DETROIT – An archaeological dig began Monday along the riverfront, and it’s part of the massive I-375 reconstruction project that’s set to start next year.
The federally funded dig will lead to about 20 feet of excavation to determine if any archeological features would be exposed. It’s expected to continue through the month of August.
I-375 and Jefferson Avenue will not be impacted by this work.
The 375 project will transform the 60-year-old, 1.1-mile connector with I-75 into a boulevard that will reconnect Lafayette Park with Downtown from Gratiot to the Riverfront.
The proposed Boulevard will be six lanes between the interchanges with I-75 and Jefferson Avenue and will also include a two-way cycle track on the east side of the boulevard for the first time since construction began on it in 1959.
The construction of 375 led to the eradication of the neighborhood known as Black Bottom.
“It was gentrification,” Ken Coleman, a Detroit historian, said on Monday. “It was one of the earliest gentrification processes that was carried out, certainly in Detroit, but maybe throughout the nation.”
Black Bottom, the historic neighborhood that was replaced by the highway and Lafayette Park, was a center of black life in Detroit during the first half of the 20th century.
The neighborhood was a central hub during the Great Migration of African Americans from the South, especially in the Paradise Valley business district. Black Bottom was also home to legendary Detroiters such as Joe Louis and Former Mayor Coleman Young.
The loss of the neighborhood has remained an open wound with the city’s African American community for more than a half-century. The hope is that the 375 project will start to heal it.
“It’s been a conversation that’s happened over several years now, what to do, how to reconstruct a roadway that displaced thousands of African Americans over a period of time,” Coleman said. “There’s no doubt we need to study this history, learn from this history, and ultimately respond to this history in a very significant way.”
The Riverfront excavation project will run through August, and sewer pipelines will be laid down next spring. The entire I-375 reconstruction project is set to be finished by 2029.