This is one of Detroit’s smaller but most attractive historic districts. It now faces an appealing green urban park bounded by East Kirby, Brush, Beaubien, and Frederick Douglas. In the middle to late Nineteenth Century, this area was included in the farms that the D. M. Ferry firm used to produce their seeds. It was plotted for residential use in 1886 and the street was named for George Kirby, a Detroit leather goods merchant. Presumably, he either invested in the development of this area or had a home constructed for his family nearby.
East Kirby and the neighboring streets were
prestigious locations for Detroit residents in the early Twentieth Century,
but may have lost some of their status
ranking after 1910 when the Boston-Edison
neighborhood became one of the cities
most elegant. Shortly thereafter, the East Kirby neighborhood became open to
Jewish residents who moved northwest along Beaubien, Hastings and parallel
streets. The n
eighborhood underwent a racial change beginning in the 1930s.
The growth of a large and prosperous black population in the 1920s generated
considerable wealth in the African-American community and some of those families
moved into the prestigious homes on and near East Kirby. Indeed, by the late
1930s, the Victorian houses in this area were home to many of the city’s
most financially successful black families. A leading black hospital, Dunbar
Hospital,
was just a block away and Lewis College—Michigan’s
only Historically Black College or University—was located a couple
of blocks in the other direction.
The two-story, two-family flats that you see along East Kirby were built just before World War I in the prairie style. Jacob B. Laskey—cigar maker—who eventually lived in the one at 433 East Kirby was one of the founders the Hebrew Free Loan Association of Detroit. Free Loan societies developed in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries in cities that had large populations of impoverished Jewish immigrants. I believe that only two United States cities had Free Loan Societies prior to Detroit: Pittsburgh and New York. Prosperous Jews donated to a pool of funds that were then loaned in very small amounts to the poor, enabling them to pay their bills or to secure the tools they needed for their trades. No interest was charged, but borrowers sometimes posted collateral such as jewelry.
Two presidents of the
United States served as presidents of professional baseball teams before
taking up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: George W. Bush who led
the Texas Rangers and Warren Gamaliel Harding who owned the minor league
team in his home town of Marion, Ohio. Elected in 1920, Warren Harding died
suddenly
of a heart attack on August 2, 1923 while still quite popular and with some
of his reputation intact. Herman W. Boers who lived at that time at 443 East
Kirby led the national effort to have the Postal Service issue a stamp commemorating
the achievements of President Warren Harding during his brief term. The Postal
Service moved rapidly and a stamp honoring the 29th president was issued in
the year of his death.
The apartment building
at the corner of East Kirby and Beaubien was opened in 1927 as Great Lakes
Manor, a building designed
intended for Detroit’s
s
ilk stocking market. By the late 1920s, a black economic elite had developed
in Detroit, individuals whose income was derived from funeral homes, retail
trade, entertainment, cab companies, preaching, professional services—especially
law and medicine—and from the numbers industry. In 1935, a number of blacks
from that group purchased properties on and near the East Kirby Historic District.
The Great Lakes Mutual Insurance Company was founded in 1926 by Bill Mosley and Charles Roxborough to serve black customers. Mosley owned the largest black newspaper in the city at that time, Detroit Tribune Independent, owned the controlling interest in a funeral home and one-half of the large black taxicab company. However, his major source of income may have been from numbers. In 1935, the Great Lakes Mutual firm purchased Great Lakes Manor. Charles Roxborough moved there. Members of the black financial elite had been active in the city’s Republican Party since about 1925. Charles Roxborough was elected to the State Senate in 1930 and was a Republican candidate for Congress in 1934, 1936 and 1938. However, he lost those elections and Detroit did not have a black representative in Congress until Charles Diggs was elected in 1954. Charles Roxborough’s brother, John, was well-know as the individual who recognized the exceptional talents of Joe Lewis when he first participated in the Golden Gloves fights in Detroit. John Roxborough served as Joe Lewis’ manager or co-manager throughout his career. .
City of Detroit Designated Historic District: Listed July 17, 1992
State of Michigan Registry of Historic Sites: Not listed
National Register of Historic Sites: Not listed
Use in 2007: Residences
Photograph: Ren Farley, November 1, 2007
Description prepared: November, 2007