Great photo of dear old Flint. Chevy in the Hole is front and center. Michigan School for the Deaf is lower left with the Crescent Drive mini neighborhood and park in front of it. Atwood, with a baseball diamond, is at the far right roughly in line with Chevy in the Hole. The big field just above Chevy is the park behind Durant-Turri-Mott Elementary, with Ballenger Park above it. You can spot Dupont Street, follow it up to Welch Blvd., take a left and it wraps around to Clio Rd., which runs off the top of the map. Those with good eyes can identify the big fields that form Bassett Park, Haskell Community Center, and nearby Civic Park School.
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JWilly has a question:
Up to the fifties, there was a dairy on the north side of Dayton Street, east of Dupont. In my recollection, it was a dark brick single-story building, at least for the frontage on Dayton. I think it was either Pure-Seal or Sealtest. I think I recall it having a lunch counter. Anyone have any photos or recollections?
This intersection was one of the most shocking when I was in Flint this summer. It didn't help that there was a power outage and none of the streetlights was working that day.
I was headed to my old street — Bassett Place — when I passed the stop at Dupont and Hamilton where I used to wait for the bus to take me to St. Mike's in 1st and 2nd grade. I moved to the other side of the street to take the bus the other direction in high school. All the traffic lights were out the day I took this photo, which made for some exciting driving adventures down memory lane.
BJ has left a new comment on your post "Memories of Civic Park and Sears Kit Houses":
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Rereading this older post reminded me of a cute childhood memory about the Dayton and Dupont St. A&P. They had a great fresh fish counter in 1956 that puts our modern grocery stores to shame. This was before freezing everything was popular so every Saturday afternoon before closing they would reduce that week's leftover Great Lake smelt to 10 cents/pound. By today's cost even the fresh price must have been awesome but I don't remember it. They packaged them in amounts too large for immediate use so my mom allowed me to throw several to a few neighborhood cats along Dayton St. No one had inside cats in 1957, so it didn't take too many Saturday's until the cats caught on and brought all their friends. My mom and I usually led a parade of screaming cats down Dayton St. to our house every Saturday afternoon."
All these memories of Shumaker's reminded me of Schmitzer's Service Station, located on Dupont near Stockdale, not far from Welch Blvd. It seemed like our car was always there when I was growing up. (There was an upholstery shop up the street run by Enoch Washington, if I remember right.) Bob Schmitzer was a great guy who weathered the economic storm and the declining neighborhood into the eighties — I think — before retiring to Florida.
Once, when self-serve was a cheaper option than full service, I rolled into the station with my mom's car and for some reason decided I'd opt for a little luxury and spend my $2 on full service. Mr. Schmitzer came out, took one look at me, shook his head, and basically told me to get my ass over to the self-serve pump. "Save you mom some money," he said.
No idea if there's still a gas station on that corner or not. The satellite image indicates there's still a building standing.
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UPDATE: J.L. comes through with some current information:
"Yes, the gas station is still there, now a Sunoco. Here are two pictures (taken from a former co-worker's Facebook) from that corner taken in 2006; my radio station was doing a gas giveaway. Go here for the first photo. And this is a picture at the corner of Dupont and Stockdale (you can see the street sign)."
View Larger MapUPDATE: Here's the satellite map of Hidden Park, which unbeknownst to me is officially known as Dougherty Park. It's bordered by West Patterson, Milbourne, North Chevrolet and Welch Blvd. It's still listed on the city's official park list, but that doesn't mean much these days in terms of upkeep. Readers confirm there was an entrance on Patterson and another on Chevrolet, which was just a short walk to Welch Blvd. Pharmacy and Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor.
I'll offer up a free, very lightly used, Semi-Pro souvenir headband to anyone foolish, I mean, brave enough to head on over and get some current photos of the park.
ORIGINAL POST: Can anyone provide an exact location on Hidden Park, located somewhere near Welch, Dupont and Patterson? The two entrances were hard to find, and the park itself was small and abutted the back yards of the surrounding houses, pretty much invisible from the street. Better yet, anyone been there lately? I had my first illicit beer there with my pal, Mark Rudolph, who lived on Delmar Street.
