Krainz Woods

Krainz Woods (sometimes dubbed K-Town) is a neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan.

The infamous Sojourner Truth Homes housing project is located there. The neighborhood was named after Captain John Krainz, a World War II hero from Detroit. Many Motown singing groups, such as The Dramatics and The Floaters, were from the Sojourner Truth housing projects. In 2009, Mayor of Detroit Dave Bing led a ribbon-cutting dedication of Krainz Park.

Originally, Krainz Woods was a deeply wooded area located west of the Village of Norris. It later became a part of Hamtramck Township, and the City of Detroit annexed the area in 1916. Between 1923 and 1940, about 1,000 houses were constructed in Krainz Woods. In 1966 the Krainz Woods Neighborhood Organization was mostly White. During that year, the organization posted an advertisement in an African-American newspaper that asked Conant Gardens residents to go to a meeting at an area church to protest a proposed scattered-site housing and open occupancy. The whites in Krainz Woods wanted to recruit middle class blacks in Conant Gardens to oppose public housing.

Ten prisoners escaped from the Ryan Correctional Facility on August 21, 1994. Nine prisoners were recaptured and, according to authorities, one died of a drug overdose. On Monday August 29, 1994 a group of about 500 area residents held a meeting in the W.L. Bonner Cultural Center about the prison, and the residents decided that they needed to have the prison closed. The residents said that, prior to the prison's construction, the state had said that "harden" and "violent" criminals would not be held in that facility. On November 5, 1994, about sixteen members of the Krainz Woods Neighborhood Organization, including at least eight elderly people, demonstrated in front of the Ryan Correctional Facility, saying that the state did not implement promised measures, improving neighborhood lighting, hiring employees from the neighborhood, and implementing a grant to pay for security doors on the houses of the residents.

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