Modern Housing Corporation Addition Historic District
Historic Photo from NRHP Filing
1. View - Gage Street, looking northeast Modern Housing Corp. Addn. - Pontiac, MI R. Donohue 8/88 Neg: B&W
National Register of Historic Places Filing
The Modern Housing Corporation Addition is one of a small number of examples in Michigan of well preserved residential developments designed, financed, and built by auto-manufacturers to ease housing shortages for their workers in Michigan's fast-growing cities after World War I. The General Motors Corporation in Pontiac, Michigan took a major step in alleviating a local housing shortage when it entered the field of housing construction in 1919. Boom times for the automobile industry, following World War I, seemingly forced General Motors to create housing for its workers and their families. Without the new housing, General Motors could not have grown. Thus, GM established the Modern Housing Corporation as a subsidiary for the development of the Modern Housing Corporation Addition Plat to provide workers' housing. The Modern Housing Corporation Addition Historic District reflects a unique concentration of architect-designed workers' housing and portrays the economic, political and social perception and power of a fast growing automobile company in a post World War I industrial town which would become important in the history of the automobile industry on the local, state and national levels.
Physical Description
General Motors planned and developed the sixty-one acre Modern Housing Corporation Addition Historic District beginning in 1919 to provide housing for its workers and their families. The portion of the Modern Housing Corporation Addition plat now being nominated is marked by rectangular, diamond, triangular and trapezoid shaped blocks adapted to the cross axis of Perry Street, which runs on a diagonal from southwest to northeast, and Joslyn Avenue, which runs north and south. Three public spaces, two of which are located on the interior of blocks, are also an important part of the area. This portion of the Modern Housing Corporation Addition contains 261 modest, well-built homes -- all but twelve constructed in sixteen repeated identifiable forms. Each of the other twelve houses has a form that is unique within the district. The district contains only three buildings -- small modern commercial structures -- which do not contribute to its historic character.
Architect/Builder
Unknown
NRHP Ref# 89000490 • Data from National Park Service • Content available under CC BY-SA 4.0
Historical Photos
(16)1. View - Gage Street, looking northeast Modern Housing Corp. Addn. - Pontiac, MI R. Donohue 8/88 Neg: B&W
Public Domain (Michigan Filing)
From Wikipedia
The Modern Housing Corporation Addition Historic District is a residential historic district located in Pontiac, Michigan and roughly bounded by Montcalm Street, Perry Street, Joslyn Avenue, Gage Street, Glenwood Street, and Nelson Street. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
History
At the close of World War I, demand for automobiles exploded, and in 1919 General Motors found that it could not keep up with the demand. This was in part due to a critical housing shortage near its plant in Pontiac: although the company could find workers, the workers could not find any housing. In response, GM established the Modern Housing Corporation. The company first began developing 750 houses on a 660-acre parcel just southwest of the current district, and in October 1919 continued by platting the Modern Housing Corporation Addition. The neighborhood was developed under the leadership of Pierre S. du Pont, then Chairman of GM's Board of Directors. Du Pont commissioned William Pitkin of Boston to lay out the streets of the neighborhood, and Davis, McGrath & Kiessling of New York to design the homes. Construction began immediately. General Motors promoted the housing to its employees, offering financial incentives and reduced down payments. By 1923, over 80% of the lots in the addition had homes built on them, and by 1926 the construction was substantially complete.
Although the neighborhood declined as Pontiac's fortunes sank, it has recently seen an upturn.
Description
The Modern Housing Corporation Addition contains 261 modest homes, along with three public spaces, in a 61-acre tract. All but 12 of the houses are built from one of 16 architectural patterns. The lots are generally 50 feet by 100 feet, with houses of one to two stories and two to four bedrooms, finished with clapboard, wood shingle, stucco and brick. Many of the two-story houses have different materials on each story.
See also
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Oakland County, Michigan
References
Content available under CC BY-SA 4.0
Building Details
- Architect
- Davis, McGrath & Kiessling
- Year Built
- 1923
- Address
- Roughly bounded by Montcalm St., Perry St., Joslyn Ave., Gage St., Glenwood, and Nelson St., Pontiac, MI
- Building Type
- residential district
- National Register
- Listed
- Ref# 89000490