Poletown

[rjk]

I've been reading about the GM plant/demolition of the neighborhood and had a few questions that I hope someone can fill me in on.

How did the neighborhood that is now occupied by the GM plant compare to the area directly south of 94 [[Chene) as far as quality of life?

Was there any other areas that GM was looking at to build the plant?
Did the fact that Hamtramck lost Dodge Main factor in as far as replacing some the cities tax base?

Thanks.

[EMG]

I was in my late teens and living on the far northeast corner of Detroit in 1980 when Poletown was making headlines about how Big Bad GM was coming in and destroying this neighborhood...but I really had no familiarity with the neighborhood. The following Wikipedia article gives a brief summary of it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poletown

The Detroit News site provides a brief history in pictures here:

http://multimedia.detnews.com/pix/ph...own/index.html

[CornBot]

I unfortunately have some familiarity with Poletown. My husband's grandmothers both lost their lifelong homes, one on Edsel Ford East and the other on Kanter. That neighborhood was such a throwback, even in 1980. Old ladies still swept the sidewalks in front of their homes. The corner store sold milk, bread, canned soup, and toilet paper, but no smokes or alcohol. The houses were all occupied reasonably well-cared-for by an ethnically mixed population. Neighbors sat on the porches after supper or strolled the street with their dogs and little kids. It was old-fashioned in the sense that people could walk to church, school, and the market. Grandma never learned to drive; she didn't need to. Even her job at the hospital on the Boulevard was close enough to walk.

It was as if the city had just realized there was a successful community still in existence on the east side, and just could not stand the sight or the concept. So many other areas had already crumbled into abandoned slum/prairie that would have made less invasive, more intelligent locations to build that GM plant on... but no. Eminent domain was invoked to kill one of the last healthy microcosms of what Detroit really was like, and obliterate it as completely as possible. As a cruel little twist of that knife, they tore down Immaculate's on my in-laws' 25th wedding anniversary. So much for renewing their vows in the church where they got married.

If I've managed to get the phone uploaded correctly [[being a newbie lurker type), then below is a picture of DH'S paternal grandma, her daughters, and some of her grandkids, who tried to fight for the home on Kanter grandma had lived in since the 1920s. She was the second-to-last resident to leave, if I remember right.

[56packman]

OK, here's the deal: GM saw the writing on the wall for the Clark street plant and the Fleetwood plant, the two facilities that produced Cadillac automobiles as of 1980 and the large rear wheel drive products made in them. They wanted to build a single-floor modern plant to produce the new product and were looking to head south, a loss of over 1,000 jobs to Detroit. Chrysler was closing Dodge main, making a large footprint of land available and the Young administration lobbied GM hard to stay in Detroit and build that plant. The loss of the stable neighborhood is regrettible, but GM could have gone south with the plant, easily, the land under Dodge Main would be who knows what today, If the plant remained it might be another Packard plant situation and the stable neighborhood would be pretty much like the rest of Hamtramck today, which isn't what it once was [[what is today?) but better than many nearby areas.

[RickBeall]

Hey I live in Hamtrack. We're still kicking. Basically, Detroit treated the Poletown area just like they treated Delray. If Hamtramck were not an entity separate from Detroit, we would be a field like Delray ... and Poletown.

But as 56packman said, there were no absolute good guys or bad guys. Hamtrmack lobbied real hard to have the Poletown plant built on its southern border. It's partically in Hamtramck, and we get a couple million in revenue from it yearly. The Poletown plant also cut of Chene street from the healthier Hamtramck, and that area has steadily declined into almost urban prairie.

It's a tangled story.

[Philbo]

One interesting note is that there is still a old cemetery on the grounds of the plant. When I worked security there we would have to admit family visitors especially on Sundays to visit thier loved ones.

[MIRepublic]

Hey I live in Hamtrack. We're still kicking. Basically, Detroit treated the Poletown area just like they treated Delray. If Hamtramck were not an entity separate from Detroit, we would be a field like Delray ... and Poletown.

