West Side Dom Polski

The West Side Dom Polski served as a social and cultural hub for Detroit's west side Polish neighborhood from its construction down to the 1960s. Built in two stages, in 1916-17 and 1925, the building was designed by one of Detroit's Poland-born architects, Joseph D. Gwizdowski, who is best known in Detroit for his buildings for Polish churches and cultural institutions. The West Side Dom Polski, with its facade harkening back to the old country, the Polish eagle prominently displayed in the front parapet, and the inscription in Polish above the portico, is one of a small number of key Polish landmarks in Detroit's west side neighborhoods.

A few Poles settled in Detroit in the 1850s, and a larger migration to the city began in the later 1860s and 70s. The early migration to Detroit was largely from the Prussian-controlled areas of Kashubia (Pomerania) and Poznania in the northwest part of Poland, but later nineteenth and early twentieth-century migration came from the large eastern area controlled by Russia and from Galicia, the southern area controlled by Austria-Hungary, as well. Poland as a nation had disappeared from the map as a result of the partitions of 1772-1795 that divided all its territory between Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary. Uprisings against the Russian and Prussian occupiers in 1830-31, 1846, 1848, and 1863 were brutally crushed, and both Prussia and Russia adopted social, political, and economic policies intended to obliterate Polish institutions and culture and the power of the Catholic Church, which in the nineteenth century "became the main institution which preserved and defended Polish culture, language and identity against foreign oppression" (Ascherson, p. 8). The Poles who settled in Detroit beginning in the 1850s and in growing numbers throughout the rest of the century and into the next were part of a much broader Polish migration to western Europe and especially the industrial cities of the United States.

Detroit's early Polish community was located on the city's east side. By 1870, when the Poles first sought a Catholic church of their own, the community numbered close to 300 families located mostly in the German area centered along Gratiot Avenue east toward Mt. Elliott Avenue. When St. Albertus, the city's first Polish Catholic church, was built in 1871-72 at the corner of Canfield and St. Aubin, well north of Gratiot, it stood near the northeast corner of the community. Within ten years the Polish neighborhood became concentrated more and more in the church's immediate neighborhood and to the west, extending by the end of the century generally from St. Antoine eastward to Mt. Elliott and from Mack north to Warren and beyond. Hastings Street, along the area's west edge, was an early commercial center for the community, and Canfield Avenue with its three monumental Polish Catholic churches, St. Albertus, Sweetest Heart of Mary, and St. Josaphat, became its heart by the beginning of the twentieth century. As the Polish community expanded northward, Chene Street and, by the 1910s, Joseph Campau in Hamtramck, became the neighborhood's commercial centers.

Residents of this east-side community established the Detroit Dom Polski Association in 1907 and built the city's first Dom Polski in 1912-13. It was dedicated on August 31, 1913. Located on Forest just south of Chene, the building with its Polish Baroque-inspired facade has not been used for its original purpose for decades but survives in a good state of repair.

The West Side Dom Polski is located in a second large Polish neighborhood that began to develop by the 1870s. Initially it "extended from about Twentieth Street along both sides of Michigan Avenue beyond the city's borders at Twenty-fifth Street into Springwells" (Orton, p. 31). West-side Polanders first requested their own Catholic church in 1876, and St. Casimir's, the first west-side Polish church, was established in 1882. The neighborhood expanded westward in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with its center in the area around Michigan Avenue between Junction and Livernois Avenues, and eventually rivaled the east-side one in size.

A history of the West Side Dom Polski published at the time of the Golden Jubilee celebration in 1968 states that, "The idea of a West Side Dom Polski was germinated by two lodges of Polish National Alliance in the year 1909. They were Lodge 649 St. Isadore's Society and Lodge 1009 St. Cecelia's Society. A temporary committee was formed. Due to insufficient finances the plan was delayed for several years." A permanent organization known as the Polish United Societies was established and land purchased in 1913. The front page of the September 15, 1915, Sunday Real Estate section of The Detroit Free Press carried a depiction of the architect's perspective drawing of the proposed building's front and a short story beneath noted that work was to start "this week on a hall to cost $50,000," that the society then had "a membership of about 3,000," and that Joseph D. Gwizdowski was the architect. The drawing shows a Neoclassical facade with a slightly projecting central section featuring paired Ionic columns supporting a pediment—a design completely at variance with the facade as it stands today. The Golden Jubilee history makes it clear that there were not initially funds enough to build the entire structure: "In 1916, the first part of the building was started, this was the rear section with three levels which was completed and dedicated on July 5, 1917 .... By continued effort of the organizations and individuals this building was paid for and plans were being made to raise more funds to enlarge the building to its present form." Construction of the front section was delayed for eight years, but the front section was finally built in 1925 and dedicated on September 15, 1925. Weekly notices in the Michigan Contractor and Builder from February 7 through the month under the heading "Detroit Architects Taking Figures" listing Gwizdowski taking bids on a clubhouse for the Polish United Societies on Junction near Michigan make it clear that he designed the front section as well.

Joseph Julius Gwizdowski practiced in Detroit beginning in 1914. Gwizdowski (1880-1940) was part of a small fraternity of Poland-born architects practicing in Detroit in the early twentieth century. The Kashubian-born Jozef G. Kosicki, who practiced under the anglicized name Joseph G. Kastler, seems to have been the first, arriving in the 1880s and practicing for a time in partnership with W. E. N. Hunter. Kastler designed such landmarks of Detroit Polonia as the St. Josaphat Church and Rectory (1899-1901) and East Side Dom Polski (1912-13), Forest near Chene, on the city's East Side and the original 1903-04 St. Hedwig's Church (demolished), St. Hedwig rectory (1908-09), and 1904 St. Francis of Assisi Church on the West Side. Other Poland-born architects in early twentieth-century Detroit include N. Kostrzanowski, who designed the St. Stanislaus High School (1928), and Ladislaus Garsztecki, who planned the Konkel Street school building for St. Hedwig parish built in 1926-27.

