Author: Brianne Turczynski
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439671974
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
Poletown was a once vibrant, ethnically diverse neighborhood in Detroit. In its prime, it had a store on every corner. Its theaters, restaurants and schools thrived, and its churches catered to a multiplicity of denominations. In 1981, General Motors announced plans for a new plant in Detroit and pointed to the 465 acres of Poletown. Using the law of eminent domain with a quick-take clause, the city planned to relocate 4,200 residents within ten months and raze the neighborhood. With unprecedented defiance, the residents fought back in vain. In 2004, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the eminent domain law applied to Poletown was unconstitutional--a ruling that came two decades too late.
Author: Brianne Turczynski
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467145793
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
Poletown was a once vibrant, ethnically diverse neighborhood in Detroit. In its prime, it had a store on every corner. Its theaters, restaurants and schools thrived, and its churches catered to a multiplicity of denominations. In 1981, General Motors announced plans for a new plant in Detroit and pointed to the 465 acres of Poletown. Using the law of eminent domain with a quick-take clause, the city planned to relocate 4,200 residents within ten months and raze the neighborhood. With unprecedented defiance, the residents fought back in vain. In 2004, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the eminent domain law applied to Poletown was unconstitutional--a ruling that came two decades too late.
Author: Jeanie Wylie
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252061530
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
More than 4,200 residents of Detroit's "Poletown" community lost their homes in the 1980s when the neighborhood was razed to accommodate construction of a Cadillac plant on land where generations of Polish immigrants had lived, worked, and worshipped. Poletown is the story of the only group in Detroit to oppose the construction plan: the Poles and blacks who fought side by side to save their neighborhood, one of the city's oldest integrated communities. "This book is about the ramifications of raw corporate power going unchecked." -- John Conyers, Michigan congressman "Racial class is a fundamental problem in America. But Poletown demonstrates that economic class is even more fundamental." -- Rev. Jesse Jackson
Author: Drew Philp
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 147679801X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283
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Book Description
A young college grad buys a house in Detroit for $500 and attempts to restore it—and his new neighborhood—to its original glory in this “deeply felt, sharply observed personal quest to create meaning and community out of the fallen…A standout” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Drew Philp, an idealistic college student from a working-class Michigan family, decides to live where he can make a difference. He sets his sights on Detroit, the failed metropolis of abandoned buildings, widespread poverty, and rampant crime. Arriving with no job, no friends, and no money, Philp buys a ramshackle house for five hundred dollars in the east side neighborhood known as Poletown. The roomy Queen Anne he now owns is little more than a clapboard shell on a crumbling brick foundation, missing windows, heat, water, electricity, and a functional roof. A $500 House in Detroit is Philp’s raw and earnest account of rebuilding everything but the frame of his house, nail by nail and room by room. “Philp is a great storyteller…[and his] engrossing” (Booklist) tale is also of a young man finding his footing in the city, the country, and his own generation. We witness his concept of Detroit shift, expand, and evolve as his plan to save the city gives way to a life forged from political meaning, personal connection, and collective purpose. As he assimilates into the community of Detroiters around him, Philp guides readers through the city’s vibrant history and engages in urgent conversations about gentrification, racial tensions, and class warfare. Part social history, part brash generational statement, part comeback story, A $500 House in Detroit “shines [in its depiction of] the ‘radical neighborliness’ of ordinary people in desperate circumstances” (Publishers Weekly). This is an unforgettable, intimate account of the tentative revival of an American city and a glimpse at a new way forward for generations to come.
Author: Roman Godzak
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738532356
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 126
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Book Description
Detroit was once known as the City of Churches. From a primitive log chapel on the banks of the Detroit River three centuries ago to the contemporary structures in the far-flung suburbs, the Catholic churches that grace southeastern Michigan pique the interest and admiration of designers, artists, and scholars. Detroit's Catholic churches have embraced many roles during their existence, serving as historical landmarks, centers for political activities, community charities, and anchors for the city's diverse ethnic groups. They symbolize the devotion, strength, and unity that have nurtured the faithful since 1701. The congregation of Ste. Anne, Detroit's first church, persevered to build seven churches over two centuries, each more magnificent than its predecessor.
