Was it Worth it? The 1981 Razing of Poletown
by Amelia Wroblewski
Detroit Mayor Coleman Young had a problem. It was 1980 and Detroit had been dealing with a declining population as well as dropping tax revenues for quite some time. Many people were leaving the city for the surrounding suburbs. His goal was to increase the economy and employment rate of the city, which would hopefully help retain more citizens. At the same time, General Motors (GM) was contending with more gas-friendly Japanese vehicles that were steadily increasing their appeal to American citizens. They concluded that a new, modern production plant that could more efficiently manufacture vehicles was necessary. With their headquarters already in Detroit, GM wanted the facility close by and approached Young and other city officials about the prospect of a new plant in the city (Detroit Historical Society, 2021).
The Deal
General Motors laid its needs out on the table: three-hundred ninety-five acres of land, more land for landscaping, and even more land for parking. In return, city officials believed that a GM plant would increase the economy of Detroit as well as provide many jobs, but the placement of the facility would prove to be troublesome in a populated city. After comparing maps of the proposed facility and the city, they concluded where the plant could work. However, this area was not bare land. This was a thriving, populated, and beloved community that had come to been known as “Poletown.” How was GM and the city of Detroit going to achieve their goals when there was a residential neighborhood, businesses, and livelihoods in the way (Detroit Historical Society, 2021).
GM had more flexibility than Detroit. They told officials that they had ten months to provide the land needed for the project, or they would go to the next city on their list. There were many cities that would welcome a plant at this time. To create legality concerning moving citizens from their own homes and neighborhoods, Michigan lawmakers rewrote their eminent domain law, a law that allows the government to seize private property for public use, if the property owners were compensated. Lawmakers added a clause that permitted the taking of private property for the purpose of commercial development. City officials also knew that the residents of Poletown were vulnerable, not wealthy, and many were recent immigrants just starting to build their lives in America. Once the law with the new clause was written, there was not going to be anything that residents could do to fight the legislation. By June 1980, the new legislation had been in effect for two months and Young was finally ready to announce the plan for the new facility.
Poletown
Poletown was a neighborhood in northeast Detroit that was at the crossroads of Detroit and the city of Hamtramck. It gathered its nickname from the multitude of Polish immigrants that chose the neighborhood as their home. Other groups also resided in this neighborhood: African Americans and immigrants from Albania, Yugoslavia, Yemen, Ukraine, and the Philippines, to name a few. Despite the mesh of several cultures, a sense of community was well-established in the neighborhood. Many would have described the area as a place that seemed more like Poland than America due to the keeping of customs across the area. Poletown was also affordable, presenting new immigrant families a good area to make their start in America. The majority stayed after establishing themselves, continuing to add to the rich, ethnic region. Ironically, Mayor Young was concerned about city folk leaving for the suburbs, while Poletown residents were least motivated to leave Detroit (Detroit Historical Society, 2021).
Once the news broke out of the plan, the numbers shocked many: fifteen-hundred homes, one-hundred forty-four businesses, and sixteen churches were scheduled to be bulldozed to fit GM’s requirements. Because of the eminent domain law, citizens were offered an average of $13,000 and moving expenses to move elsewhere. While some were content with this offering, many had chosen to live their entire lives in Poletown and were furious, heartbroken, and determined to fight. They decided to create the Poletown Neighborhood Council for this purpose (Detroit Historical Society, 2021). Critics of the plan offered alternatives: building multi-storied parking structures or using the plant’s roof as parking instead of the surrounding neighborhoods. However, these ideas were dismissed as unfeasible by GM (Serrin, 1981).
