George Attard
Title
George Attard
Description
In this interview, Attard discusses life in the northern area of Corktown where his family owned and operated a grocery store until 1960. He discusses his time as an elementary school student at St. Boniface, a parish and parochial school located near Tiger Stadium in Corktown. He also discusses living in the Corktown area as a child, and his relationship to the city of Detroit after his family moved to the suburbs.
Publisher
Detroit Historical Society
Date
11/16/2018
Rights
Detroit Historical Society
Language
en-US
Video
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
George Attard
Brief Biography
George Attard was born in Detroit in 1950 to a father that had immigrated from Malta in the 1930s, and to a mother who herself was the child of Maltese immigrants who had arrived in Detroit in the 1920s. George and his family lived in the northern area of Corktown until 1960 when the family moved to the suburbs in 1960. George is a retired architect.
Interviewer's Name
Leah Buhagiar
Interview Place
Dearborn, Michigan
Date
11/16/2018
Transcriptionist
Leah Buhagiar
Transcription
LB: Hello, this is Leah Buhagiar in Dearborn, Michigan. It’s November 16th [2018] and this interview is for the Detroit Historical Society’s Neighborhoods: Where Detroit Lives Project. I’m sitting down with:
GA: George Attard
LB: George, thank you so much for sitting down with me today.
GA: My pleasure.
LB: Where and when were you born?
GA: I was born in Detroit, on November 17th, 1950.
LB: And where were your parents from?
GA: My father immigrated from Malta in the early 1930s. My mother’s, my mother was born in Detroit, and her parents immigrated to Malta- immigrated from Malta, probably in the 20s.
LB: And what neighborhood did you grow up in?
GA: I grew up in the neighborhood near Trumbull and Temple. It was a street that, at the time its name was National, and it later got changed to Cochrane, because we lived near Tiger Stadium and the renamed some of the streets for historic Tigers.
LB: And what was it like there?
GA: It was a basic neighborhood. A lot of different ethnicities I would say. I remember a couple doors down were another Maltese family, and next door to them was a Spanish family, and across the street were some other people of different ethnicity that I don’t remember.
LB: And was it an integrated neighborhood?
GA: Integrated, yes I would say in the fact there were many different nationalities there, probably not a whole lot of African Americans on the blocks that I lived on that I can remember.
LB: And what did you do for fun?
GA: Let’s see, for fun we rode our bikes, played in the yard, made different types of moving vehicles, like a- kind of like a skateboard or something like that at the time, and did that, played baseball, you know, played the basic games that kids play I think.
LB: And where did your parents work?
GA: My parents owned a grocery store, that was right next door to where we lived. So they owned a, was called a party store, and my dad worked there, and my mom worked there also.
LB: Do you remember where you went shopping?
GA: I do, I have some very fond memories of- my mother didn’t drive, so she would rent a taxi, or get a taxi, and they’d take us downtown, and we’d go to Hudsons, and we’d walk up and down Hudsons and do shopping there and sometimes go across the street to, I think it was a Woolworths, where we’d sit at the bar and get lunch, and then take the taxi back home. So, I remember that a lot, especially at Christmastime, I remember going to the Santa’s workshop, and at hudson’s it was a big deal.
LB: Where did you go to school?
GA: My first six, first through fifth grade, I went to St. Boniface Catholic School, which was a parish probably 3 blocks from Tiger Stadium. It’s no longer there, they tore it all down. And then, when I was around 10 years old, which would have been between the fifth and the sixth grade, we moved out to the suburbs, so I went to a Catholic school out there.
LB: And if you could just tell us a little about your school?
GA: St. Boniface?
LB: Yep.
GA: It was a basic elementary school, run by Catholics. A lot of nuns there at that time, not too many nuns in catholic schools these days. But there were a lot of nuns there and I remember kids getting their mouths washed out with soap, which they probably don’t do anymore.
LB: I don’t think so!
GA: I remember kids getting whacked with a ruler if they did something wrong, either across the knuckles or across the behind. But generally it was a very nice place to go to school. I remember, the girl that lived two doors down from me, she was, she was probably in like the sixth grade when I was going into the first grade, so my parents entrusted me to her, to get me back and forth to school. She would babysit me sometimes. So I’d go to school with her, and come back with her.
