Denby

Denby is a residential neighborhood located on the east side of Detroit, Michigan, situated within Wayne County. The neighborhood is known primarily for its high school and a strong sense of community, and is characterized by its park space and blocks of single-family brick bungalows and colonials. The name "Denby" is drawn from Edwin C. Denby, a Detroit lawyer, congressman, and United States Secretary of the Navy whose life and political career became permanently intertwined with the city long before the neighborhood bore his name. Roughly 11 miles from downtown Detroit, Denby sits close to the wider fabric of Motor City life. The neighborhood is perhaps best known today as the home of Edwin C. Denby High School, an Art Deco landmark that anchors the community and has served as the engine of a sustained, student-driven revitalization movement.

Edwin C. Denby: The Man Behind the Name

Edwin Denby was born in Evansville, Indiana, on February 18, 1870, but moved to China after his father was appointed U.S. minister there by President Grover Cleveland. He later moved back to the United States to attend law school at the University of Michigan, and, after graduation, began practicing law in Detroit.

Denby volunteered for service in the United States Navy during the Spanish-American War, serving as a gunner's mate aboard the USS Yosemite. He then returned to Detroit to practice law. He was subsequently elected as a Republican Representative to the Michigan legislature in 1903, and in 1905 was elected to represent Michigan's 1st District in the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1905 to 1911. He served during that congressional tenure as chairman of the House Committee on Naval Affairs.

He served as president of the Detroit Board of Commerce in 1916, and in 1917 enlisted as a private in the United States Marine Corps when the U.S. entered World War I. He was discharged in 1919 with the rank of major. He was then selected by President Warren G. Harding to be Secretary of the Navy, in which capacity he served from 1921 to 1924.

Shortly after taking office, Denby obtained Harding's approval to transfer control of the naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California, from the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Interior, headed by Albert B. Fall. Fall proceeded to lease these oil fields to friends who were heads of oil companies in exchange for over $400,000 in personal loans. Despite attempts to keep the deal secret, The Wall Street Journal leaked news of the leasing, and the Senate decided to launch an inquiry into the matter. The investigation began in October 1923 after Harding's death, and the Senate Committee on Lands and Public Surveys concluded in 1924 that the leases had been fraudulent and corrupt. Nevertheless, Denby resigned his post on February 18, 1924, and in March returned once again to Detroit to practice law. He died February 8, 1929, just ten days before his 59th birthday.

Detroit's Denby High School is named in his honor, as is the Denby Center for Children and Family Services, which the Salvation Army opened in Detroit in 1930 to provide housing and treatment for abused and neglected children. A portrait of Edwin Denby, painted by Robert Grafton, hangs in the Michigan State Capitol Building.

The Neighborhood

Denby is a neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan with a population of approximately 2,795. Denby is in Wayne County. Living in Denby offers residents a sparse suburban feel, and most residents rent their homes. Denby is on Detroit's east side and is in City Council District 4.

Public bus stops surround the neighborhood on Morang Avenue, Kelly Road, and Whittier Avenue, keeping those without cars connected to the city at large. For drivers, Denby is tucked conveniently next to Interstate 94, which provides access to the rest of the nation's highway network. Most people enter the Denby neighborhood via Whittier Avenue, home to both local businesses and blight.

Denby is an urban neighborhood based on population density. Real estate in Denby is primarily composed of medium-sized (three or four bedroom) to smaller (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and apartment complexes. The neighborhood has a reputation as a tough community with a lot of tradition, creativity, and history. Even as a small neighborhood, Denby is home to two public parks. Skinner Playfield holds a playground, a multi-use field, and a small pavilion with picnic tables. Brookins Park is home to a playground and picnic shelters, with the city in the process of improving it through community meetings and resident feedback.

The City of Detroit's planning department has recognized the area's need for coordinated investment. The Denby/Whittier Neighborhood Framework Plan is an action-oriented, community-driven vision that reflects community needs and guides future improvements across Denby, Moross-Morang, Outer Drive-Hayes, and Yorkshire Woods.

Edwin C. Denby High School

The Edwin C. Denby High School is a public secondary school located at 12800 Kelly Road in northeastern Detroit. It opened in 1930 and the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. Denby died in 1929, and the Detroit School Board quickly voted to name a new high school after him "at the earliest opportunity." Later in 1929, the school board authorized construction and hired the firm of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls to design it.

