US Highway 16 (US 16), also called Grand River Avenue for much of its length, was one of the principal pre-Interstate roads in the state of Michigan. Before the creation of the United States Numbered Highway System in 1926, the highway had been designated M-16. The modern road cuts across the Lower Peninsula in a northwest–southeast fashion from Grand Rapids to Detroit. Before the late 1950s and early 1960s, US 16 followed other roads between Muskegon and Grand Rapids, and then Grand River Avenue through Lansing to Detroit. With the coming of the Interstate Highway System, US 16 was shifted from the older roads to the new freeways. When the gap in the freeway was filled in around Lansing, the US 16 designation was decommissioned in the state. The freeway was then designated only Interstate 96 (I-96) or I-196.
The original pathway along the Grand River Avenue corridor was an Indian trail. This trail was used by the first European settlers to the area now known as Michigan in 1701. Later this trail was expanded into a plank road that formed the basis for one of the first state trunkline highways as M-16. Later, the highway was rerouted to replace M-126 and create M-104. Current segments of the roadway are still part of the state highway system as sections of M-43 or business loops off I-96. The portion of Grand River Avenue in Detroit between I-96 and the intersection with Cass Avenue and Middle Street in downtown Detroit is an unsigned state trunkline, sometimes referred to as Old Business Spur I-96 (OLD BS I-96). In Detroit, Grand River is one of five major avenues (along with Woodward, Michigan, Gratiot, and Jefferson) planned by Judge Augustus Woodward in 1805 that extend from downtown Detroit in differing directions. Grand River Avenue extends northwesterly from the city's downtown.
Read more about Grand River Avenue: Route Description, History, Major Intersections
Famous quotes containing the words grand, river and/or avenue:
“What do you do in the Grand Hotel? Eat, sleep, loaf around, flirt a little, dance a little. A hundred doors leading to one hall. No one knows anything about the person next to them. And when you leave, someone occupies your room, lies in your bed. That’s the end.”
—William A. Drake (1900–1965)
“We approached the Indian Island through the narrow strait called “Cook.” He said, “I ‘xpect we take in some water there, river so high,—never see it so high at this season. Very rough water there, but short; swamp steamboat once. Don’t paddle till I tell you, then you paddle right along.” It was a very short rapid. When we were in the midst of it he shouted “paddle,” and we shot through without taking in a drop.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Play is a major avenue for learning to manage anxiety. It gives the child a safe space where she can experiment at will, suspending the rules and constraints of physical and social reality. In play, the child becomes master rather than subject.... Play allows the child to transcend passivity and to become the active doer of what happens around her.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)