Poletown East, Detroit

Poletown East is a neighborhood area of Detroit, Michigan bordering the enclave city of Hamtramck. The area was named after the Polish immigrants who originally lived in the area. A portion of residential area known as Poletown became the General Motors Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly plant in 1981 with those residents relocated by General Motors and the cities of Detroit and Hamtramck which claimed eminent domain in order to make way for a new automobile plant.

Poletown was settled in the 1870s when the first waves of Polish and Kashubian immigrants came to Detroit, and served as the heart of Detroit's Polish community for many years. The nucleus of the community was the St. Albertus Roman Catholic Church, which opened in 1871 and closed in 1990. Poletown experienced its greatest period of growth during the 1920s and 1930s as thousands of Polish immigrants came to Detroit in search of jobs in auto plants, like the nearby Packard Plant, and the Chrysler Plant to the east on Jefferson Ave, and the slaughterhouses that were in the area. Poletown was not only home to Poles, but also to Italians and Blacks. During the 1950s and 60s, freeway construction and urban renewal projects altered the neighborhood.

In 1981, a portion of the neighborhood was demolished to make way for the construction of the General Motors Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly plant. General Motors and the cities of Detroit and Hamtramck relied on eminent domain to relocate the 4,200 people who lived in the area, along with their 1,300 homes, 140 businesses, six churches and one hospital. The plant was built at the boundary of Hamtramck and Detroit as a BOC factory (Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac) and became known as the "Poletown Plant".

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