East Village, Flint

The East Village is a neighborhood located on the East Side of Flint, Michigan, bounded on the west by Downtown Flint and particularly, I-475, north by the same expressway Eastside (State Streets), east by Crapo Street and the south by Court Street and the Fairfield Village neighborhood. It is the site of Flint Central High School, the Flint Cultural Center and their affiliated institutions. The neighborhood is occasionally confused with the Eastside, due to their proximity and similar names. Along these lines, East Villagers sometimes identify themselves as East Siders. The East Village term is included by some residents as the College and Cultural neighborhood, which is the wealthy enclave to the south east of the 4 square blocks that define Flint's East Village.

There is some ambiguity among residents as to specific neighborhood boundaries. Mainly this is a result of the distribution areas for East Village Magazine. Broadly speaking, the surrounding area is bounded on the north by Robert T. Longway, the south by Interstate 69 (I-69), the west by I-475, and the east by M-54 (Dort Highway). Within this area, however, there are several smaller neighborhoods separate from East Village. These include the area north of Court Street and west of Crapo Street, named Central Park, and the area south of Court Street and west of Gilkey Creek, known as the Interchange Neighborhood and Fairfield Village. The affluent enclave within this area is referred to as the "College Cultural neighborhood" by its residents and is centered off Court Street East of Crapo Street and West of Dort Hwy, bordered by Mott Community College, Pierce Park and Woodlawn Park. In the narrowest sense, then, "East Village" consists of the neighborhood bordered on the west by Gilkey Creek and Mott Community College, and on the other sides by Longway, Dort, and I-69.

This title came about as an informal designation by area residents after the 1976 founding of East Village Magazine. Editor Gary Custer has stated that the name first appeared July 3, 1976 on the initial issue of the publication. Being east of somewhere, specifically downtown, and following Marshal McLuhan's ideas that advanced communications had created a "global village," the name was born. Custer said that the whole concept was that East Village was a state of mind, not a physical place.

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