Poletown

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 Hamtramck auto assembly plant in 1981 with those residents relocated by the city of Detroit which claimed eminent domain in order to make way for an automobile plant. First settled in the 1870s when the first waves of Polish immigrants came to Detroit, Poletown served as the heart of Detroit's Polish community for many years. The nucleus of the community was the St. Albertus Catholic Church, which opened in 1873 and closed in 1990. Poletown experienced its greatest period of growth during the 1920s and...