Reflecting on the I-496 Project

I am really glad that the design team is wrapping everything up. It’s a great feeling to have the group project coming to an end so I can focus more on my individual project. I feel that the design group worked well together as soon as we got a plan and started tackling our tasks. If we were to do this again, there are a few things that I know now that we should do differently to make the experience go smoother. It might have worked out better to break down the outline at the beginning of the project and assign sections to people. This way, we could have all focused on a section such as the impact zone, construction or consequences and write the background for the section as well as the visitor experience. I feel that it was too hard to work as a whole group to create the floor plan and the visitor experience and it took a lot of time. However it was nice to hear others thoughts and to have numerous ideas but I think that we could have completed the exhibit and the proposal in less time. Also it was hard in the beginning for our group to get started. We really didn’t know where to start and we didn’t have any information from the research team yet. I am now realizing as I am writing the background information and the visitor experience for the positive consequences of constructing I-496, that there is a lot of information on this section of the story but few photos for the exhibit or omeka. It would have been nice for us as the design group to have figured this out earlier so we could have asked the research team for things that we needed. However we were just not at this step yet. Also the design team hasn’t been able to plan the layout of the exhibit for the positive and negative consequences parts yet. I have really enjoyed working on the design team and learned that I enjoy creating floor plans for exhibits. I think that it would be fun and informative to the public if this exhibit became a reality some day. I’m excited to show Maria our final project and to get her reacting. Overall, it was the first time that any of us were assigned such a task and I’m very proud of the whole class project!

Visit to the Capital Area District Library

Today Nikki, Erica and I went to the Capital Area District Library and what an experience it was! When we were there, one of the two people that is banned from the library decided to pop it! Needless to say, it was a big deal that had the security guards and Dave Votta (the man that helped us) running in all different directions! Anyways, we went to the library to find realtor cards to place in our exhibit. We were focusing on a specific area, the 700 blocks of Walnut Street, Main Street and a few others. We were very successful however we don’t have them in our possession yet. Dave is going to scan them and email them to us. We were able to collect these realtor cards as well as pictures of the houses that they were about. These pictures were very interesting. And if there were people in front of their houses, they were generally African Americans. I feel that this information would be great in the impact zone in our exhibit. I feel that these pictures are very powerful and really should be included in the exhibit. Also Dave was able to find us newspaper articles about the construction of I-496. These were very interesting and were filled with great pictures. We found a picture of a store that was destroyed during the construction. This store would be great to recreate and add to our exhibit! I’m so excited that we found this picture!!

Moving forward...

Last Tuesday, the class seemed to run quite smooth given the fact that we did not have a professor. The design team went through and decided what artifacts or objects that we would have for each section of the outline. They are now in blue next to our outline. Brianne and I gave the research team a walk-through of our exhibit as of right now. It was great that we were able to use the projector and show the layout on the big screen. Also we split up sections of the intro and assigned them to people in the group. I was to read about the Highway Sprawl and create a paragraph explaining the important so we can put it in the introduction or background part of the exhibit. I have posted it on the wiki. We plan to go through these paragraphs tomorrow and start to form labels. And I also found some very interesting websites that connect with the topic of highway sprawl:

• http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/summer96/p96su10.htm
• http://www.plannersweb.com/sprawl/ike.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal-Aid_Highway_Act

Finally I plan to go with Nikki next Tuesday to the Capital Area Library in search for the realtor cards on a certain neighborhood (still need to decide what neighborhood). I am also in charge of creating the bibliography for the photos on the Omeka. This has been a little challenging since there is not a lot of information with the pictures.

"The Impact of Highway Relocation upon the Housing Market" by Robert A. Rothbard

“The Impact of Highway Relocation upon the Housing Market,” by Robert A. Rothbard discusses the effects of relocation due to Interstate-496 on the local housing market. He also suggests the increase in segregation in the areas surrounding the new I-496. Rothbard takes the time to discuss statistics for white and nonwhite residents before, during and after relocation. Statistics include number of vacancies, persons per room, number of houses on one block, average monthly rent, value of home, home owners and home renters. He divides the city area surrounding the highway into thirty seven tracts, which is how he categorizes his data.

It is very interesting to see how segregation took an even greater roll after relocation. Nonwhite families were moved into heavily populated nonwhite neighborhoods where as whites moved into white neighborhoods and out of the city. The heavily populated nonwhite neighborhoods (tracts 15 and 18) had less square footage per house and had less land that white areas. These areas were overcrowded before the relocation and even more overcrowded after the relocation. Before the relocation and construction of I-495, there were 707 houses that stood in the way. In the 1960’s there were 863 houses and by the time of relocation there were 904 homes. It was surprising to me to see how quickly this area had overpopulated.

One of the most interesting things that I came across was the total number of homes that the state was actually responsible to move and the number of whites that occupied them. There were 940 homes that needed to be relocated in which 668 of them belonged to white families, therefore leaving 272 homes occupied by nonwhites. There were 208 of these families that moved outside of the city limits and 107 of these families didn’t give a forwarding address. Therefore the State of Michigan only had to relocate 625 families out of the 940 homes in the way of the construction. They shoved all of these people into basically the same area of the city but segregating them into certain areas. The map on page 69 was the most helpful thing for me in the whole thesis. This map reinforces the idea of segregation and shows where white and nonwhite families were relocated due to the construction of the highway. I found this thesis to be very informative and interesting to read. This thesis will be helpful to refer back to for facts and statistics when moving forward with our project.

