In 1967 I was 12 and totally into the Mod thing. At that time Plum Street was in full swing and my mother decided to take my friend and I down there for a look. Before going to Plum Street we stopped at my Grandmother's house(Harper and Van Dyke area), at which time my uncles informed us about what was going on. But my mom just shrugged it off and off we went.
Driving down Gratiot toward Downtown we could see smoke rising from the city skyline, but weren't sure where it wad coming from. We did make it to Plum Street, but found it all but deserted, so we returned home.
Later in the week, when things seemed to have settled down my mother and I wrnt to visit my aunt and uncle, who lived off of Van Dyke and Outer Dr, the area was sometimes called Polish Grosse Pointe. As we turned onto Van Dyke a patrol car with two officers were going in the opposite direction and the officer in the passenger seat had a gun pointing outside the window. After a brief visit with the relatives we returned home.
I really wasn't all that aware of what happened until relatives told stories about things that happenef in their neighborhoods. But the thing that had the biggest impact on me was driving down Michigan Ave months later and seeing all the boarded up store fronts and my Grandmothet telling me how it used to be.
