Jefferson Avenue (Detroit)
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Jefferson Avenue is a scenic road along the eastern part of the Detroit metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Michigan. It travels alongside Lake Erie, the Detroit River, and Lake Saint Clair. This road also provides access to many recreational facilities in the area.
Jefferson is one of five major avenues (along with Woodward, Michigan, Grand River, Gratiot and West Fort Street) planned by judge Augustus Woodward in 1805 that extend from downtown Detroit in differing directions. Jefferson Avenue was planned to extend due east of downtown, parallel to the Detroit River. Later additions to the road have extended it west of downtown as well, where it continues to travel near the waterfront through the Downriver area.
This road originates in the City of Detroit and passes through the Grosse Pointe communities, St. Clair Shores, and Harrison Township, among others. It also serves as the backbone of the rich neighborhoods of the Grosse Pointe communities, skirting the eastern portion of Detroit. Jefferson Avenue is also a corridor to the bridges to Grosse Ile (1 free, 1 toll).
Although the road is continuous with Jefferson Avenue to the north and south, the name changes in Wyandotte to Biddle Avenue. Similarly, in Grosse Pointe Farms and Grosse Pointe Shores, the name changes to Lake Shore Drive.
Jefferson Avenue is notable as being a true indicator of the racially and socio-economically segregated nature of communities in the Detroit area. Starting in Detroit and driving north to Selfridge Air National Guard Base provides a sense of the most extreme living conditions that flank the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair. Jefferson Avenue's most stark transition is at its intersection with the controversial Alter Road, which separates southeastern Detroit from Grosse Pointe Park - from one of the poorest and most crime-ridden communities in the United States to one of the most affluent with multi-million dollar mansions on Lake Shore in the Grosse Pointes. Many of the neighborhoods along Jefferson Avenue in Detroit between the city's downtown and Alter Road are badly blighted, with Detroit's "Indian Village" community being an exception.
There is one block gap in Jefferson Avenue on Detroit's westside, between Clark and Scotten Sreets. In downtown Detroit, the southern end of M-10 is routed on Jefferson to the corner of Randolph St./M-3. From the corner of Randolph to the southern end of I-375 between Beaubien and St. Antoine streets, Jefferson is the extremely short, 0.015 mile-long, unsigned BS I-375.
Another gap occurs at the former Selfridge Air Force Base, now a golf course and the Selfridge Air National Guard Base. Jefferson Avenue ends at 23 Mile Rd., near the boundary between Chesterfield Township and New Baltimore. On the south end, Jefferson begins at the boundary between Wayne County and Monroe County in Brownstown Township, Michigan at the junction of U.S. Turnpike Rd. and S. Huron River Drive, a few miles south of Gibraltar.
