Posted by Jim at May 28th, 2005

Ed went to Calvin College. I went to Hope. I ended up learning about the layout of Grand Rapids through visiting him at the various places he lived during college.

One year he lived in a big old house near the corner of Franklin and College. I’d visit him and Joe on some weekend night to hang out or game. Sometimes I’d discover something new about the inner city of Grand Rapids.

For example, I learned to avoid the corner of Eastern and Franklin. Not too far from Ed’s place, that corner teemed with people on weekend nights. In the summer, the sidewalks were full of teenagers and twenty-somethings, almost all of them African-American so far as we could tell.

We had no idea why anyone would gather there. The corner didn’t have any interesting shops. The only open business was a gas station.

Personally, we never had any trouble there, but we referred to it as “the most dangerous corner in Grand Rapids” anyway. It wasn’t totally unreasonable. I later learned that someone had stopped at that corner in his car, had his window broken, was pulled out, beaten and ultimately needed to go to the hospital.

Between college and my moving to Grand Rapids, the corner has changed. I’ve yet to see much of anyone there when I drive through on a weekend night. The only large group I’ve seen there was a church service going on at the carwash near the corner.

When I drive through there during the week, the only consistent presence there is a member of the Nation of Islam handing out copies of “Final Call,” the religion’s newspaper. The guy even holds it out for me to view, something I find interesting. From what I understand whites were regarded to be descended from or created by Satan according to the Nation of Islam–though that may have changed.

Whatever the case, Franklin and Eastern can be declared “just another corner” in Grand Rapids now.