Really, could you just come right out and let everyone know what you're insinuating, already?

I lament like any thoughtful person would the hardball the city played with the neighborhood. I lament it anywhere it happens, and it happened [[and happens) all across the country. But, I'm not sure I, at all, agree with the insinuation that still seems to be held to this day, by many, that northern Poletown was specifically targeted for any reason beyound the fact that it was near existing rail, freeway, and industrial infrastructure. There seems to be idea, either through blatant rejection or simply not considering, that the location of the plant didn't make sense. The idea seems to be the result of a complete denial that the Milwaukee Junction was/is literally next door to the site.

[sumas]

I lived in that community as a student at Wayne State. It was charming and surprisingly crime free. I remember a strong battle being waged to save a church and its members lost that too.

[kraig]

Hey I live in Hamtrack. We're still kicking. Basically, Detroit treated the Poletown area just like they treated Delray. If Hamtramck were not an entity separate from Detroit, we would be a field like Delray ... and Poletown.

But as 56packman said, there were no absolute good guys or bad guys. Hamtrmack lobbied real hard to have the Poletown plant built on its southern border. It's partically in Hamtramck, and we get a couple million in revenue from it yearly. The Poletown plant also cut of Chene street from the healthier Hamtramck, and that area has steadily declined into almost urban prairie.

It's a tangled story.

I'm glad you mentioned Delray, because, something extremely similar is taking place right now called the DRIC. People need to realize that Eminent Domain in the City of Detroit has always left a lot of good people screwed over.

[CornBot]

My DH was just my boyfriend back during the Poletown to-do, so I was not really involved other than hearing DH's family talk about what they were doing to save their home and then helping them move away to the 'burbs. As time went on, the event became retrospectively more important to me personally [[now married to him for 28+ yrs).

I remember a question at the time, which I don't know if it was rhetorical or not, about why GM didn't just use the Packard plant/land. It was already long abandoned then and I don't remember now if there was a good reason to demolish a neighborhood rather than an old factory complex. Does anyone have a clue why?

Not that it matters so much, 3 decades later... except that perhaps those who can remember the history might not be doomed to repeating it.

[Mikeg]

....why GM didn't just use the Packard plant/land. It was already long abandoned then and I don't remember now if there was a good reason to demolish a neighborhood rather than an old factory complex. Does anyone have a clue why?

Take a look at this map I made which provides a visual indication of the size and shape of the old Packard property [[outlined in red, labeled "A" on right) and compare it to the GM Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant [[outlined in red on left). Modern and efficient assembly of "body frame integral" vehicles requires single story plants and considerably more body shop area to build the underbody than the old "body on frame" vehicles that were assembled in the Packard and GM Cadillac Clark St. Plants.

Therefore, the answer to your question is that to have located the new GM plant on the old Packard site, the City of Detroit would have had to acquire and demolish the existing Packard complex of buildings at great cost. Also, a different existing neighborhood would have to have been acquired through eminent domain and then demolished in order to offer GM the size and shape of land they would need for a modern assembly plant.

[Lferg]

Cornbot, I knew I had seen that picture before

http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=18

[Detroit_uke]

Have you read - Poletown: Community Betrayed by Jeannie Wylie [[Kellermann)?

[rjk]

^Yeah, I'm going to try to track one down this week. I plan to call up a few used book stores.

Anyone see the documentary "Poletown Lives?" I'd love to check that out if I could find out where to pick up a copy.

[CornBot]

Cornbot, I knew I had seen that picture before

http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=18

Yep, that's exactly where I lifted it from; asked my MIL if she still had the newpaper articles & she sent me that link. So, forefront L to R are cousin Nick; aunts Connie, Gertie, and Dolly; with Pepper the dog is leading the parade.