Author: Aaron Foley
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 099890418X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
An anthology of essays and poetry exploring the Motor City’s hidden corners—from the people who live and work there. It seems like everybody in Detroit thinks they know the city’s neighborhoods, but because there are so many, their characteristics often become muddled and the stories that define them are often lost. Edited by Aaron Foley—author of How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass—this intimate and wide-ranging collection offers revealing perspectives on a city that many people think they have figured out. A homegrown portrait about the lesser-known parts of the city, The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook showcases the voices and people who make up Cass Corridor, West Village, Minock Park, Warrendale, Hamtramck, and almost every other spot in the city. Contributors include Zoe Villegas, Drew Philip, Hakeem Weatherspoon, Marsha Music, Ian Thibodeau, and dozens of others.
Author: Bob Dombrowski
Publisher: Page Publishing Inc
ISBN: 164544063X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
This book is a mix of stories about growing up in Detroit, going to Catholic school, and the Polish people in the fifties and sixties. The author tried his best to present everything in this book accurately despite not having a research staff like the famous writers have. He only had himself, his computer, his memory, a big pile of books, and note cards that he painstakingly used to put this story together. As a fireman, one of the things the author learned was that it takes three things to make a fire: air, fuel, and heat. Remove one, and you can't have a fire. He believes that it takes three things to make everything. Similar to making fire, there are three things that it took to make this book: the city of Detroit, the Catholic Church, and Polish ancestry. If you have one or two or maybe all three of these things, you may like this story. So if your mom wore a babushka, if nostrovia is your toast, if you had a last name that kids made fun of, or if you grew up reading your catechism while looking at church steeples and smokestacks, maybe this book is for you. Bob Dombrowski also wrote, 38 Years: A Detroit Firefighter's Story.
Author: Victoria Granacki
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439614989
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
Illustrating the first 75 years of Chicago's influential Polish neighborhood. Polish Downtown is Chicago's oldest Polish settlement and was the capital of American Polonia from the 1870s through the first half of the 20th century. Nearly all Polish undertakings of any consequence in the U.S. during that time either started or were directed from this part of Chicago's near northwest side. Chicago's Polish Downtown features some of the most beautiful churches in Chicago - St. Stanislaus Kostka, Holy Trinity and St. John Cantius - stunning examples of Renaissance and Baroque Revival architecture that form part of the largest concentration of Polish parishes in Chicago. The headquarters for almost every major Polish organization in America were clustered within blocks of each other and four Polish-language daily newspapers were published here. The heart of the photographic collection in this book is from the extensive library and archives of the Polish Museum of America, still located in the neighborhood today.
Author: Dennis W. Archer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781945875137
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 440
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Book Description
LET THE FUTURE BEGIN is the autobiography of Dennis W. Archer, born in Detroit, who rose from humble beginnings in the small town of Cassopolis, Michigan, to become a celebrated attorney, a Michigan Supreme Court Justice, a two-term Mayor of Detroit, and the first person of color to serve as President of the 400,000-member American Bar Association. Thanks to education, hard work, impeccable integrity, and family values, Dennis Archer has blazed a trail of diversity and inclusion in the legal profession while laying a rock-solid foundation to transform Detroit into the comeback city of the millennium. He achieved this with the support of his wife Trudy, their sons, Dennis Jr. and Vincent, relatives, friends, and colleagues. This inspiring book shares how he did it, and provides a blueprint for how to emulate his success and commitment to helping others.
Author: Carla T. Main
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459611748
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 502
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Book Description
Eminent domain entered the awareness of many Americans with the recent U.S. Supreme Court case Kelo v. New London. Across the political spectrum, people were outraged when the Court majority said that a local government may transfer property from one private party to another under the ''public use'' clause of the Constitution, for the sake of ''economic development. Carla T. Main - who in the past, as a lawyer, has represented the condemning authorities in eminent domain cases - examines how property rights in America have come to be so weak, tracing the history of eminent domain from the Revolutionary War to the Kelo case. But the heart of Bulldozed is a story of how eminent domain has affected an American family and the small-town community where they have lived and worked for decades. In the 1940s, Pappy and Isabel Gore established a shrimp processing plant in Freeport, Texas. Three generations of Gores built Western Seafood into a thriving business that stood up to fierce competition and market flux. But Freeport was struggling, and city officials decided that a private yacht marina on the Old Brazos River might save it. They would use eminent domain to take the Gores' waterfront property and hand it over to the developer, an heir of a legendary Texas oil family, in a risky sweetheart deal. For three years, the Gores resisted the taking with every ounce of strength they had. Around them, the fabric of the community unraveled as friends and neighbors took sides. Bulldozed vividly recounts the Gores' fight with city hall, and at the same time ponders larger questions of what property rights mean today and who among us is entitled to hold on to the American Dream.
