For years, people came long distances to stare at something called “Hamtramck Disneyland,” an outdoor folk art installation on Klinger Street that looked like it had been done by a more cheerful Tyree Guyton on steroids. The artist was a Ukrainian immigrant named Dmytro Szylak, who came, like thousands of others, to Hamtramck for a better life.
When he died four years ago, his will was messy, and the sculptures started to decay while things were in limbo. But local artists and residents rallied, and partnered with Hatch, a Hamtramck art collective. While they need more donations, Disneyland is well on the way to being restored. That is quintessentially Hamtramck, a tiny town which, to me, is one of the most fascinating and ethnically diverse cities in America.
If you were playing the old game of password and the clue was “Hamtramck” you might well answer Polish. And yes, there are still Polish restaurants here and shops and a businesses with Polish in the title. But the major ethnic groups today are Yemenis and Bangladeshis, and there are a bunch of Bosnian and Albanian Muslims too.
The city council now has a Muslim majority, and almost nobody, Muslim or Christian, seems to care. Greg Kowalski, a writer and editor who has lived his whole life in Hamtown, as they call it, guesstimates that Polish-Americans are now maybe eight percent of the population; less than several other groups, including African-Americans. Kowalski, who loves the place, was born in 1950 and has lived his whole life here; he is the driving force behind the Hamtramck Historical Museum, which celebrates the rich heritage of at least ten different ethnic groups.
The city, which lost population for decades, is growing again, as young artists and musicians priced out of what used to be the Cass Corridor are heading for Hamtramck.
Census officials think there may be 22,000 packed into Hamtown’s two square miles; Kowalski thinks it could be 25,000; he’s been in homes packed with immigrants who aren’t too anxious to make sure the government knows they are there.
There are drawbacks; there are next to no apartments, but there are many older, well-maintained homes, most built in the 1920s on postage stamp lots. You can get a lot of house here for under $100,000, or rent one for a quite affordable price.
This is a city that has far more culture than money. Hamtramck has bounced in and out of emergency management for the last two decades. It’s on its own now, but may be facing a big blow. General Motors announced in November that it plans to close its famous, or infamous, Poletown plant later this year. A third of that plant is in Hamtramck.
Some jobs, they now say, will last till January. But when all is said and done, complete closing of what is also called D-Ham, officially the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, will mean something like $850,000 a year in lost taxes.
“That could mean (the loss of) eight or nine employees,” City Manager Kathy Angerer told me. There would be a ripple effect and a loss of other jobs too. “But we will do what we can.
There’s a certain bitterness and irony here; in the early 1980s, Detroit used eminent domain to seize land from more than a thousand homeowners and businesses – something the state’s highest court now says should never have happened.
They said they had to sacrifice to create jobs. Well, now the jobs are leaving, though there is a faint chance they could be restored in contract bargaining this fall.
“But we’re still here,” said Kowalski, over a delicious pierogi lunch. Hamtramck isn’t rich. But it is one of Metropolitan Detroit’s most precious jewels.