MIL also has all the news articles laminated and saved in an album. There are a bunch of "family photos" in the Poletown book, so of course she has that too. Interesting that DH photographed Immaculate Conception's interior before it was torn down, thinking his mom wold want the pictures, but she still doesn't want to see them.

[Mikeg]

Especially hurtful is that the plant never produced the number of jobs promised...... The Poletown plant was intended to be "modern" yet its use of land is horrendous. Acres of asphalt surround the building for little economic reason. At the very time GM should have been adjusting its business practices to become more nimble and embrace the "just in time" method, they build a plant that allowed them to crank out the cars and just park them until they were needed.

Your criticisms are completely unfounded. Examining the footprint areas of the Packard and GM plants shows that the single story GM Plant has around twice the footprint as the four story Packard buildings. Setting aside any differences in production rates and purchased content, that indicates that the GM production facility design was about twice as efficient in its use of floorspace. Single story production facilities are a necessity to support "just in time" methods, which by the way, were used at Detroit-Hamtramck for the delivery and consumption of purchased components [[note: "just in time" does not include the ordering and delivery of finished vehicles to dealers and consumers). The Packard facility was designed in a different era, when plants relied on rail for moving almost all inbound materials and much of their finished product. Back then, public streets near the plant were even used to temporarily store finished vehicles pending shipment, something that neither the manufacturer or the public would ever tolerate 60 years later.

And lest you think that the GM test track was was a unnecessary use of land, here's a 1935 Packard brochure that indicates Packard shipped every one of their "top of the line" Packard V-12's by rail to their proving grounds in Shelby Township for a short test drive and shakedown, as well as a sampling of their other vehicles.

The bottom line is that the city of Detroit was faced with the impending closure of the Fisher Body Fleetwood and Cadillac Clark St. plants due to their obsolence. This was because the next-generation replacement products for those being built there in the late 1970s and early 80s were going to be "body frame integral" designs that could not be built using the old model of building bodies at Fleetwood and transporting them by a fleet of body trucks on the streets of Detroit over to the Clark St. plant. GM planned to replace those plants with a new one by the mid 1980s and it was either going to be a greenfield plant outside of Detroit or a brownfield plant within the city limits - but only if the city could quickly assemble a site large enough to meet GM's production needs.

As for your charge that the promised jobs never materialized, I'd like to see your proof. The original plan was for the Fleetwood and Clark St. plants to close when the Detroit-Hamtramck opened and for their workers to transfer there as it ramped up production. However, even though they were getting "long in the tooth", the continuing popularity of GM's midsize body on frame "G" cars provided jobs at Fleetwood and Clark St. for several more years after the Detroit-Hamtramck plant went into production.

Personally, I think the decisions and methods used by the city of Detroit to acquire the land they offered to GM were wrong. Personal property rights should trump those of the government's.

[DetroitHabitater]

Was there any other areas that GM was looking at to build the plant?

I remember reading in the 'Poletown a community betrayed" book that GM was also looking to build the plant in a green field in Oklahoma. And Colman Young basically said 'We'll get you a field in Detroit'

[Fury13]

It's long been said that Coleman Young saw the demolition of Poletown as simply justice; that is, revenge for the leveling of Black Bottom in the '50s.

Now what's left? A dead remnant of a neighborhood, in the shadow of the incinerator. Nice.

[Stosh]

It's long been said that Coleman Young saw the demolition of Poletown as simply justice; that is, revenge for the leveling of Black Bottom in the '50s.

Now what's left? A dead remnant of a neighborhood, in the shadow of the incinerator. Nice.

I've heard that too, but while it would make some sense, the economic reality would dictate that Dodge Main would still be there today and the neighborhood would probably still be a wreck. It just hastened the process a little bit. I think that the incinerator really killed off that neighborhood.

[rjk]

http://www.allpar.com/corporate/dodge-main.html

In reference to the 4th photo in the above link [[Dodge Main, 1980) can anyone recognize the main roads and from which direction the photo was taken?
I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly where DM was loacted.

