Lincoln Park

New link added to 50-mile Downriver Greenway

By Newsroom

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March 3, 2011

$800,000 in grants will pay for the latest link in a trail, which when completed, will be the largest greenway connector of Metroparks in Southeast Michigan. How long? Fifty miles! The grants are earmarked for a 4-mile link to connect 24 miles of trails from Huron Park in Flat Rock to Oakwoods Metropark on the border of Belleville, making the entire Downriver Greenway a 50-mile path. The trail will take outdoor enthusiasts through trees, by waters, across open land, and more."It's huge. It traverses communities, historic areas, natural resources," Twardesky says. "People can use it to commute to work, schools, recreational facilities," says Anita Twardesky, co-chair of the Downriver Linked Greenways Initiative, a consortium of groups that have worked for at least a decade on projects from a vision to lay a continuous trail from the Detroit on the Detroit River DLGI.More than being a nature-rich spot for walking, running, kayaking, fishing and more, the trail could draw visitors from around and outside the state, Twardesky says."Through these greenways we are starting to reinvent our region and look at it as a tourist opportunity," Twardesky says. "Basically from the City of Detroit, down to Monroe over I-275 I consider a hidden jewel within the state. There are lotus beds, sturgeon spawning in the Detroit river. History, Henry Ford's village in Flat Rock, the building of the Edmund Fitzgerald."Making it possible are grants to the City of Flat Rock from the Michigan Department of Transportation and the Department of Natural Resources Trust Fund to the City of Flat Rock. The longer-term goal is to connect the Downriver system of trails to Monroe and, finally and eventually, Toledo. The newest link fulfills a dream of Metroparks planners going back to the 1940s for the park system to be linked. DLGI Co-Chair Mary Bohlng, a Michigan Sea Grant educator, and a number of nonprofits and governmental bodies have worked for at least a decade on creating the system."In just over 10 years, the Downriver community has come together to provide its residents with an impressive network of greenway trails," Congressman John D. Dingell says in a statement announcing the grants. "These trails greatly improve the quality of life in the region by providing a means of transportation and an outdoor recreational activity."Source: Anita Twardesky, co-chair of the Downriver Linked Greenways Initiative and public relations and marketing manager for Riverside Kayak Writer: Kim North Shine

Lincoln Park writes final chapter for Mellus building

By Newsroom

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Arts and Culture

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May 20, 2010

She adds that the only parts she saw recycled or reused were a brick she took home and a piece of galvanized pipe she saw the demolition contractor load into his pick-up truck. The rest went off to a local landfill in a handful of semi-trucks. She points out that a number of the historic interior fixtures, its metal panels, windows, and an Arts & Crafts-style interior door could have easily been saved to help restore other similar buildings, but local officials did nothing."The city is 30 years behind the times," Lynch-Wilson says. "They don't think about these things."City officials originally talked about turning the Fort Street property into a parking lot, but then promised to build a pocket park or green space there when the controversy over tearing down the structure hit its peak. Lynch-Wilson says no architectural plans for a park have been produced, no money has been set aside, no one has stepped up publicly to spearhead the project, and local officials are starting to talk about a parking lot again even though there is a sea of parking in front of and behind the buildings left on that block. "They're talking about laying off 18 police officers this year," Lynch-Wilson says. "No one has money at the city and everybody knows it."The city is now looking at tearing down what Lynch-Wilson calls one of the few brick Victorian buildings in the city, even though it is still privately owned. She says the vacant house at 1132 Lafayette Street is listed as built in 1922 but she believes it dates from between 1890 and 1905 and was moved to its current location when the neighborhood was subdivided from farmland in the early 1920s. A public hearing on its proposed demolition is set for June 21."It's one of the two brick Victorian homes of that period that we have left," Lynch-Wilson says.Source: Leslie Lynch-Wilson, president of the Lincoln Park Preservation AllianceWriter: Jon Zemke

Community Spotlight: Lincoln Park

By Pat Dostine

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Community Development

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April 30, 2010

Lincoln Park is 85 years old. Going back to the late 1700s, what is now Lincoln Park was then a series of ribbon farms, long narrow tracts of land that typically began at the banks of the Detroit and Rouge Rivers and ran inland for miles. The farms were primarily French-owned, which explains many of the French-named streets in modern Lincoln Park. Leaping forward a century and a half, Lincoln Park, like many of the cities in the area, experienced explosive growth in housing and retail and commercial because of the rise of the automobile and manufacturing.