Questions for Matt Miller

Matt Miller’s article on the destruction of I-496 was very informative and interesting. I can not believe how much devastation it brought to the people of Lansing. I really like how Miller is able to show both sides of the story. He has interviewees that think the highway was a blessing and others that thought it “cut the heart out of the neighborhood.” Here are my questions that I have for Mr. Miller:

Why didn’t Lansing’s black leaders fight against the highway at first?

How many houses were destroyed and how many people total had to move?

How many people were affected by the construction of I-496 in Lansing?

What was the government’s reasoning for putting the highway through the community they picked (the one with the large black population)?

Where there any non-black people in the area? Can we hear their stories?

I feel the most important questions would be: How many people did you interview? What was your main source, where you found most of your information?

What impact does the construction of I-496 still have on Lansing today?

I was actually in the downtown Lansing area near I-496 recently. When trying to locate historic sites, I of course had to circle many times before finding my final destinations. As I made my way around, I noticed several businesses and many ran down buildings and a few houses. The area is not very busy (at least not around noon) and there are few people out and about. It looks like Washington Street near the highway was once full of life, but now you can see by the photo the desertion and few people.

What counts as a historic site?

In the past week I have been able to visit two official historic sites in the State on Michigan historic sites database. Ironically, both the Grand Trunk Western Rail Station and the Frank Cooley House are located off of Main Street and Washington Street, near I-496 in Ingham County.

I first visited the Frank Cooley House. This is a beautiful house that is located next to the highway and is in the middle of several businesses. It was build by Eugene Cooley, the vice-president of the Michigan Supply Company, for his son Frank in the early nineteen hundreds. Dr. Harry A. Haze who was a state representative and mayor of Lansing occupied the house until the mid nineteen forties. Governor Williams also lived in the house towards the late nineteen forties to the early fifties. The building has now been turned into the Michigan Women’s Historical Center and Hall of Frame and a place for businesses to have meetings. I was unable to go inside the building since they are only opened from Wednesday to Saturday from noon to four. They do not make it easy for the working public to visit.

The building now publicizes the roles of hardworking Michigan women who might have been overlooked in the past. I feel that learning about powerful women in general is something that our middle and high school students need to learn about. With the pressure on females in high school now days, I feel that it’s very important for them to see independent women standing up for their rights and the rights of others. I do not know if I would take a class to this site, but I would definitely recommend it to all the students and maybe make it an extra credit project.

I was also able to visit the Grand Trunk Western Rail Station that was less than a minute away from the Frank Cooley House. The Grand Trunk railroad system began constructing this station in nineteen two to fulfill the demand for moving car parts for Ransom Olds. The station was closed in nineteen seventy two after sixty-eight years of service. It was then converted into a restaurant but the building is now vacant. The rail station is completely fenced in and boarded up. It is not nearly as kept up as the Frank Cooley House. The government website states that there is a marker indicating this historical site, however I did not see one. I can only imagine its beauty when it was in its prime. It’s a shame that it was not taken better care of by the government and the neighborhood.

I would not take my students to see this site alone; however I would like to combine the two historical sites since they are so close together and let the students compare the two. I would like the students to ask: how does the government decide what historical sites to keep up? What do they label as a historical site? Students might not know that historic sites like the Grand Trunk Western Rail Station are not being preserved. Personally, I feel that the rail station has more significance and more of a reason to mark as a historic site. I feel that by having the students’ visit both sites, a richer and more meaningful discussion about historical sites could be incorporated into the classroom, one that is definitely not typical.

West Virginia Social Studies Standards

West Virginia’s Social Studies Standards consist of 125 pages and six different subject areas; economics, citizenship, civics/government, geography, reading and history. There standards are very detailed and they state the material that students are to know for each grade level from kindergarten to twelfth grade. The main goal is “to build a rigorous, relevant and challenging social studies curriculum that would prepare students for the 21st century (p. 3).” Students are assessed and categorized into five performance levels: distinguished, above mastery, mastery, partial mastery and novice.

The Curriculum for middle and high schools in West Virginia is rigorous for sure. There is not room for teachers to slack or spend extra time on a specific subject, event or person. There is so much information that students must know each year that it would be difficult to stay on track but not unmanageable. Teachers will have to be creative and balance their time and standards as well as still allow students to think like historians. By the end of twelfth grade students are to have taken extensive studies in world history, US history and state history. I found it interesting that eight grade students only learn about West Virginia during that year.

They describe their meaning of history as followed: “History organizes events and phenomena in terms of when they occurred and examines where, how and why they took place. Students study how individuals and societies have changed and interacted over time (p. 7).” They also believe that students should be able to gather data, examine, analyze and interpret that data and then present their results in a clear manner. They really push their students to see the bigger picture, to ask why and how and to look at the reasons behind history. Students are to relate history to the current date and debate over the impact of historical events and conflicts.

I feel that historical thinking is occurring in this state, well at least by the way the standards sound. The only thing that the West Virginia Social Studies Standards do not specify is the use of sources. Are they checking sources and using both primary and secondary sources in the classroom? Also in the elementary years, they seem to focus on heritage. The students learn about the origins of their families, communities, state and nation. “Students analyze how individuals, groups and nations have shaped cultural heritages (p. 7).” Therefore there isn’t a lot of historical thinking occurring during these years. Overall, Students living in West Virginia after completing grade school should have a wide historical knowledge and be able to think historically.