Plum Street
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Plum Street is a neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan, roughly the area today bounded by Michigan Avenue, the Lodge Freeway, and the Fisher Freeway. The community gained wide notice in the late 1960s as hub of art, rock 'n' roll, anti-war, drug and hippie activity. Detroit school teacher Robert Cobb invisioned the area as an arts community and began acquiring and developing properties for that purpose in the earily 60s. At its height, the neighborhood attracted 43 "hip capitalist" ventures, including head shops, art galleries, and craft oriented retail stores. The area was also home to the Detroit underground newspaper The Fifth Estate and was home to "The King of the Hippies" John Sinclair's media production company Translove Energies. By 1969 less than 10 business remained. The community eventually lost its identity altogether, largely as a result of police harassment, drug use, the 1967 Insurrection and the construction of the Fisher Freeway. The community was roughly analogous to San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district.
In recent years Cobb and others have proposed redevelopment of the community once again as an arts community with a sense of its own unique history.
