Heartside is a neighborhood located near downtown

Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the List of municipalities in Mi ...

. Heartside district is a developing area in the

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

known for its art. It has restaurants, a park with a playground and splash-pad, and a recently opened farmer's market. However, it also has experienced much

urban decay Urban decay (also known as urban rot, urban death or urban blight) is the sociological process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. There is no single process that leads to urban deca ...

, features numerous abandoned buildings, and contains a large presence of

homelessness Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are: * living on the streets, also kn ...

History

Heartside was originally a marshy area near the Grand River. In about the 1850s, as Grand Rapids grew larger, Heartside became a shanty town, populated by recent immigrants, particularly Irish. By the 1870s, the area had developed into a compact neighborhood containing small one and two-story clapboard houses. In 1870, the

Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad The Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad at its height provided passenger and freight railroad services between Cincinnati, Ohio, and the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan, USA. The company was formed on January 18, 1854. Beginnings After grappl ...

ran a line through Heartside, and constructed a station at what is now Ionia Avenue and Oakes Street. The railroad, and the easy accessibility of transportation, led to a rapid growth of the region north of Grand Rapids and commercial and industrial development in Heartside. By 1900, Heartside was heavily built up with wholesale and manufacturing buildings, as well as stores and apartment buildings, hotels, and a new Union Depot.

Heartside Historic District

The Heartside Historic District is a smaller section of the larger Heartside neighborhood, containing many of the historically significant buildings. The historic district consists of six full blocks and parts of two others, containing structures located along Ionia, Commerce, and Division Avenues, from Cherry Street on the south to Fulton and Louis Street on the north. The district contains 62 buildings, of which 55 are historically significant. The buildings are constructed of brick or, in some cases, sandstone, and are primarily two to six stories tall. All but fifteen were constructed before 1929, and are predominantly

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

, Late Victorian,

Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...

, and early twentieth-century commercial in style. The district was increased in size in 2022.

References

{{commonscat, Heartside Historic District Neighborhoods in Grand Rapids, Michigan Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan National Register of Historic Places in Kent County, Michigan