bunnymendelbaum

[nomad100]

bunnymendelbaum
Isn't this the house you posted?
Detroit civil rights symbol Dunbar Hospital going to highest bidder
www.detroitnews.com/article/20140917/METRO01/309170022/Detroit-civil-rights-symbol-Dunbar-Hospital-going-highest-bidder



When it opened in 1919, Dunbar Hospital was a symbol of self-determination and achievement for Detroit’s first black doctors.

Today, it’s up for grabs in the Wayne County tax auction.

Even in this forlorn moment, the building at 580 Frederick reflects a century-old spirit of ambition and resilience. Its Romanesque brick arches, handsome stone porch and other exterior details speak to its proud past, even as boards on some windows attest to neglect and loss.

“It was a really important institution in black Detroit. Today, it’s a physical reminder of the power of segregation and how African-Americans built communities in defiance of that segregation,” says historian Kevin Boyle. The hospital figures in his award-winning book, “Arc of Justice,” a vivid social history about race, Detroit and Dr. Ossian Sweet, a black physician whose effort to move into a white neighborhood in the 1920s erupted into violence and a legendary murder trial.

But the Detroit Medical Society, a group of African-American doctors, the building’s most recent owners, say they are stunned to find the building foreclosed upon by the county and up for sale. Since their group bought the site in 1978 for $3,000, they say they’ve spent over $400,000 on restoration that complies with historic designation codes, as part of their plan to make it a museum. Now they are likely to lose it over a $1,700 water bill they say they never received.

“There is a real shock value to all of this. We didn’t know anything about foreclosure, or the auction, until the other day,” said Dr. Lonnie Joe Jr., a board member of the medical society. Although the sale was mentioned on blogs including Motor City Muckraker and Curbed Detroit, the doctors say they remained unaware of the auction sale until The Detroit News called last Friday.

Wayne County doesn’t dispute the physicians’ account, but refused to accept a certified check for $3,800 on Monday — the overdue bill, plus late fees — because the auction clock is ticking. “I understand how upset they must be. We were working with people up to August (the deadline is April 1) but our attitude is that we have to be fair to the people who are trying to buy these properties,” says David Szymanski, chief deputy treasurer. “It’s sad to see (it in such condition) because it’s such a rich part of African-American heritage, and all of our heritage, as Detroiters.”

The society’s president says that a broken water pipe three years ago led the society to vacate the building, but the owners have continued to maintain the structure and landscaping. Vacancy was expensive: A wrought iron fence they installed disappeared, windows were broken with rocks. “We watched as that fence was taken apart, rung by rung (over time),” says Dr. Aaron Maddox, a Southfield internist who is the society president.

Built in 1892 as a residence for Charles W. Warren, who owned one of the city’s genteel jewelry stores, the elaborate home was bought by a group of black physicians and opened as Dunbar Hospital in 1919. By the time it became a hospital, the neighborhood near Brush Park was opening to the African-American elite, as thousands of black workers moved north during World War I. It was named for Paul Laurence Dunbar, a poet and son of slaves who achieved popular and critical success at the turn of the 20th century.

After the doctors outgrew the hospital and moved east in 1928, the Frederick Street property was bought by Charles Diggs Sr., the “House of Diggs” funeral home operator and state senator. In 1978, the Detroit Medical Society bought the building, then a decrepit husk, and set about trying to restore its luster.

The former hospital is on the federal and state registers of historic places, and only a few blocks from the Charles Wright Museum of African American History, in the Frederick Avenue Historic District, a neighborhood that’s reviving quickly.

Several of Detroit’s most famous historic sites are neglected, including the Model T factory in Highland Park and Fort Wayne, which is used for county storage. But the former hospital is a uniquely important site, too, because its existence is a reminder of the unremitting struggle for civil rights and the obstacles set in the path of even Detroit’s highest-achieving black residents.

Ossian Sweet, like other black physicians in the 1920s, performed surgery at the Frederick Street hospital, which was also a training ground for nurses. Dr. Albert B. Cleage, another founding physician, was on the hospital’s board: His son, Albert Cleage Jr. was the founder of the Church of the Black Madonna. Cleage’s granddaughter, Kristin Cleage Williams, has collected several documents about the hospital, including a speech Cleage Sr. gave to a class of black nurses. “You are entering upon a great service when our race needs you most,” Cleage Sr. said in the speech, published on Cleage Williams’ blog, Finding Eliza.

“It is sad that the building has not been and is not now a museum where visitors could see a replica of the old hospital as it was when it was a working hospital,” she said in an email from her Atlanta home. “I hope that some group will buy it and do something with it that will honor and share the history that those doctors made almost 100 years ago.”

Boyle, who was born in Detroit and now is a professor of history at Northwestern University, sees the hospital’s status “as a transition. It’s really one of the sad things about what happens in Detroit, and has for decades, that there’s not the sort of sense of history, and appreciation for it, that there ought to be.”

The doctors say that’s not true: They revere the structure and want desperately to reclaim it and see it restored and open to the public.

By Tuesday, bidding was up to $12,000 on 580 Frederick — a small amount, a scribble in a checkbook, for a historic building that hasn’t yet lost its power to inspire and inform new generations

[munkii]

Sept 17, 2014 7:49:23 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

Wayne County doesn’t dispute the physicians’ account, but refused to accept a certified check for $3,800 on Monday — the overdue bill, plus late fees — because the auction clock is ticking. “I understand how upset they must be. We were working with people up to August (the deadline is April 1) but our attitude is that we have to be fair to the people who are trying to buy these properties,” says David Szymanski, chief deputy treasurer. “It’s sad to see (it in such condition) because it’s such a rich part of African-American heritage, and all of our heritage, as Detroiters.”