LB: Are there any stories from your childhood, about your neighborhood that you’d like to share?
GA: One thing that I do remember about my childhood is, I made friends with the people about 3 doors down, who were of Spanish, or Mexican, I’m not sure which one. I remember the guy, the kids’ dad, was a bodybuilder guy, right, so he would be out there lifting weights and stuff in the backyard, and we’d be playing, doing whatever kids do, and he’d say “come on over here, I need more weight”, so like I’d hang on one end of the bar, and his son would hang on the other end of the bar, and he’d bench press us, you know press us up and down. [Laughter] Of course, I probably only weighed 50 pounds, but still! I remember that.
LB: That’s impressive! You kind of touched on it earlier, did you venture around the city a lot growing up or did you tend to stay in your own neighborhood?
GA: I think for me, it was, I tended to stay in our neighborhood cause I only lived there until I was 10 years old, so I didn’t get a lot of chance to leave, unless I was with my mom or dad, or babysitter, or my brother- older brother and sister. But for me, for the most part, I was probably pretty much on the block or two that we, you know, that we lived by.
LB: And did you feel comfortable in the city?
GA: I felt very comfortable at that time yeah, I didn’t know anything other than the city so, yeah, it was great.
LB: If you could just touch a little bit on the decades you grew up in, so the ‘50s when you lived in- what was Detroit like then?
GA: Yeah, Detroit was a vibrant place as I recall, all the neighborhoods live around us were occupied, and people lived in the buildings. There was, busses going up and down all over the place. I remember, because we lived probably, maybe three-quarters of a mile from Tiger Stadium, I remember on game days when there were baseball games, people would park up and down the street, and people would be walking back and forth to the games, and you could even hear the roar of the crowd sometimes, when somebody hit a home run, or did something good. So, it was pretty nice, and you know, like I said, the neighborhoods were vibrant at that time, I think, and very, I remember it fondly.
LB: Great. Are there any other stories from your childhood or about your neighborhood that you’d like to share?
GA: I can’t think of anything offhand that I remember other than, there were quite a few Maltese- other Maltese people living not too far from us, cause we would go over and visit them sometimes on Sunday and stuff like that, but that’s pretty much it.
LB: Did you all ever go to the Maltese Club?
GA: My parents went to the Maltese Club, and as a small child they might have taken me, but I don’t remember going.
LB: Okay. Has your neighborhood changed over the years, or has it stayed the same?
GA: That neighborhood in Detroit has undergone unbelievable change. I mean the Wonder Bread building that was on the corner of Grand River and Temple, I believe, which is another childhood memory as a matter of fact. I remember smelling the bread as it baked it there, if the wind was blowing in the right direction, you know?
LB: Yeah.
GA: It would blow toward us and we would smell the bread. That’s gone, that’s, well that’s not gone, but that’s become a casino. The Wonder Bread bakery was incorporated into the casino that’s on that corner now, and my neighborhood directly, which was probably 3 or 4 blocks from there is been all leveled now, and it looks like different parking lots and adjunct buildings to the casino, like for people to park who might work in the casino, or the, I think there’s a hotel there now, I believe is on top of the casino.
LB: Is it Motor City or MGM?
GA: I think that’s the Motor City Casino, but I’m not sure to tell you the truth. I been there once, in the casino [laughter] I’m not a gambler.
LB: Did you stay in the same neighborhood growing up in Detroit, or did you move to different neighborhoods?
GA: Well, from the time I was born, until the, until 1960, we lived in that one spot. And then the neighborhood was starting to deteriorate, and I remember another store owner down the street, maybe one or two blocks from us was shot and killed in a hold up, and that kind of influenced my dad to retire and sell the store and we moved out to Dearborn Heights.
LB: So that, would you say that’s what ended up prompting your move out to the suburbs, was that incident?
GA: That, you know, put the icing on the cake, so to speak.
LB: Yeah.
GA: Yeah, I remember my dad was very concerned- my dad had been held up two or three times at gunpoint, and he felt it was only a matter of time until somebody’s accidentally or purposely pull the trigger, right?
LB: Yeah, that’s not a good thing.
GA: It’s not a good feeling.
LB: No, absolutely not. When someone says “the neighborhoods”, what does that mean to you? What does that make you think?
