The Sugar Hill Historic District is a historic district in Detroit, Michigan. It contains 14 structures located along three streets: East Forest, Garfield, and East Canfield, between Woodward Avenue on the west and John R. on the east. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.HistoryThe area where this district is now located was originally settled by Detroit's wealthier citizens in the 1880s, seeking suburban homes near Woodward Avenue and well out of downtown. Early residents included Detroit Edison Company presidents Alex Dow, president of ; Herman Kiefer Hospital founder Dr. Guy L. Kiefer, and Detroit College of Medicine professor Dr. Nathaniel Webber. Around 1900, the area was a major center for Jewish Detroiters, as well as medical staff working at the hospitals nearby. The neighborhood remained substantially Jewish through the 1930s. As population pressure increased, however, apartments were constructed and what once were large single family homes were subdivided. In 1936, the first nightclub in what is now the Sugar Hill District opened, the Harlem Cave.Meanwhile, Detroit's first African American residents settled in Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. As the black population grew into the 1930s, the Paradise Valley area expanded up Hastings Street to Warren Avenue, and developed onto the parallel streets of St. Antoine, Beaubien, and Brush. Rebuilding caused many residents living near downtown to move northward. However, the areas where black residents could move were limited due to enforced housing restrictions and covenants, and the areas on John R and westward remained segregated.