Southfield At 50
ON THE COVER
Northwest(ern)Iy from page A18
ff$1113014TZ'S
Sunday May 11th • 10am - 3pm
Omelette Station • Belgium Waffles
Bacon • Sausage • Muffins & Croissants
Diced Potatoes • Salad Station
Carving Station • Smoked Salmon
Shrimp • Jambalaya • Mashed Potatoes
Baked Chicken • Ribs • Red Beans & Rice
Catfish Beignets • Dessert Table
ri.$11itand$ Strtithfield
29244 Northwestern Hwy.
Southfield, MI 48034
ph: (248) 351-2925
fx: (248) 351-2919
Mother's Day Brunch is also available
at our Greektown location.
ishbone's eireektovrn
400 Monroe St
Detroit, MI 48226
ph: (313) 965-4600
fx: (313) 962-2424
in the southeast part of town and in
the Lahser-11 Mile area. Conservative
Congregation Shaarey Zedek has been
a presence in Southfield for the past
46 years, and it has no plans to uproot.
Federation's Neighborhood Project
from 1986-2003 gave interest-free
loans for Jews to move into Southfield
and Oak Park and created an influx of
new people.
Although most younger families
have settled to the northwest, thou-
sands of empty-nesters have remained
in the homes they have lived in for the
past half-century. In addition, many
retirees from other suburbs now reside
in several popular senior citizen facili-
ties in Southfield.
April 24 • 2008
Alan Hitsky has been a resident of
Southfield since 1983. JN Senior Copy
Editor David Sachs, a Southfield resident
since 1993, contributed to this essay.
Nothing Stays
The Same
0
n a summer morning in
the early 1950s, as we were
passing Eight
Mile Road from Detroit
to spend a day at faraway
Dodge Park on Cass Lake
in Oakland County, I saw
a tower with a large H on
it in an immense, open
field.
I asked my father what
was going in there. He
told me it would be the
new Hudson's. I thought
he meant the auto com-
pany. I couldn't conceive
of the big store downtown
opening way out there in the wilds of
Southfield Township.
From this first view of what
would soon become the landmark
of Northland, I also couldn't have
guessed that I would live in Southfield
for 30 years, buy my first house there
and raise a family.
How perspectives change. When my
parents built a home in the Beacon
Square subdivision in 1967, it seemed
as if they had moved to the steppes
of Central Asia. The wind blew dust
down treeless streets. All the neigh-
boring roads were narrow, two-lane.
The malls were still a few years away.
When I took some friends from the
Detroit Free Press out to the house,
Nothing Stays The Same
A20
We have a story in this Southfield
At 50 section (on page A17) about
young Jews coming back to Southfield.
With the price of gasoline skyrocket-
ing, older suburbs may reclaim the
allure they once held for young Jewish
families. But given our history and our
penchant for bigger, better and new,
Southfield probably has already seen
its golden age for Detroit's Jewish com-
munity.
The next Southfield? Only time will
tell. 0
they asked me if the authorities had
to make food drops during the winter
and how great the dangers
from wolves might be.
In just a few years, though,
the old Jewish neighborhood
of northwest Detroit was
transported 10 miles or so to
the northwest and reconstitut-
ed here. It was as if the genie
from a magical lamp had lifted
it up whole and plopped it
down again.
The stores, the delis, the
kosher butchers, the bakeries
that once lined Seven Mile and
Wyoming were now on 10 Mile
and Southfield roads. The tight little
Jewish world that I had grown up in at
Roosevelt Elementary and Mumford
High was back in business.
But it was different, too. Even the
way the houses were built, with the
garage extending out past the front
door, marked the change. It was a
measure of the rising prosperity of the
community in the late '50s and '60s:
bigger lots, a second car, central air, a
family room instead of a den.
While Beacon Square was named
after a historic part of Boston, it actu-
ally was a beacon of another sort. It
shone out the message that things
were good and getting better. As did
Twickingham, Sharon Meadows,
on page A26