Paradise Valley
Formerly the intersection of Adams
Avenue and St. Antoine Street, this
site was once part of Paradise
Valley, Detroit's African American
business and entertainment district.
From the 1930s into the 1950s
Paradise Valley hustled around the
clock, Nightspots like 606 Horseshoe
Lounge, Club Plantation, and Club
666 featured entertainers such as
Duke Ellington. Dinah Washington,
the Ink Spots, and Sarah Vaughan
Blacks who performed elsewhere in
Michigan were excluded from white
hotels and stayed in the valley.
Beginning in the 1940s, urban
renewal projects, the construction
of freeways, and new development
devastated African American neigh-
borhoods, including Paradise Valley.
The valley's last three structures,
located along St. Antoine Street,
were demolished in 2001.