GA: Well to me, it means the area probably from Michigan Avenue there, where Tiger Stadium is and Trumbull, down to, maybe as far as where the train station is. I remember, I know my brother went to St. Vincent de Paul, which I believe was near the train station. And I remember my brother talking about playing in that park in front of the train station. I was never old enough to get that far from home, being just 10. Probably to Vernor, to Grand River Avenue to where the Wonder Bread Bakery was, that rectangle I guess would be the neighborhood that I remember.
LB: And how do you feel about the state of your neighborhood today?
GA: Sad. Cause it’s gone.
LB: Yeah.
GA: It’s really not the neighborhood that I was, grew up in at all. I remember going, I’ve been down there, like when I was still working, once and a while I’d have a meeting close to where I used to live. So I would drive by there, after the meeting I’d go by our house and my dad’s store and it would increasingly become more dilapidated and more dilapidated. It was, not a good feeling to see the proprietor of the store the last time I remember it, and I might have a picture of it somewhere at home, but I don’t have it with me, had barbed wire on the roof because apparently people had gone up on the roof and broken into the store probably to steal stuff I’m assuming, but otherwise, why would you put barbed wire along your roof?
LB: Yeah.
GA: So, yeah, the neighborhood is gone. It’s saddening, you know, it’s the evolution of the city I guess, so it’s the way it is.
LB: And when your dad sold the store, it continued to be a store?
GA: Yes. It was a store, probably up until I’m going to guess maybe 10 years ago.
LB: Oh, okay.
GA: I’m not sure at what point the casino property bought, you know, bought that out, but it seemed like it wasn’t that long ago that I remember driving by and seeing the store with the barbed wire on the roof. So I would guess maybe 10, maybe 15 years ago.
LB: And what would you like to see happen with your neighborhood?
GA: Well, I guess I’d like to see it become a vibrant place again. You know, somewhere where people can live, or work or whatever and apparently its becoming that because, like I said I drove by and it looked like people were parking and walking over to the casino to work, but as far as families go, in that area, the houses were basically gone. So, I guess just as long as it’s a vibrant area and its just not dilapidated homes that house bad things, is good.
LB: If you could get a project done in your neighborhood, what would it be?
GA: Well there’s always a need for housing down there, I think there’s a lot of people who can’t leave Detroit for various reasons, so housing would be good. And, maybe going off on a tangent, but as an architect, one of the projects I worked on towards the end of my, being active in architecture was a residential project that was not in my neighborhood, it was on the other side of Grand River. It was on the, it would be the north side of Grand River and the east side of the John Lodge Freeway that, there’s a big residential project there that I worked on. Something like that.
LB: When you were an architect, did you work in the city primarily, or?
GA: No, primarily it was, usually in the suburbs. We did some projects in the city, but primarily I would say they were suburbs, yeah.
LB: What was the company that you worked for?
GA: The name was Progressive Associates, it’s located in Bloomfield Hills at Long Lake and Telegraph Road, out that way. Still in operation.
LB: And how do you feel about the state of the city today?
GA: Somewhat encouraged I think. You know, I think it sounds like things are moving in the right direction for the city. There’s still a lot of dilapidated areas that you don’t want to be in. Even recently, I know you drive up and down Michigan Avenue, I drove down Michigan Avenue from Detroit to the suburbs out towards Dearborn a few weeks ago. There’s still a lot of buildings that are boarded up and half open to the environment cause the roof failed, or whatever and it looks pretty bad. It’s a little scary at times.
LB: Is there anything else that you wanted to share? Any other stories you can think of?
GA: Yeah, I can remember 1967, 1968. 1967-68, I was a senior in high school, I had just graduated, and that October the Tigers won the World Series. And a bunch of us jumped in one of the guys’ convertibles and went downtown to be part of the festivities and that was a real nice event. I mean people were hugging, you know, African American and white people, all kinds of people were hugging each other, of course we were all pretty drunk [laughter] but the fact of the matter is we all got along. This was only a year after the Detroit riots; I don’t, you probably know about those right?
LB: Yeah.
