I know The Advocate named Ferndale as a “best city” for gays and lesbians. ((http://www.metromodemedia.com/inthenews/ferndale10.aspx)) But I didn’t know how Ferndale became gay central for southeastern Michigan. This Advocate article from a few years back filled in the blanks:
Ferndale got its reputation as a gay mecca after people in Detroit’s Palmer Park neighborhood, once considered the anchor of southeast Michigan’s gay community, started moving out to avoid crime and poor city services in the mid 1980s, said Craig Covey, Ferndale’s mayor pro tem and the director of the Midwest AIDS Prevention Project. Former residents scattered throughout the area, but a handful of people–including Covey–were drawn to the old, inexpensive homes of Ferndale. “Ferndale was a blank canvas,” he said. “Downtown was empty.”
Today, Nine Mile Road is full of restaurants, bars and bookstores, many of them gay-owned. Soon after Covey arrived, Ferndale’s small gay population began organizing, he said, and by the early 1990s, the Affirmations community center and the predominantly gay Metropolitan Community Church had taken up residence in town. Some longtime residents of the blue-collar town were wary. “People were a little afraid–apprehensive–at first,” said Jackie Leggio, a waitress at Como’s, an Italian restaurant and Ferndale fixture. Now that fear is gone, she said.