to create the urban renewal zone that later became Lafayette Park. Firstly, FHA policies following World War II promoted aggressive "slum clearance," under the Housing Act of 1949, providing up to half of demolition costs on projects that often impacted African-American neighborhoods. Secondly, Detroit had been completely built out and lacked land that could be developed, which limited property tax revenue. Thirdly, Walter Reuther, of the United Auto Workers, had made the development of mixed-income housing a priority.
Demise of Black Bottom
The selection of this site operated to the detriment of Detroit's Black Bottom, the center of Detroit's African-American population, which featured a vibrant commercial district on Hastings Avenue. The zone, long named for its rich black topsoil, had previously been inhabited by various immigrant groups over the ages. In addition to the practice of targeting African-American neighborhoods for urban renewal, the neighborhood was also deemed suitable for redevelopment because it had a very high proportion of renters and very low property tax revenue.
Beginning in 1948, the Citizens Redevelopment Corporation was formed and began to acquire and demolish property in the Gratiot Redevelopment. Many of the original residents were relocated to the north and west. By the end of the final acquisitions, in 1967, 78 acres had been cleared.
The success of the project in increasing tax revenue was such that the city engaged a similar program in Corktown, leveling much of a neighborhood of frame houses in favor of industrial property. The process also repeated in the areas now inhabited by Blue Cross and Blue Shield, DTE Energy and the MGM Casino, Wayne State University, and the Detroit Medical Center, all of which were urban renewal zones.
