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Friday, June 29, 1984

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

BY TEDD SCHNEIDER

Staff Writer

B

efore Judy Harris even
opens the door, visitors are
greeted by the imposing
glass and steel tower of the
Westin Hotel at Renaissance Center,
which dominates the view from her
front porch. But then, a 73-story
skyscraper just down the street and
around the corner from your host's
driveway is usually a little hard to
overlook.
Ms. Harris is one of the dozens of
Detroit-area Jewish professionals
and academics who have decided to
settle amid the familiar buildings
and established neighborhoods of the
nation's sixth largest city, rather
than the trendy shopping malls and

has reached nearly all-inclusive
proportions.
Of the 65,000-70,000 Jews cur-
rently living in.the metropolitan De-
troit area, approximately 2,000 re-
side within the Detroit city limits,
according to Alan Kandel, of the
Jewish Welfare Federation's De-
partment of Budgeting and Plan-
ning. As recently as 1964, when there
were some 80,000 Jews living in the
metro area, more than 50 percent
lived in Detroit, Kandel said.
Many of the Jewish people living
downtown or in adjacent areas such
as the New Center or Indian Village
are native Detroiters. But some
never really had a taste of big-city

heart of the city rather than join the
flight to the suburbs.
Lafayette Park, conceived in the
early 1960s to entice families to move
into the downtown Detroit area, in-
cludes two high-rise apartment
buildings and a series of townhouses.
The complex is the work of German
architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
(Seagrams Building, New York).
Although they are 20-years-old
and not quite as energy-efficient as
they might be, the townhouses are
"extremely functional and well
built," according to Ms. Harris. In
contrast to the often cold, impersonal
concrete business district in which
they are situated, each townhouse
features an immaculately-
' landscaped patio and garden in the
back.
"Working in the city was an im-
portant factor in our decision to live
down here," according to Harold
Gurewitz, who, along with his wife,
Mary Ellen and his three-and-a-
half-year-old son, moved to Lafayette
Park in the early 1970s. "But we're

also both very much committed to liv-
ing in the city for other reasons. This
city has a lot to offer, it's a friendly,
diverse -environment in which to
live."
The Gurewitzes, both practicing
attorneys, often take advantage of
the cultural and entertainment op-
tions that are now at their fingertips,
something "I think we wouldn't do
nearly as much if we lived in the sub-
urbs," Gurewitz freely admitted. In
fact, for many of those living down-
town and in the surrounding
neighborhood, the commercial de-
velopment of the area . undertaken in
recent years with the hope of attract-
ing suburban people back into the
city on weekends and at' night has
proven to be an added bonus. Going to
Greektown for dinner, taking their
children to Belle Isle for picnics and
attending downtown sporting events
and concerts have become regular
habits, not just special, once or
twice-a-year activities. And prob-
lems such as parking or heading
home through snarled traffic can be

Myron Steinberg: "It's just too bad that so many suburban people choose to remain
ignorant about life in this city and all the things it offers."

nascent subdivisions of the northern
suburbs.
The term is "urban-
contemporary," and it is fast on its
way to becoming a modern cliche.
Yet, it still best describes those now
making their homes in Lafayette
Park, Indian Village, the Trolley
Plaza apartments or the just-opened
Riverfront West complex. They are
attracted by the cosmopolitan setting
and gster pace of life in the down-
town area. The convenience of living
in the same neighborhood in which
they are employed is often, but not
always, an added incentive.
Unfortunately, while it is true
that new construction and the prom-
ise of a revitalized downtown have
prevented a stalwart group of Jews
from leaving the city and even con-
vinced a few to return, it would ap-
pear that such people are bucking a
long-established trend. The exodus
that began with the suburban boom
of the 1950s and picked up steam fol-
lowing the racial unrest of the 1960s

life until they lived elsewhere.
"Growing up in northwest Detroit,
although inside the city limits, is not
a particularly urban setting," Ms.
Harris said, admitting that it was not
until she left Detroit, to attend New
York University, that she developed
a taste or the style of life found in a
major urban center.
"I really enjoyed my years in
New York and felt that I would be
happiest in as urban a setting as De-
troit had to offer."
Ms. Harris' desire for an urban
lifestyle led her to Lafayette Park, a
residential complex located just east
of the downtown business district.
Single at the time, and newly em-
ployed at Hudson's corporate head-
quarters, she rented an apartment in
Lafayette Towers. Later, after get-
ting married and deciding to start a
family, she and her husband moved
to a townhouse in the same complex.
Following the birth of their second
child, the couple moved .to a larger
townhouse, choosing to remain in the

.

Ernest Schwartz, who came to Detroit 12 years ago from rural Pennsylvania,has found life
in a large city can be difficult. The Hungarian immigrant attends services weekly at the -
Downtow4 Syougague on Qrictvaldt ;

e

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