GA: And I experienced that in firsthand in that, in 1967 the day the riots started, a buddy of mine, two buddies and myself went downtown to a movie in the evening, and we were watching a movie, and I remember the proprietor of the theater closed the theater in the middle of the movie, turned off the projector and they made an announcement that bad things were happening and we needed to leave the theater immediately and go home. And I remember driving out of Detroit down 94 towards Dearborn, and we could see smoke billowing from different areas, which were buildings that were on fire and stuff. That’s not such a great memory, but it’s a memory that I have and- so between ‘67 riots and the ‘68 World Series, it’s like night and day. Right?
LB: Yeah.
GA: People hate each other, people love each other.
LB: Did you spend a lot of time in the city once you moved out to Dearborn Heights?
GA: No.
LB: No?
GA: No. You know the city was portrayed as not a good spot to be, so unless we were going to a specific function: baseball game, maybe a football game or a basketball game, or something like that, wouldn’t go down in the city much.
LB: So it’s kind of just a coincidence that you happened to be there the night that the riot broke out then.
GA: Oh yeah, it was totally a coincidence; you know we were just going to the movies.
LB: Do you know what theater you were at?
GA: I don’t, I wish I did, but I don’t [Laughter] no.
LB: Is there anything else that you’d wanted to share?
GA: As a memory?
LB: Yeah, anything.
GA: Well the ‘68 World Series was big. I remember a couple times like when I got to be like in the fifth grade, I remember after school a lot of times Tiger games were played during the day, at that time, they weren’t all night games like they are now, and I remember a couple of guys we would go over to where Tiger Stadium was and the games would be in like the 8th inning or so, and sometimes the guy would let us in and we’d sit down and watch like the last inning of the game. And, at one point, I remember, I’m pretty sure the game was over and we went out, everybody left, and we went out and were on the field and the maintenance guys came and rousted us you know, [laughter] and said: “you guys can’t be in here, get out of here!” [Laughter]. So I remember that. You know, other bad stuff I can, I remember. Things like I was with some guys that I didn’t know very well, and I was, this again probably in the fifth grade, and we were walking along, I think it was Vernor Highway, and this, you know the trucks that carry the big panes of glass that are on kind of an angle?
LB: Yeah.
GA: To take them somewhere and put them in. Well this one kid that we were with says “hey watch this” and he picked up a rock and threw it and busted out one of these big panes of glass.
LB: Oh no!
GA: And the guy on the truck got out and chased us you know, so I remember that and I was like, man, I’m never hanging out with that guy again, he’s crazy! [laughter] You know, it was fun.
LB: Was there anything else?
GA: I’ll probably remember a bunch of things after we’re done here, but I guess that’s it, pretty much it.
LB: Well thank you so much, I really appreciate this, we will turn the recording off now.
GA: You’re welcome. I hope I wasn’t too candid.
GA: George Attard
LB: George, thank you so much for sitting down with me today.
GA: My pleasure.
LB: Where and when were you born?
GA: I was born in Detroit, on November 17th, 1950.
LB: And where were your parents from?
GA: My father immigrated from Malta in the early 1930s. My mother’s, my mother was born in Detroit, and her parents immigrated to Malta- immigrated from Malta, probably in the 20s.
LB: And what neighborhood did you grow up in?
GA: I grew up in the neighborhood near Trumbull and Temple. It was a street that, at the time its name was National, and it later got changed to Cochrane, because we lived near Tiger Stadium and the renamed some of the streets for historic Tigers.
LB: And what was it like there?
GA: It was a basic neighborhood. A lot of different ethnicities I would say. I remember a couple doors down were another Maltese family, and next door to them was a Spanish family, and across the street were some other people of different ethnicity that I don’t remember.
LB: And was it an integrated neighborhood?
GA: Integrated, yes I would say in the fact there were many different nationalities there, probably not a whole lot of African Americans on the blocks that I lived on that I can remember.
LB: And what did you do for fun?
GA: Let’s see, for fun we rode our bikes, played in the yard, made different types of moving vehicles, like a- kind of like a skateboard or something like that at the time, and did that, played baseball, you know, played the basic games that kids play I think.
LB: And where did your parents work?
GA: My parents owned a grocery store, that was right next door to where we lived. So they owned a, was called a party store, and my dad worked there, and my mom worked there also.
LB: Do you remember where you went shopping?
