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In 1988, the the stretch of Cass Corridor was still known as Skid Row, flush with folks down on their luck, hookers, drug addicts and dealers.
That's when George Boukas, then in his late 20s, bought the Temple Bar at 2906 Cass Ave. Now, the bar stands as one of the few businesses that wasn't sold to the Ilitch organization for the District Detroit and the Little Caesars Arena.
JC Reindl of the Detroit Free Press reports:
But the Cass Corridor's streets in the late 1980s were rougher than when Boukas' family last owned the Temple Bar in the 1970s. So he set out to befriend the drug dealers and prostitutes hanging out in the neighborhood, offering the bar as a refuge and place where they might start reordering their lives.
"One of the very first things I did when I bought the bar is I befriended pretty much all of the dope boys on the street and pretty much all the hookers," Boukas, now 57, recalled in a recent interview.
"I told the young girls especially, I don't care what they did on the street. I'm not here to judge them, I'm not the police. But if they were ever in trouble, that they needed to come in here, because nobody would mess with them in here.
"And that created a loyalty and an amazing friendship. I have four that still come through that have left that life behind."