This bothers me. Greatly.

[bunnymendelbaum]

I was JUST going to post this!

[bunnymendelbaum]

Sept 17, 2014 8:48:15 GMT -5 munkii said:

Sept 17, 2014 7:49:23 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

Wayne County doesn’t dispute the physicians’ account, but refused to accept a certified check for $3,800 on Monday — the overdue bill, plus late fees — because the auction clock is ticking. “I understand how upset they must be. We were working with people up to August (the deadline is April 1) but our attitude is that we have to be fair to the people who are trying to buy these properties,” says David Szymanski, chief deputy treasurer. “It’s sad to see (it in such condition) because it’s such a rich part of African-American heritage, and all of our heritage, as Detroiters.”

This bothers me. Greatly.

See, it doesn't bother me so much. I read it went for $200k.

Pay your freaking bills and taxes or the county is going to auction your property.

While it is sad to see this happen to this specific property, think about it on a larger scale:
Say you own a property in Detroit. You let it go to absolute shit. You don't pay your taxes or your bills. You walk away and do not leave the proper forwarding information to get your bills. Maybe because you don't want to be found/liable? You owe the city thousands.

Now, fast forward a couple of years. The area around your property gets a little less scary and the county decides because you haven't paid your bills and are not maintaining the property they are going to auction it. Because the county is broke because ppl like you don't pay your bills. You don't even monitor your property enough to know that it is being auctioned. 

So you should just be able to ignore your property and bills until the absolute last minute? I don't think so. There are people willing to invest in Detroit. I'm sad for what happened in this case, but don't try to dodge your bills.

[nomad100]

Sept 17, 2014 12:52:14 GMT -5 bunnymendelbaum said:

Sept 17, 2014 8:48:15 GMT -5 munkii said:

This bothers me. Greatly.

See, it doesn't bother me so much. I read it went for $200k.

Pay your freaking bills and taxes or the county is going to auction your property.

While it is sad to see this happen to this specific property, think about it on a larger scale:
Say you own a property in Detroit. You let it go to absolute shit. You don't pay your taxes or your bills. You walk away and do not leave the proper forwarding information to get your bills. Maybe because you don't want to be found/liable? You owe the city thousands.

Now, fast forward a couple of years. The area around your property gets a little less scary and the county decides because you haven't paid your bills and are not maintaining the property they are going to auction it. Because the county is broke because ppl like you don't pay your bills. You don't even monitor your property enough to know that it is being auctioned. 

So you should just be able to ignore your property and bills until the absolute last minute? I don't think so. There are people willing to invest in Detroit. I'm sad for what happened in this case, but don't try to dodge your bills.

You said it much nicer than I would have.

[munkii]

According to the article, the organization was maintaining the structure and landscaping. That's not exactly what I would call abandoning a property.

WRT not paying their water bill: from my understanding (from many, many news articles over the past several months), this isn't exactly something that was isolated to this group. I'm not saying it's right, but there should have been equitable treatment for all delinquencies, not just targeted delinquencies (for example: shutting off residential but not businesses). Not notifying an organization (which the Wayne Co doesn't deny per the article) of final notice or the potential for auction is dirty. Are they doing the same to the delinquent businesses or just homeowners and private organizations? 

I agree people should pay their bills, and I agree people know if they haven't paid their bills. This situation is a mess and doesn't feel right. That's all.

[bunnymendelbaum]

I drove by it several times. They said they were maintaining it. They were not. I saw it in person.

The water bill issue is from people not paying their bills. Usually, you don't pay your bill then you get your water shut off. If the city can't deliver you your bill because your house is such a POS that it doesn't have a mailbox, and because you vacate with no forwarding address, what other option do they have? Just wait for the person to contact them to pay it? Let this building continue to be an eyesore with no owner?

In previous articles about auctioning this house, it was said that no current address or phone # for the DMC could be located. They use that house as their address. Still.

[nomad100]

And here's the deal. There are thousands and thousands of houses like this in Detroit. Houses that at some point have had some historical some significance to some group or another. But they have fallen into disrepair and squalor.

At some point, the city has to say enough is enough - we have made best faith efforts to find the owners to pay their bills and if we can't, the house is to be auctioned off so it can either be bulldozed or rehabbed. Part of the reason things are as bad as they are is that the city didn't start taking that position until recently.

Having houses sit empty for years and years - I am dying that these folks say that they spend $400K on retoring the property because unless there is some gold lines halls, there is no way this is true, which to me calls into question the rest of their statements - just makes it that much harder for the neighborhood.

And seriously, for the bill to get to $1700 in an unoccupied building, unless a pipe burst which they would have known about because of all the work they have been doing, this group hasn't paid it's water bill in months and months and months.

[pitterwoo]

I said in the other thread about this that the medical society has a FB page and it lists this as there address. There also wasn't any activity on the page for two or three years. The place looks abandoned and I agree it's hard to imagine where 400k could be hiding in there. There was a nice fence, but maybe scrappers wouldn't have stolen it if the group was regularly checking on the property or actively working on moving back into it.

I have no doubt that this group really did want the property and had good intentions, but they weren't making it happen