Churches; Catholic; St. John The Evangelist; Poletown; Sold To Make Way For General Motors Plant

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Description:

View of the front of St. John The Evangelist Catholic Church in Detroit, Michigan. "General Motors and Detroit Mayor Coleman Young hatched a plan: If the city would get the land, the auto company would build a state-of-the-art plant, crossing the border with Hamtramck, employing 6,000 people and providing a glittering example of what the auto companies and their suppliers could do in the city of their birth ... the neighborhood adjacent to Hamtramck's southern border was, like Hamtramck, home to Poles as well as Albanians, Yugoslavs, Blacks, Yemenis and Filipinos, but some families had been there for generations, since the influx of Polish workers to the auto plants in the 1920s and '30s, and even before, some of the first Polish settlements in the city in the 1870s had been in this area. It was the home of the original St. Mary's College and Polish Seminary at the corner of St. Aubin and Forest, it was the original location for the International Institute, St John the Evangelist Catholic Parish had been founded there in the 1890s, Immaculate Conception Parish in 1918 ... eventually time ran out for the protesters, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge George T. Martin rejected arguments that the condemnation proceedings were illegal, the Michigan Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision in March of 1981, ruled that Detroit could clear the whole site for GM," from Detroit News article.

Notes:

Collection located at the Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. To schedule an appointment to view the original image, order high resolution copies, or seek permission to use an image, contact the Walter P. Reuther Library Audiovisual Department at reutherreference@wayne.edu., Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, and This metadata was created by Wayne State University Library system based on original description by the Walter P. Reuther Library

Date Issued:

1981-02-23T00:00:00Z

Data Provider:

Wayne State University. Libraries and Walter P. Reuther Library

Collection:

Virtual Motor City

Place:

Michigan, Detroit, and Poletown (Detroit, Michigan)

Subject Topic:

Catholic church buildings

Subject Name:

General Motors Corporation

Format:

photographs

Rights:

Copyright Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University

URL:

http://digital.library.wayne.edu/item/wayne:vmc5882