The original 1929–1930 building is a symmetrical three-story multi-colored brick structure measuring 391 feet long by 117 feet wide. The middle section of the facade is sheathed in concrete, and each half of the building features a concrete-sheathed entrance and a projecting wing. The building features exterior sculpture work in terra cotta by noted Detroit artisan Corrado Parducci. The Parducci tiles include two types of reliefs used repeatedly throughout the facade: a relief of a lamp with a flame symbolizing the lamp of knowledge, and a relief of a warship symbolizing the naval background of Edwin Denby, with two guns extending from the ship and zigzags representing waves below.

A series of additions gave Denby a capacity of 2,875 students. In 1942, 830 students graduated from the high school, and over 800 graduated each year from 1946 through 1960. The school still averaged about 800 graduates per year through 1975, but the number of students graduating declined sharply in the late 1970s to a low of only 269 in 1980.

At one time the school was known for its mathematics department, which ranked high in U.S. national rankings. In 2011, the school completed a $16.5 million renovation to restore the 1930s auditorium and construct new student meeting areas. The same year, Denby was transferred from Detroit Public Schools to the Education Achievement Authority (EAA). There was subsequently significant turnover of department heads and school leadership, which cycled through three principals between 2012 and 2015. Denby returned to the DPS system upon dissolution of the EAA in 2017.

In the 2023–24 school year, 512 students attended Denby High School. The total minority enrollment is 100 percent, and 88 percent of students are economically disadvantaged. The school is a part of the Detroit Public Schools Community District.

Notable alumni of Denby High School include singer Keith Washington, NFL players Shantee Orr and Willie Osley, and Olympians Roger Young and Sheila Young.

Community Activism and Revitalization

Back in 2013, like many of Detroit's neighborhoods devastated by disinvestment and tax foreclosure, Denby was plagued with blight and vacancy. Denby Neighborhood Alliance organizer Sandra Turner-Handy noted that many kids didn't feel safe walking to and from school.

The turnaround began with a high school classroom assignment. Students worked on a senior thesis with Detroit Future City, a city-focused nonprofit think tank, to develop solutions for their neighborhood. The Denby Neighborhood Alliance set out to re-imagine the area and become a hub for community activism and reform. During the 2013–2014 school year, the Skinner Park project was chosen. It was seen as a way to break down two barriers: a lack of nearby greenspace for Denby residents and a lack of safe routes to school due to cars, blight, and crime.

Students used their activism to catch the eye of Denby residents, metro Detroiters, and Life Remodeled, the nonprofit that would help them secure $1.5 million in funding and some 10,000 volunteers. In summer 2016, Skinner Park opened, complete with a performance pavilion, playground, community garden, basketball, volleyball, and pickleball courts, a golf putting green, a children's reading mound, and horseshoe pits. Those 10,000 volunteers also spent a week boarding up 362 vacant homes, removing signs of blight, repairing 80 homes of students, painting murals on public buildings, marking safe routes to schools, and installing wayfinding artwork.

Students also completed Commemoration Park in August 2018. The park offers both a greenspace and a history lesson, honoring Detroiters doing good work, including Beulah Cain Brewer, the first Black principal of Detroit Public Schools.

Because of these combined efforts, graduation rates have gone up, the foreclosure rate has gone down, routes to school are safer, and there are more opportunities to learn, grow, and have fun.

In 2023, the revitalization momentum in Denby took another step forward. Life Remodeled, a Detroit-based nonprofit dedicated to transforming properties into neighborhood hubs of opportunity, announced plans for a new site on Denby's east side — a 7.55-acre site at 9740 McKinney Street, previously home to the Winans Academy of Performing Arts and before that Dominican High School from 1940 to 2005. The building offers more than 87,000 square feet, including more than 50,000 square feet to be leased by nonprofit partners to bring afterschool youth programs, workforce development initiatives, and health and wellness resources to the community. Plans for the hub include a significant presence for arts and culture programs, continuing the tradition of the Winans Academy and building upon neighborhood priorities for those programs, supporting the development of the Whittier Corridor as a destination for art and technology.