Since high school, one of my favorite past times has been driving around neighborhoods and looking at gorgeous pieces of architecture. Whether I was driving through Grosse Isle and Monroe in high school, or driving around Saratoga Springs and University District in college, I have always found these drives to be the most relaxing time of my day.

At the beginning of this year, the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself and lucky for me the Michigan Historic Preservation Network (MHPN) and Preservation Detroit came together to tackle the huge task of cataloging historic properties in the city of Detroit.

These two groups began working with the Blight Task Force, whose task is to determine what structures will be torn down in Detroit with the assistance of the “Hardest Hit Funds,” as an attempt to prevent historically significant structures from being torn down during the blight elimination process. As a result, they called out to volunteers to help them survey 19,000 potential historic properties throughout six selected neighborhoods in the city.

Given my architecture background and love of meandering around staring at houses, I was quick to jump on the opportunity to not only help gather data, but to also get to explore some of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the city!!

After a detailed training session about historic architectural integrity, MHPN and Preservation Detroit let me and a handful of other volunteers [including some of my other Fellows – Anna, Sami, Meiyi, Miguel, Rosie and Katie] on the loose to start our surveys.

Out of the six neighborhoods selected for surveying, I was able to survey Morningside and Southwest Detroit. While driving through these neighborhoods, it struck me as to just how different, architecturally, each neighborhood was and how the houses reflected not only the present character, but also the history of each neighborhood.

For example, Morningside was full of two story brick homes, ranging from Colonial to Tudor Cottages, each one modestly spaced apart for comfort, originally occupied by a predominantly middle class population on the fringe of the Grosse Pointe neighborhood. At the same time, Southwest Detroit was full of two story wood framed homes, packed tightly together occupied by mostly blue-collar and immigrant families. The nature of the materials in Southwest relates to the fact that as a predominantly immigrant neighborhood, the wood frame home was only intended to lend itself as a transition point before moving on to a more permanent structure and lifestyle.

Now, with this newly expanded fascination on how and why the neighborhoods in Detroit are so different, I have decided that, starting in February, my blogs will start to highlight the unheard neighborhoods of Detroit and why they are so important in helping to preserve not only the physical presence of the city but also the essence of of Detroit.

So make sure to stay tuned for next time, when I will be highlighting my neighborhood – Brush Park!

**UPDATE** 3/3/14

Check out the latest article about the great work that was done during the surveying!