Detroit — Just north of Eastern Market are parking lots, abandoned buildings and a ramp for the well-marked Dequindre Cut, Detroit’s best cycling path. What you could easily miss, however, is the former home of President Ulysses S. Grant. The shabby white house here is supposedly a claim to fame for the city, but the boondoggle perfectly illustrates the city’s struggle to preserve its past or create its future.
There’s currently a fence between visitors and the historic structure, which is one of the oldest houses in the city. “House” is a generous term for it. If it wasn’t the former home of a president, it would be eligible for demolition by a corrupt company.
Grant rented it for a year or two while he was stationed at Fort Wayne, many years before he would become president.
That’s a big deal, because only a few presidents have ever lived in Michigan. Gerald R. Ford grew up in the state, of course. Jimmy Carter helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity for a week in 2005, but I’m not sure that counts.
Ulysses S. Grant’s former dwelling stood for years at the Michigan State Fairgrounds until 2020, when the Michigan State Housing Development Authority paid an unknown sum for it to be cut in half and transported to where it is today.
It’s still obviously in two pieces, with white plywood covering the gaps. Insulation is visible in the gaping holes in the sides of the unmarked house. It’s not a place that welcomes visitors.
The Michigan History Foundation is raising funds for the rehab project. They need $500,000, which the state said it would match with a $500,000 donation from unwitting taxpayers.
If the repairs and renovations ever get done, don’t be fooled into thinking the house will actually celebrate the accomplishments of the former president who led the country after the Civil War. The house will be run by the Black Bottom Archives.
The Grant house was in the Black Bottom neighborhood that was cleared away for I-375, where the majority of black residents lived until the 1950s—before Lafayette Park took its place and white residents moved in.
The Black Bottom Archives says on its website that it exists to tell the stories of residents. It also advocates for reparations for their descendants.
“True reparations require acknowledging harm, repairing it, and creating systems that prevent it from happening again,” its newsletter reads.
If all goes well with the work in the next few years, reparations activists will control the programming at Ulysses S. Grant’s former rental after it’s finally restored through private and public money.
Until then, it’s another boarded up blighted home on an empty Detroit street.
But it’s more than that. It’s a fitting monument of the city’s past and a symbol of the city’s current reliance on activists and taxpayer handouts. It’s a relic that needs to be saved.
But can it be saved? And at what cost?
Brendan Clarey is deputy editor of Michigan Enjoyer.
