The Way It Was
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The Way It Was β Coleman A. Young’s Oath of Office
1974
A half-century ago on Jan. 2, former state Sen. Coleman A. Young was administered the oath of office as Detroitβs first Black mayor by...
The Way It Was β Christmas at Hudson’s
1952
Five-year-old Skip Shaw was one of thousands of children over several generations who would relish cherished memories of meeting Santa Claus in the 12th-floor...
The Way It Was β Civil War Veterans Marching at Campus Martius
1891
Although Veterans Day has long been observed on Nov. 11, an earlier significant acknowledgment of the sacrifices of military personnel began at the end...
The Way It Was β Charlie Chaplin at Michigan Central Station
1923
On Oct. 15, 1923, world-renowned silent-film star Charlie Chaplin made a whirlwind visit to the Motor City, arriving at Michigan Central Station to...
The Way It Was β Iconic Detroit Athletes
1963
Sixty years ago, on Sept. 8, The Detroit News published a cover story in its Sunday pictorial magazine that featured these future Hall of...
The Way It Was β Eastern Market
1937 For 132 years, farmers like the ones shown here on Aug. 14, 1937, working tirelessly at the crack of dawn, have hauled tons...
The Way It Was β Suwanee Steamboat
1958 For several decades, a favorite summer pastime for visitors at Greenfield Village in Dearborn was taking a ride on the Suwanee steamboat that...
The Way It Was β Navin Field
Of all the visitors who came to Detroit in the first half of the 20th century, perhaps none was more famous than the New...
The Way It Was β Trumbull General Hospital, 1967
The medical center opened in the 1940s and was one of several area hospitals that cared for Black patients then
The Way It Was β General Motors Co. Headquarters
1923One hundred years ago, General Motors Co. completed construction on its massive 15-story headquarters on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. It soon became an...
The Way It Was βΜύHighland Park Market
1933 In the late 1800s,ΜύSyrian and Lebanese merchants began slowly filtering into Detroit. By theΜύend of the Roaring Twenties, thousands of immigrants from Arabic...
The Way It Was β The Detroit Pistons at Olympia Stadium
1958 Sometimes sharing a space with another tenant just isnβt easy.ΜύFor their first four seasons after moving from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Detroit in...
The Way It Was β Rosa Parks and a Friend at The Detroit Zoo
1948Μύ A few of Southeast Michigan's cultural institutions have proven than the 125-acre Detroit Zoo in Royal Oak, which opened 95 years ago. One...
The Way It Was βΜύQueen Elizabeth II On The Detroit River
1951Μύ She reigned as the United Kingdom's Monarch for so long that itβs hard to think of her title as anything other than Her...
The Way It Was: Christmas Shopping in Downtown Detroit
1952ΜύIn today's mercantile world of Amazon, Wayfair, eBay, and other e-tailers, itβs easy to forget that shopping once meant a sensory experience, not just...