GA: I do, I have some very fond memories of- my mother didn’t drive, so she would rent a taxi, or get a taxi, and they’d take us downtown, and we’d go to Hudsons, and we’d walk up and down Hudsons and do shopping there and sometimes go across the street to, I think it was a Woolworths, where we’d sit at the bar and get lunch, and then take the taxi back home. So, I remember that a lot, especially at Christmastime, I remember going to the Santa’s workshop, and at hudson’s it was a big deal.
LB: Where did you go to school?
GA: My first six, first through fifth grade, I went to St. Boniface Catholic School, which was a parish probably 3 blocks from Tiger Stadium. It’s no longer there, they tore it all down. And then, when I was around 10 years old, which would have been between the fifth and the sixth grade, we moved out to the suburbs, so I went to a Catholic school out there.
LB: And if you could just tell us a little about your school?
GA: St. Boniface?
LB: Yep.
GA: It was a basic elementary school, run by Catholics. A lot of nuns there at that time, not too many nuns in catholic schools these days. But there were a lot of nuns there and I remember kids getting their mouths washed out with soap, which they probably don’t do anymore.
LB: I don’t think so!
GA: I remember kids getting whacked with a ruler if they did something wrong, either across the knuckles or across the behind. But generally it was a very nice place to go to school. I remember, the girl that lived two doors down from me, she was, she was probably in like the sixth grade when I was going into the first grade, so my parents entrusted me to her, to get me back and forth to school. She would babysit me sometimes. So I’d go to school with her, and come back with her.
LB: Are there any stories from your childhood, about your neighborhood that you’d like to share?
GA: One thing that I do remember about my childhood is, I made friends with the people about 3 doors down, who were of Spanish, or Mexican, I’m not sure which one. I remember the guy, the kids’ dad, was a bodybuilder guy, right, so he would be out there lifting weights and stuff in the backyard, and we’d be playing, doing whatever kids do, and he’d say “come on over here, I need more weight”, so like I’d hang on one end of the bar, and his son would hang on the other end of the bar, and he’d bench press us, you know press us up and down. [Laughter] Of course, I probably only weighed 50 pounds, but still! I remember that.
LB: That’s impressive! You kind of touched on it earlier, did you venture around the city a lot growing up or did you tend to stay in your own neighborhood?
GA: I think for me, it was, I tended to stay in our neighborhood cause I only lived there until I was 10 years old, so I didn’t get a lot of chance to leave, unless I was with my mom or dad, or babysitter, or my brother- older brother and sister. But for me, for the most part, I was probably pretty much on the block or two that we, you know, that we lived by.
LB: And did you feel comfortable in the city?
GA: I felt very comfortable at that time yeah, I didn’t know anything other than the city so, yeah, it was great.
LB: If you could just touch a little bit on the decades you grew up in, so the ‘50s when you lived in- what was Detroit like then?
GA: Yeah, Detroit was a vibrant place as I recall, all the neighborhoods live around us were occupied, and people lived in the buildings. There was, busses going up and down all over the place. I remember, because we lived probably, maybe three-quarters of a mile from Tiger Stadium, I remember on game days when there were baseball games, people would park up and down the street, and people would be walking back and forth to the games, and you could even hear the roar of the crowd sometimes, when somebody hit a home run, or did something good. So, it was pretty nice, and you know, like I said, the neighborhoods were vibrant at that time, I think, and very, I remember it fondly.
LB: Great. Are there any other stories from your childhood or about your neighborhood that you’d like to share?
GA: I can’t think of anything offhand that I remember other than, there were quite a few Maltese- other Maltese people living not too far from us, cause we would go over and visit them sometimes on Sunday and stuff like that, but that’s pretty much it.
LB: Did you all ever go to the Maltese Club?
GA: My parents went to the Maltese Club, and as a small child they might have taken me, but I don’t remember going.
LB: Okay. Has your neighborhood changed over the years, or has it stayed the same?
GA: That neighborhood in Detroit has undergone unbelievable change. I mean the Wonder Bread building that was on the corner of Grand River and Temple, I believe, which is another childhood memory as a matter of fact. I remember smelling the bread as it baked it there, if the wind was blowing in the right direction, you know?
LB: Yeah.
GA: It would blow toward us and we would smell the bread. That’s gone, that’s, well that’s not gone, but that’s become a casino. The Wonder Bread bakery was incorporated into the casino that’s on that corner now, and my neighborhood directly, which was probably 3 or 4 blocks from there is been all leveled now, and it looks like different parking lots and adjunct buildings to the casino, like for people to park who might work in the casino, or the, I think there’s a hotel there now, I believe is on top of the casino.
