of the 20th century, when the advent of streetcars and then automobiles allowed prosperous citizens to live farther from downtown: early residents moved out, notably to up-and-coming districts such as Indian Village and Boston–Edison, and Brush Park became less fashionable. The Woodward Avenue frontage rapidly lost its residential character, as the lavish mansions were demolished to make way for commercial buildings; those that survived were demolished in the 1935 Woodward widening. Throughout the subdivision, homes were converted to apartments or rooming houses – often with the construction of two- and three-story rear additions – to accommodate workers of the booming automobile industry, and dozens of structures were razed for surface parking lots. By 1921, all of the homes on Alfred Street were apartments or rooming houses. By the 1930s many African Americans had moved into the area; as a result, Brush Park became home to a vibrant black community, together with the nearby Black Bottom–Paradise Valley area. African American institutions located in Brush Park included St. Peter Claver, the first Catholic parish for African Americans in Detroit, established in 1914 in the former St. Mary's Episcopal church at Beaubien and Eliot; the Most Worshipful Mt. Sinai Grand Lodge, a black masonic lodge located at 312 Watson; and the Mercy General Hospital and Clinic. Mercy Hospital was the first black-owned hospital in Detroit; founded by Dr. David Northcross in 1917, it was originally located at 248 Winder Street, and later relocated to 668 Winder. The Great Depression and the racial tensions of the 1940s (part of the 1943 race riot took place in the streets of Brush Park) led to a rapid deterioration of the neighborhood. Longtime resident Russell McLauchlin described Brush Park's decline in the preface to his book Alfred Street (1946): [Alfred Street] is now in what city-planners call a blighted area. The elms were long ago cut down. No representative of the old neighbor families remains. The houses, mostly standing as they stood a half-century ago, are dismal structures. Some have night-blooming grocery stores in their front yards. Some have boarded windows. All stand in bitter need of paint and repair. It is a desolate street; a scene of poverty and chop-fallen gloom; possibly of worse things. Starting in the 1960s, many of the buildings became unoccupied and fell into disrepair; however, the neighborhood maintained much of its historical integrity, and some attempts were made to preserve it.