The beautiful field in this photograph is actually the former site of the Algiers Motel. The Motel and its Annex would be found on Woodward in the Virginia Park neighborhood if the structures weren't torn down. The Algiers Motel was where one of the most horrific events of the 1967 Detroit Riots took place. Here, the Dramatics hid out with three other young African-American youths and three young white girls. The police arrived on the scene during the riots due to a call of there supposedly being snipers in the building (there weren't). They went about roughly interrogating the tenants of the motel, eventually killing three of the friends of the Dramatics, probably due to the fact that they were sleeping with white girls. Because of the horrific events and the already tenuous relationship between the African-American community and the Detroit Police Department, the young men who witnessed the murders couldn't allow the truth of the events to fall from their mouths and as a result the charged three police officers were found innocent of all crimes. This story was popularized by John Hersey in his non-fiction account, The Algiers Motel Incident, which I highly recommend reading if you are interested in the history of Detroit. I've included an image of the motel I found on the internet of what the motel looked like during its apex.
