Famous people's places / Hazel Park
Hazel Park Raceway
Closed – archive entry · 2018
Suburban horse track north of Detroit that ran thoroughbred and harness racing for almost seventy years, partly owned by mob boss Joseph Zerilli, until it closed in 2018.
01 / The story of this place
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Hazel Park Raceway opened on August 17, 1949, as Michigan's first modern five-eighths-mile track, running both thoroughbred and harness racing through the following decades. From 1949 the track's controlling owner was Joseph Zerilli, the longtime head of Detroit's Zerilli crime family, whose interest in the profitable business lasted into the 1970s. Crowds packed the grandstand on summer weekends for decades, but competition from casinos and other tracks steadily thinned the audience, and the facility narrowed to harness racing only after 1984. Financial trouble finally closed Hazel Park Raceway for good in April 2018, and crews demolished the grandstand, stables, and clubhouse later that year. An Amazon distribution center now sits on the former track's footprint, opened in 2021.
- Opened August 17, 1949, as Michigan's first modern five-eighths-mile track
- Joseph Zerilli, Detroit mob boss, was a controlling owner from 1949
- Closed in April 2018 after nearly seventy years of racing
- Demolished later in 2018; an Amazon warehouse opened on the site in 2021
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 1
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Joseph Zerilli 1897–1977 · boss of the Detroit Partnership (Detroit Mafia)
Related place
Horse-racing track in suburban Hazel Park in which the Zerilli family held a controlling interest from 1950; racing ended in 2018.
Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
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