neighborhood. Coleman Young, the first black mayor of Detroit, moved to Black Bottom with his family in 1923; he states his neighbors as Italian, Syrian, German, and Jewish. Young is quoted as having "loved that neighborhood." Surrounding neighborhoods passed restrictive covenants prohibting blacks from purchasing or renting property in the adjacent areas, functionally confining residents to Black Bottom. During the Great Migration, the area was primarily settled by blacks who established a community of businesses, social institutions, and night clubs. Detroit's Broadway Avenue Historic District contains a sub-district sometimes called the Harmonie Park District. It is associated with the legacy of Detroit's music from the 1930s-1950s. The area's main commercial avenues were Hastings and St. Antoine streets. Paradise Valley contained night clubs where famous artists such as Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstine, Pearl Bailey, and Count Basie regularly performed. In 1941, the city's Orchestra Hall was named Paradise Theatre. Reverend C. L. Franklin, father of singer Aretha Franklin, originally established his New Bethel Baptist Church on Hastings Street. Paradise Valley housed the Gotham Hotel, which was known as a safe and upscale hotel for African Americans. Gotham Hotel was demolished in 1963. Black Bottom's business district contained doctor's offices, hospitals, drug stores, and other services. Black Bottom was one of the poorest and densest sections of Detroit, with a third of black Detroiters living within Paradise Valley. Homes commonly held three to four families within the dwelling. Overcrowding, disease, crime, and vermin ran rampant within the boundaries of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. Income inequality and redlining contributed to deferred housing upkeep and maintenance, which further deteriorated housing conditions. Following World War II, two-thirds of the physical structures of Black Bottom had been classified as aging and substandard, lacking modern amenities, or sitting in significant disrepair. The city government considered these areas slums and designated those remaining after the highway construction for clearance through a series of revitalization projects. Areas of both Black Bottom and Paradise Valley faced destruction for the construction of medical and city-run institutions, as well as public housing projects." The passage of the Federal Housing Act of 1949 funded demolition. The City of Detroit sent photographers out to document structures, the area dismissed as a "slum." The approximately 2,000 images document clapboard houses, churches, and corner stores; many of which appear in better repair than the formal descriptions. The photographs are