The Avenue of Fashion

Before there were suburban malls, there was the Avenue of Fashion — a stretch of Livernois roughly between 6 and 8 Mile where, in the 1950s and ’60s, Detroiters came for furs, jewelry, and the finest men’s and women’s clothes, much of it anchored by the B. Siegel department store. As Black families moved into the surrounding University District, Green Acres, and Sherwood Forest neighborhoods, they opened the shops that gave the street its name.

Malls drained it for a while, but the bones never left, and since the early 2000s — capped by a 2019 streetscape with wider sidewalks and protected bike lanes — it’s come roaring back. Today it’s billed as one of the highest concentrations of Black-owned businesses in the entire country: bakeries, boutiques, galleries, coffee, and a jazz club older than almost any on Earth. Park once, then walk.