Volume 39, number 8
May 2018
Grand River Times The Newsletter of the Grand Rapids Historical Society Inside this issue:
Cover Story: May program Letter from our President page 2
Midwestern History Conference page 3 Annual Banquet page 4 Baxter Award Winner page 5 Happening in History page 6 Photo Sleuth page 7
Search: Grand Rapids Historical Society
Heritage Hill in Grand Rapids History PRESENTED BY: Thomas Logan Thursday, May 10, 2018, 7:30 p.m. Heritage Hill has a long history. It was an early site of what might be thought of as “country houses” outside of the Grand River flood plain. Of course, the designation—“heritage hill”—was only applied at the time of its official designation as a protected historic district. Its boundaries include areas developed over at least 6 decades: large numbers of structures appeared from the 1880s through the 1920s. A few were built as early as the 1840s, and as recently as the 2010s. The preservation movement was a national phenomenon, spurred on by the “Urban Renewal” program funded by the federal government in the 1960s. Physical deterioration and urban patterns which did not accommodate the automobile comfortably led to massive demolition of urban fabric and creation of more open (and often “dead”) urban spaces. Plans to extend this approach from the commercial and civic downtown area to the elegant residential area on “the Hill,” led to the preservation movement, which succeeded in historic designation around 1970.
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