If you can't save a Boston Edison home, how can you save Detroit?
The Wall Street Journal decides to tell the story of 1626 W. Boston Blvd. to epitomize how the housing market has risen and nosedived in Detroit. What makes this story even sadder is that the house is located in the Boston Edison district, at one time considered a fairly stable and prosperous neighborhood.
Michael Phillips chronicles how the neighborhood and house were pioneered by a political and automotive money man, Truman Newberry. The parcel and house are sold to a teacher who soon gets a job with Ford Motor Co.; a personal assistant to Edsel Ford; a school teacher; a black family with ties to the auto industry and plumbing; a Detroit police officer; and a woman who claimed to buy the house for her father through a subprime loan -- and didn't reside or keep up the place.
Bottom line: This house that was sold for $250,000 in 2005 gets foreclosed and is bought by a nonprofit group for $10,000.
It turns out that 100 of the 900 homes in the Boston Edison neighborhood are unoccupied. This leads to the devastating denouement of the piece:
"If you can't save 1626 W. Boston Blvd., (Central Detroit Christian Community Development Corp. Executive Director Lisa) Johanon wondered aloud, what hope is there for the rest of Detroit?"