[56packman]

Dammit, here we go again. THe Packard plant was never "abandoned" until the city of Detroit, from the mayor's office began efforts to sieze the complex from its owners for back taxes without due process, in 1999. Packard Motor Car Company discontinued production at the plant in September of 1954, moving to a briggs plant on Conner and east Warren. They continued to use the office on EGB until the fall of 1956, when the new owners of Studebaker-Packard, Curtis-Wright closed all Detroit operations. Since that time the facility had been a business center much like the Russell Industrial Center or the [[former) Ford model T plant in Highland Park, divided into smaller sections for tennants.
I was one of several people who had space in the Packard plant, it was an excellent place for storage or light business needs and had several large tennants, Essex Wire being one.
So DY members, please stop saying "the Packard plant has been abandoned since Packard went out of business", it is not true.

well, just call me "broken record"

My DH was just my boyfriend back during the Poletown to-do, so I was not really involved other than hearing DH's family talk about what they were doing to save their home and then helping them move away to the 'burbs. As time went on, the event became retrospectively more important to me personally [[now married to him for 28+ yrs).

I remember a question at the time, which I don't know if it was rhetorical or not, about why GM didn't just use the Packard plant/land. It was already long abandoned then and I don't remember now if there was a good reason to demolish a neighborhood rather than an old factory complex. Does anyone have a clue why?

Not that it matters so much, 3 decades later... except that perhaps those who can remember the history might not be doomed to repeating it.

[Mikeg]

In reference to the 4th photo in the above link [[Dodge Main, 1980) can anyone recognize the main roads and from which direction the photo was taken? I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly where DM was loacted.

The photo was taken looking roughly northward from a position that would be above today's GM Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant. Joseph Campau is the street paralleling the left edge of the photo. Conant is the other main road paralleling it that runs just to the right of the power plant with the four smoke stacks. The railroad tracks runs at a slight angle from right to left and Keyworth Stadium can be seen in the middle of the photo [[just above the railroad tracks).

[kraig]

Dammit, here we go again. THe Packard plant was never "abandoned" until the city of Detroit, from the mayor's office began efforts to sieze the complex from its owners for back taxes without due process, in 1999. Packard Motor Car Company discontinued production at the plant in September of 1954, moving to a briggs plant on Conner and east Warren. They continued to use the office on EGB until the fall of 1956, when the new owners of Studebaker-Packard, Curtis-Wright closed all Detroit operations. Since that time the facility had been a business center much like the Russell Industrial Center or the [[former) Ford model T plant in Highland Park, divided into smaller sections for tennants.
I was one of several people who had space in the Packard plant, it was an excellent place for storage or light business needs and had several large tennants, Essex Wire being one.
So DY members, please stop saying "the Packard plant has been abandoned since Packard went out of business", it is not true.

well, just call me "broken record"

It depends on someone's definition of abandoned. When about 95- 99% of a 3.5 million square foot facility is vacant, not being cared for, and falling apart, it may be a fair estimation to say that the facility has been abandoned.

[EastsideAl]

Thank you 56 packman for clearing up what seems to be a consistently held misconception around here. My great uncle ran a business out of the Packard complex during the '60s and '70s, I had another uncle who worked for Essex Wire, and I had family who lived in the area and shopped at the Arlan's discount store, which was also in a part of the old plant. The place was nowhere near 95% empty in those days. In fact, the Packard complex was quite a busy area.

[EastsideAl]

It's long been said that Coleman Young saw the demolition of Poletown as simply justice; that is, revenge for the leveling of Black Bottom in the '50s.

Which conveniently ignores the fact that the majority white city of Hamtramck was one of the driving forces behind the building of the complex on that site, which is partially within their territory. In fact, the building of the plant was widely supported by majority of people, black or white, throughout the Detroit area [[I'm making no comment here on the wisdom of that support, or how the plant was built).