The Quick Impacts
The impacts of the plans of Young and GM began as soon as the mayor made the initial announcement. The first impact was the excruciating choices required of families whether to stay and fight the decision or to take the money offered and leave. Already busy with work and families, vulnerable people had this decision weighing on their shoulders. Many of the younger Polish American families were among the first to take the money offered by the city and move to the suburbs. The older, first- and second- generation Polish-Americans were not appeased by money and had spent invaluable time building their new life in this neighborhood. They had raised families, worked, worshipped, and built a vibrant community, and were not adept with or accepting of change now (Detroit Historical Society, 2021). However, as more families moved out, the neighborhood grew more and more desolate and dangerous. Arson and looting would increase alongside relocation efforts. Some people found themselves as the last person on their block. Businesses started to close, forcing people trying to stay to find other places to do business. The cultural and ethnic magnetism of Poletown started to diminish. This slow beginning to the full destruction of Poletown would be the second impact of Detroit’s decision (Hedberg, 2021).
The Third Impact
The third impact of GM’s takeover of Poletown was the incredible effort put in to fight the decision. Residents were already furious with the idea of the city destroying their neighborhood, but even more resentful of the decision of the city to destroy their churches. Poland being a heavily Catholic nation, many immigrants stayed immensely devoted to the church when they arrived in America. These factors of destruction of livelihood, community, and churches combined to motivate the families that stayed to demonstrate, start campaigns, appeal to representatives, and act in other ways. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader even joined in the fight, urging residents to stay and contest GM’s plan as well as providing associates to travel and assist the effort in Detroit. His own motivation was to stop this precedent from happening and allowing it to continue in other cities.
Nader’s presence and dedication gave the Poletown community national attention (Serrin, 1981). The Poletown Neighborhood Council even went so far to attempt to bring an action against the city and rule the new eminent domain law as unconstitutional. This case made it to the Michigan Supreme Court, where the justices ruled in favor of the new Michigan law. They stated that the economic relief that would be delivered by the project would be crucial to the public, and therefore, had a true public purpose, especially since Detroit was in economic distress at the time. Simply put, in the eyes of the judges, the pros of the project outweighed the cons, and the legality was sound.
Once the decision was finalized, many began to lose hope, and the reality of the situation was recognized (Crawford, 2018). A lot of the protestation that occurred was held within the church communities in the area.
While the Archdiocese of Detroit cooperated with the city’s plan, one church specifically did not comply or accept the situation. This church was Immaculate Conception Church on Trombly Avenue, a church that usually could house hundreds of worshippers on Sundays. Parishioners were deeply connected to the church and the sense of community it embodied. Passionate about saving the historic property as well as the unifying religious spirit present, letter-writing campaigns began from within the church, led by Father Joseph Karasiewicz, who was impassioned about defying the archdiocese for the good of the church and parishioners. In July 1981, some protestors staged a twenty-nine-day sit-in that quickly ended when they were escorted out of the church by SWAT teams. A few days later, the church would be completely torn down, signaling the end to one of the major efforts to protect Poletown (Serrin, 1981).
The Fourth Impact
The fourth impact on Polish Americans was the eventual surrender to the city that all residents had to face. Whether leaving right after Young’s announcement was made or becoming one of the last remaining citizens that had no choice but to leave in the end, everyone in the way of the project had to leave. No relief was brought to Poletown residents that had spent many hours writing letters, reaching out, demonstrating, and guarding themselves from the thought of having to move from their beloved home. There was no victory.
The Fifth Impact
The fifth major impact from GM’s project was the displaced and destroyed history, tradition, and community. Many Polish Americans from Poletown now resided elsewhere in Detroit, whether in the city or the suburbs. The displaced residents had to rebuild their lives, make new friends, find new churches, and deal with the fact that the community that had understood them, watched their families grow, and celebrated and struggled together was gone for good. What was once a blooming, ethnic city had turned into a parking lot, and with the forced movement of people came the disappearance of the culture and tradition that had once encapsulated it.
One must remember that some residents of Poletown were content with the money offered to them by the city and felt safer in the suburbs of Detroit, eager to take advantage of new opportunities in a new area. Other people, many who were elderly, had to accept their new fate.
Some came to realize that the suburbs were not as terrible as they thought they would be and started to embrace the change after the pain wore off. Others, especially businesspeople who had to move their businesses as well, noted a loss of business as well as a loss of their loyal customers in Poletown that now lived too far away to visit. No matter the outcome, many people held a newfound distrust in the government to protect their private property and communities. As for Mayor Young, whose father had also owned a business in a community that was bulldozed to make way for highway, his lack of understanding for people in a similar situation led to many Polish Americans to condemn him for his actions (Foley, 2021).
