Photos by Maria n Krzyzo

Chene Street History Project

at U-M probes cultural roots

of immigrant Detroit

neighborhood.

KAREN SCHWARTZ
Special to the Jewish News

Ann Arbor
or Royal Oak resident Erwin Bloch, the
memories come flooding back. He
remembers growing up in Detroit, living
above the shoe store his father owned and
facing the challenges of being Jewish in the 1920s
and 1930s on Chene Street.
Chene Street is the focus of a research project
conducted by the University of Michigan, and
Bloch is one of the many individuals whose memo-
ries of the area will contribute to the Chene Street
History Project research.
Another is Leonard Raimi, whose father founded
Central Stores on Chene Street. His father, Sam,
went back to Poland in the 1930s to try and con-
vince family members to come to the U.S. because
he feared Hitler's growing power. Most of his gener-
ation remained, but he did bring over a dozen or so
of the younger generation, who worked in his store.
The current Sam Raimi, son of Leonard and grand-
son of the founder, directed the hit movie Spider-
Man.
Principle investigator for the history project,
which started at the end of September 2002, is
Marian Krzyzowski, director of the Business and
Industrial Assistance Division of the U-M business
school. Krzyzowski grew up in the Chene Street
neighborhood in the 1950s and started the project
with an eye to the community's historical signifi-

F

Benjamin Pearlman checks the Chene Street neighborhood map.

cance.
"It's a microcosm of urban America in
the. 20th century," he said. "By under-
standing what happened here and why it
happened, we will have some insight into
other communities in the United States,
other cities, other urban areas, and it will
give us a context for what to do for revital-
ization."
At one time, Chene Street, which
stretched from the river to East Grand
Boulevard, was vibrant. People were out
on the streets; stores were everywhere.
Farmers-and vendors sold live poultry and
produce. Now, Krzyzowski says, the area
has the lowest population density in the
city.
"It's not like you're starting with noth-
ing; this place had meaning and it had
economic vitality, Krzyzowski said. It
Amanda Plisner is among the student project workers.
was the place where hundreds of thousands
of people developed their sense of being an
cially interested in Jewish immigration to the area.
American and launched their families — the Poles,
He feels tied to his research partly because his family
the East European Jews, the Italians, the African
—
especially his grandparents, Holocaust survivors
Americans. This was the center of the automotive
who
immigrated to New York after World War II.
industry, now it's nothing ... it's just a lot of aban-
"I'm interested in it because a lot of the people
doned buildings."
we'd be interviewing are people who could have
been in the concentration camps with my grandpar-
ents," he said. "When I'm interviewing these people,
Jewish Roots
URBAN LEGACY on page 36
Benjamin Pearlman, 20, is one of the U-M students
working with Krzyzowski on the project. He's espe-

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