LB: Is it Motor City or MGM?
GA: I think that’s the Motor City Casino, but I’m not sure to tell you the truth. I been there once, in the casino [laughter] I’m not a gambler.
LB: Did you stay in the same neighborhood growing up in Detroit, or did you move to different neighborhoods?
GA: Well, from the time I was born, until the, until 1960, we lived in that one spot. And then the neighborhood was starting to deteriorate, and I remember another store owner down the street, maybe one or two blocks from us was shot and killed in a hold up, and that kind of influenced my dad to retire and sell the store and we moved out to Dearborn Heights.
LB: So that, would you say that’s what ended up prompting your move out to the suburbs, was that incident?
GA: That, you know, put the icing on the cake, so to speak.
LB: Yeah.
GA: Yeah, I remember my dad was very concerned- my dad had been held up two or three times at gunpoint, and he felt it was only a matter of time until somebody’s accidentally or purposely pull the trigger, right?
LB: Yeah, that’s not a good thing.
GA: It’s not a good feeling.
LB: No, absolutely not. When someone says “the neighborhoods”, what does that mean to you? What does that make you think?
GA: Well to me, it means the area probably from Michigan Avenue there, where Tiger Stadium is and Trumbull, down to, maybe as far as where the train station is. I remember, I know my brother went to St. Vincent de Paul, which I believe was near the train station. And I remember my brother talking about playing in that park in front of the train station. I was never old enough to get that far from home, being just 10. Probably to Vernor, to Grand River Avenue to where the Wonder Bread Bakery was, that rectangle I guess would be the neighborhood that I remember.
LB: And how do you feel about the state of your neighborhood today?
GA: Sad. Cause it’s gone.
LB: Yeah.
GA: It’s really not the neighborhood that I was, grew up in at all. I remember going, I’ve been down there, like when I was still working, once and a while I’d have a meeting close to where I used to live. So I would drive by there, after the meeting I’d go by our house and my dad’s store and it would increasingly become more dilapidated and more dilapidated. It was, not a good feeling to see the proprietor of the store the last time I remember it, and I might have a picture of it somewhere at home, but I don’t have it with me, had barbed wire on the roof because apparently people had gone up on the roof and broken into the store probably to steal stuff I’m assuming, but otherwise, why would you put barbed wire along your roof?
LB: Yeah.
GA: So, yeah, the neighborhood is gone. It’s saddening, you know, it’s the evolution of the city I guess, so it’s the way it is.
LB: And when your dad sold the store, it continued to be a store?
GA: Yes. It was a store, probably up until I’m going to guess maybe 10 years ago.
LB: Oh, okay.
GA: I’m not sure at what point the casino property bought, you know, bought that out, but it seemed like it wasn’t that long ago that I remember driving by and seeing the store with the barbed wire on the roof. So I would guess maybe 10, maybe 15 years ago.
LB: And what would you like to see happen with your neighborhood?
GA: Well, I guess I’d like to see it become a vibrant place again. You know, somewhere where people can live, or work or whatever and apparently its becoming that because, like I said I drove by and it looked like people were parking and walking over to the casino to work, but as far as families go, in that area, the houses were basically gone. So, I guess just as long as it’s a vibrant area and its just not dilapidated homes that house bad things, is good.
LB: If you could get a project done in your neighborhood, what would it be?
GA: Well there’s always a need for housing down there, I think there’s a lot of people who can’t leave Detroit for various reasons, so housing would be good. And, maybe going off on a tangent, but as an architect, one of the projects I worked on towards the end of my, being active in architecture was a residential project that was not in my neighborhood, it was on the other side of Grand River. It was on the, it would be the north side of Grand River and the east side of the John Lodge Freeway that, there’s a big residential project there that I worked on. Something like that.
LB: When you were an architect, did you work in the city primarily, or?
GA: No, primarily it was, usually in the suburbs. We did some projects in the city, but primarily I would say they were suburbs, yeah.
LB: What was the company that you worked for?
GA: The name was Progressive Associates, it’s located in Bloomfield Hills at Long Lake and Telegraph Road, out that way. Still in operation.