Was it Worth it?
The Detroit-Hamtramck Plant, known infamously as the “Poletown” Plant, opened in 1985. In 2004, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed their decision from 1981 and invalidated the clause in the law that allowed Poletown to be sentenced to becoming a parking lot. Only thirty-three years later, in 2018, GM announced that they’d be closing their plant, causing many to question if the city’s decision had been worth all the pain of prior Poletown residents. GM had first promised six-thousand jobs with the plant’s opening, but automation made the number of jobs quite lower than they had predicted. With the closing of the plant, Hamtramck, who had been excited about the prospect of new jobs back in the 1980s, would now be losing out on jobs as well as a large portion of property taxes (Crawford, 2018).
Had GM’s plan really been a godsend to the public and Detroit’s economy like officials had imagined? Was the displacement and lost community worth it for this project? These are some of the questions still asked today.
In 2020, after a change in contract, GM announced that they would now put forth the effort to turn the Detroit-Hamtramck into a plant for electric vehicles. However, some citizens, upon hearing the news of the potential closure back in 2018, especially those that are old enough to remember the events of 1981, wish that the community could be put back in place (Hedberg, 2021).
The impacts of the 1981 razing of Detroit’s Poletown on Polish Americans are too many to count. They include the devastating (for many) decision to move away from their beloved homes and communities; the slow buyout of Poletown, leading to crime sprees and looting; the amazing effort to stop the bulldozing; the acceptance of the tragedy; and the requirement of starting over in a new community. In no other time in United States history had so many people been moved in such a short amount of time. One cannot delete the resentment and heartbreak the first- and second-generation Polish Americans in Poletown felt during the erasure of their community for the sake of a parking lot. It is difficult to offer words of positivity towards these displaced residents. However, one may say that, if anything, perhaps this series of events will serve as a lesson so that nothing of this sort will happen again in the United States of America (Crawford, 2018).
About the author
Amelia Wroblewski, a first-year graduate student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is the recipient of this year’s Kamylla and Czesław Kaszuba College Scholarship. A graduate of the State University of New York at Fredonia, she has been active in Polonia since grade school, when she began volunteering at Bożego Ciała processions at Corpus Christi Church in Buffalo. Wroblewski attended the Msgr. Adamski Polish Saturday School and was an active member of its Polish Dance group, which performed at various events throughout Western New York. She is a member of the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo, Polish American Congress, and the Fredonia Student Keyboard Association, where she served as publicity chair and secretary. She was also a member of the Kappa Delta Pi Education Honor Society and the Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society.
Among her awards and honors are: SUNY Fredonia Excellence in Student Teaching Award (2020); President’s Award of Excellence Scholarship (SUNY Fredonia, 2016, 2017), and numerous other awards, including: Polish Arts Club of Buffalo Scholarship, Kosciuszko Foundation, Polish American Congress Charitable Foundation Gorecki Scholarship, and Polish Roman Catholic Union of America Scholarship (2021).
Wroblewski studied Polish language and culture at Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 2017 through the Kosciuszko Foundation Summer Study Scholarship, and in 2018 with a scholarship from the American Council of Polish Culture. As a pianist, she has always had an interest in Polish composers. Her Senior Piano Performance Degree Recital at SUNY Fredonia featured the music of composers Lutosławski, Chopin, Paderewski, and Szymanowski. Cancelled due to COVID restrictions, her work ethic did not go unnoticed by her professors, as she balanced two extremely challenging majors in Childhood Education and Piano Performance, while sustaining an overall 3.97 GPA.
At the University of Colorado at Boulder, she hopes to earn her master’s in Curriculum and Instruction, and pursue a career in teaching curriculum and instructional design.
Works Cited
Polish American Journal
P.O. Box 271 / North Boston, NY 14110-0271
(800) 422-1275 / (716) 312-8088
info@polamjournal.com
