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JEWISH CONNECTION
ernice Handler was
convinced 1-696
would be routed
along Lincoln Road
when she purchased
a vacant 3/4-acre piece
of property in 1955
near 11 Mile and
Greenfield in South-
field.
One day she would
build her dream
house on it.
But that dream
died a few months
later when state and
federal highway of-
ficials announced
that the remaining
9.1-mile link of Mich-
igan's east-west highway would pass through
her property.
As she waited 30 years for the state to con-
demn the property, Handler was in a
quandery. She couldn't get building permits
from the city; no one wanted to buy the land
in the path of a proposed highway; she was
forced to pay taxes on a piece of property
which she felt was worthless.
"I couldn't do anything with it," Handler
said. "I had a vacant lot which would never be
a home."
As did the estimated thousands of other
Jewish residents who lived in Oak Park,
Southfield and Huntington Woods along the
course of the superhighway, and just as offi-
cials did for the Jewish institutions in
Oak Park that lost land for the road,
Handler sought 'legal advice.
She turned to Fred Steinhardt, a
Jewish attorney whose business for
21 years was inundated with freeway
condemnation cases. Among his
clients were Handler, hundreds of
Jewish homeowners and developers,
Congregation B'nai Moshe, Temple
Emanu-El and the Jimmy Prentis
Morris branch of the Jewish Com-
munity Center.
Handler walked away with $15,000
from the state. Although it sounds
like a lot of money, when she con-
siders the 30 years of taxes she had
to pay on the property, it isn't that
much.
"Money was never an issue," she said.
The bureaucratic red tape, court battles, ex-
cess time and countless headaches made the
the highway — today touted as a timesaving
lifesaver for the community — costly for
anyone who was in its path.
Jewish
homeowners,
synagogues and
institutions lost
land at the cost
of progress.
SUSAN GRANT
Staff Writer
MORRIS SHULTZ, 68,
Southfield retired auto
parts store owner. "It's a
good thing for the area.
We've needed it a long
time. I live on 11 Mile right
near the freeway and I'm
happy to see it come to
an end. During
construction, you could
feel vibrations shaking the
house."
is
•
8.
I= mil —. — —
"The emotional cost of this project is in-
calculable," Steinhardt said.
For years, property values along the freeway
route were effectively frozen, Steinhardt said.
Those people living in the freeway path had
trouble selling their homes.
Steinhardt estimated that 40 percent of the
700 property owners in the freeway path from
Interstate 75 to Lahser Road were Jewish. In
Oak Park, where about 40 percent of the
population is Jewish, 195 parcels
along 10 Mile Road, Coolidge, Wales,
Gardner, Keno.sha and other streets
were condemned. The homes and
apartments were flattened to make
room for progress.
Steinhardt is not modest about his
knowledge of the last remaining link
of the 28.3-mile freeway. His wisdom
is learned from years of first-hand
progress.
He has lived most of his life in the
metropolitan Detroit area, yet
Steinhardt never spent much time
thinking about this freeway. Then one day in
the late 1960s, his boss, Sam Travis, a con-
demnation attorney working on cases for
1-696, died, leaving the cases in Steinhardt's
hands.
Ever since, Steinhardt has devoted a good
portion of his time to the highway, including
work for three Jewish institutions along 10
Mile Road that were affected by the oncoming
freeway since the project was first announced
in 1955.
In the last five years, Steinhardt estimates
he has spent 5,000 hours on 1-696, billing most
and doing some work on a pro bono basis.
FRED STEINHARDT: Many
took his legal advice.
JEWISH INSTITUTIONS
LOST LAND
Soon after the highway was proposed, the
Jimmy Prentis Morris Jewish Community
Center was constructed in Oak Park. At the
same time, Temple Emanu-El, then a new con-
gregation, decided to build next door.
Leaders of the two institutions felt confident
the freeway would run along 10 Mile Road and
accordingly placed their buildings about 500
feet away from the street.
B'nai Moshe leaders planned differently.
When they decided to move the congregation
from Detroit to Oak Park' in thelate 1950s, its
designers placed the congregation closer to 10
Mile Road. B'nai Moshe hoped the freeway
would run behind the facility.
B'nai Moshe's prediction was accurate.
When the freeway route was finally estab-
lished in 1969, it was north of 10 Mile Road.
The announcement left Temple Emanu-El and
the JCC with about six acres of vacant land
along 10 Mile Road.
Jewish Federation Apartments built senior
President Richard Nixon
resigns.
Orthodox Coalition starts
working.
Iran takes over U.S.
Embassy.
1974
1979
1979
))
4
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
31