The Corktown Neighborhood Tour in 31 photos

The annual Corktown Neighborhood Tour was held in early June and featured duplexes, single-family homes, a church, a hostel, and more. Our photographers Michelle & Chris Gerard joined along on the tour and shared their photos so readers who missed it can see this vibrant, historic neighborhood. Many thanks to the Corktown Historical Society for providing the information on all the stops.

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The first stop is the Finlay Duplex on Wabash, which dates back to 1903. The property was owned by Civil War veteran Horace Forsdick, who quit-claimed the property to his daughter. A house was torn down and this duplex was built in its place. From the back, you can see the Roosevelt Hotel and Michigan Central Station.

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The Girvin & Sarah Irwin House at 1832 Church Street was recently slated for demo. A couple is now in the process of restoring the home. The house dates back to 1897.

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The Thomas & Mary Jewett House on Leverette was built shortly after 1858 and is one of five remaining Federal-style row houses in the city, with four of them in Corktown.

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The next few stops visited some public locations. The Bagley-Trumbull Market renovatations were completed last year and even though the construction date is unknown, records indicate a grocer in that location in 1877.

The Workers’ Row House on Sixth Street has three units that would have housed families and it appeared on a city map in 1853, although the exact date of construction isn’t known.

Next door, the Most Holy Trinity Church was originally a wood structure on Michigan and Bates downtown, and was moved to this location in 1849. That one was demolished and this brick church was built shortly thereafter and designed by Patrick C. Keely.

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The tour then crossed over 75 into North Corktown. The Anna Sweeney Confectionary, built in 1914, has been known as Hostel Detroit since 2011. Miss Anna Sweeney had a ground-floor retail space for her sweet shop and lived in one of the upstairs apartments with her sister, Nellie.

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Spaulding Terrace was built in 1913 and have two rows of ten apartments. They were vacant and blighted until a non-profit now called Friends of Spaulding Court purchased them in 2010. They’re in the process of renovating the units.

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Historic in a different way, the tour stopped at the shipping container houses on Trumbull, built by Three Squared Inc. The company is planning on adding more units in Midtown and North Corktown.