LB: And how do you feel about the state of the city today?
GA: Somewhat encouraged I think. You know, I think it sounds like things are moving in the right direction for the city. There’s still a lot of dilapidated areas that you don’t want to be in. Even recently, I know you drive up and down Michigan Avenue, I drove down Michigan Avenue from Detroit to the suburbs out towards Dearborn a few weeks ago. There’s still a lot of buildings that are boarded up and half open to the environment cause the roof failed, or whatever and it looks pretty bad. It’s a little scary at times.
LB: Is there anything else that you wanted to share? Any other stories you can think of?
GA: Yeah, I can remember 1967, 1968. 1967-68, I was a senior in high school, I had just graduated, and that October the Tigers won the World Series. And a bunch of us jumped in one of the guys’ convertibles and went downtown to be part of the festivities and that was a real nice event. I mean people were hugging, you know, African American and white people, all kinds of people were hugging each other, of course we were all pretty drunk [laughter] but the fact of the matter is we all got along. This was only a year after the Detroit riots; I don’t, you probably know about those right?
LB: Yeah.
GA: And I experienced that in firsthand in that, in 1967 the day the riots started, a buddy of mine, two buddies and myself went downtown to a movie in the evening, and we were watching a movie, and I remember the proprietor of the theater closed the theater in the middle of the movie, turned off the projector and they made an announcement that bad things were happening and we needed to leave the theater immediately and go home. And I remember driving out of Detroit down 94 towards Dearborn, and we could see smoke billowing from different areas, which were buildings that were on fire and stuff. That’s not such a great memory, but it’s a memory that I have and- so between ‘67 riots and the ‘68 World Series, it’s like night and day. Right?
LB: Yeah.
GA: People hate each other, people love each other.
LB: Did you spend a lot of time in the city once you moved out to Dearborn Heights?
GA: No.
LB: No?
GA: No. You know the city was portrayed as not a good spot to be, so unless we were going to a specific function: baseball game, maybe a football game or a basketball game, or something like that, wouldn’t go down in the city much.
LB: So it’s kind of just a coincidence that you happened to be there the night that the riot broke out then.
GA: Oh yeah, it was totally a coincidence; you know we were just going to the movies.
LB: Do you know what theater you were at?
GA: I don’t, I wish I did, but I don’t [Laughter] no.
LB: Is there anything else that you’d wanted to share?
GA: As a memory?
LB: Yeah, anything.
GA: Well the ‘68 World Series was big. I remember a couple times like when I got to be like in the fifth grade, I remember after school a lot of times Tiger games were played during the day, at that time, they weren’t all night games like they are now, and I remember a couple of guys we would go over to where Tiger Stadium was and the games would be in like the 8th inning or so, and sometimes the guy would let us in and we’d sit down and watch like the last inning of the game. And, at one point, I remember, I’m pretty sure the game was over and we went out, everybody left, and we went out and were on the field and the maintenance guys came and rousted us you know, [laughter] and said: “you guys can’t be in here, get out of here!” [Laughter]. So I remember that. You know, other bad stuff I can, I remember. Things like I was with some guys that I didn’t know very well, and I was, this again probably in the fifth grade, and we were walking along, I think it was Vernor Highway, and this, you know the trucks that carry the big panes of glass that are on kind of an angle?
LB: Yeah.
GA: To take them somewhere and put them in. Well this one kid that we were with says “hey watch this” and he picked up a rock and threw it and busted out one of these big panes of glass.
LB: Oh no!
GA: And the guy on the truck got out and chased us you know, so I remember that and I was like, man, I’m never hanging out with that guy again, he’s crazy! [laughter] You know, it was fun.
LB: Was there anything else?
GA: I’ll probably remember a bunch of things after we’re done here, but I guess that’s it, pretty much it.
LB: Well thank you so much, I really appreciate this, we will turn the recording off now.
GA: You’re welcome. I hope I wasn’t too candid.
Search Terms
Detroit, Maltese, 1967 Riot, 1968 World Series Championship, Corktown, St. Boniface,
Interviewer
Leah Buhagiar
Interviewee
George Attard
Location
Dearborn, Michigan
Files
Collection
Citation
“George Attard,” Detroit Historical Society Oral History Archive, accessed October 5, 2024, https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/items/show/734.