Joseph Gwizdowski, born to farm people in Galicia, the southern part of Poland then occupied as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was graduated in 1900 from the State Technical Institute in Lemburg, Austro-Hungarian Empire—now Lviv, Ukraine—and worked for the Austrian government supervising the construction of railroad stations. Emigrating to the United States in 1904 and settling in Chicago, where he attended Loyola University, he was initially employed by the architectural firms of Worthman & Steinbach and then W. B. Hartigan. Grandson Joseph P. Whistler, who provided the biographical information about Gwizdowski, believes his grandfather was introduced to the Polish organizations that later commissioned much of his known works through his work on the Polish Women's Alliance Building at 1309 N. Ashland, Chicago, while employed by the Hartigan firm.

Gwizdowski moved to Detroit in 1914, marrying Stephania Koscinski that same year. The commission from the Polish United Societies for the West Side Dom Polski came during the latter part of 1915, and Gwizdowski also designed during the same year a bank building at 9539 Joseph Campau (corner of Norwalk) that now serves as the Polish Art Center. In addition to the front section of the West Side Dom Polski, the following buildings by Gwizdowski built during the 1920s are known:

• Hamtramck Municipal Hospital (St. Francis Hospital for most of its history as a hospital), now the Hamtramck City Hall, built 1927;

• St. Cunegunda Parish School, Detroit;

• Davison Avenue Police Station (demolished), Detroit.

Gwizdowski designed the main building at Alliance College, Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, for the Polish National Alliance in 1930 (the building survives but is part of a state prison complex that now occupies the former campus site) and worked in Washington, D.C., in 1934-35 in the office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury and in 1935 as resident engineer for the Polish Women's Alliance in Detroit. In 1937 he returned to private practice. A charter member of the Michigan Society of Architects and a member of the Polish Engineers Society, Polish Falcons Nest No. 31, and the Polish National Alliance, Joseph Julius Gwizdowski died May 19, 1940, and is buried in Detroit's Mt. Olivet Cemetery.

The two lodges that formed the West Side Dom Polski organization were parts of the Polish National Alliance, founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1880 under the leadership of Julius Andrzejkowicz. The alliance's goals, "the betterment of the immigrants and freedom for Poland," are reflected in the building's cornerstone, which reads, "Jednosc i zgoda to sila nasza," or "Our strength is our unity," and were also reflected in the thoroughly Polish activities for which the building was used. The Golden Jubilee history (1968) states that, "Through the years many cultural events were staged. Dances were held regularly, patriotic and political rallies were conducted for the benefit of the local residents. And today, the songs, dances and music of the land of our forefathers can still be heard echoing through the halls. The youth group of Council 54, P.N.A. have their singing, dancing, Polish language and history classes weekly in the building." The building reportedly served as a shelter as needed for newly arrived Poles and its auditorium as the setting for numerous union meetings in the building's early years.

One important union meeting at the hall took place on Sunday afternoon, December 13, 1936, during a sit-down strike at the Kelsey-Hayes Wheel Company plant that resulted in an early United Auto Workers (UAW) victory during the UAW auto industry organizing campaign in Detroit and elsewhere in the later 1930s that forms an episode of major importance in American labor history. UAW recruiter Walter Reuther arrived in Detroit in September 1936 to organize workers in the west side's auto assembly and parts plants, including Kelsey-Hayes. Like the neighborhood, the work force in these plants was largely Polish. Reuther soon established Local 174 and began recruiting members in meetings held in neighborhood halls, perhaps including the West Side Dom Polski. The Kelsey-Hayes strike began on Friday the 11th. Kelsey-Hayes announced a mass meeting for employees at the Dom Polski to be held on Sunday afternoon the 13th in the hope of derailing support for the strike and perhaps revitalizing an old employee association more under company control. Local 174 had a meeting of its own at the nearby Falcons Hall that morning, "after which Reuther led five hundred Kelsey unionists over to the company-sponsored assembly at the nearby Dom Polski Hall. With the help of several husky men, Reuther and Frankensteen hustled the company spokesman off the platform and took over the ... meeting. Perhaps two thousand workers were standing in and around the hall, so Reuther's forces pushed through a vote of confidence in the UAW and a resolution disbanding the company employee association. Hundreds of workers joined Local 174 that exciting afternoon" (Lichtenstein, p. 69).

In addition to being a center of social, political, and cultural activity, the West Side Dom Polski became a leading setting for musical entertainment for the west side Polish community from the 1930s to the 1960s. Those years represented the golden age of Detroit's Polish-American bands and of the Polka. Invented not in Poland but in western Europe, the Polka became a popular form of music in later nineteenth-century western Europe and soon became known in the United States as well as eastern Europe. Not initially widely adopted by Polish Americans, "The Polka," in the words of Dr. Thaddeus C. Radzilowski, "became a distinctive feature of Polish-American life by the late 1920s" (Radzilowski, quoted in Palazzolo, p. 2). Popular Detroit Polish-American bands such as Eddy Hoyt (Nabozny) and His Golden Stars Radio Orchestra, Johnny Sadrack and His Radio Orchestra, Stanley Adamus and His Twelve Continentals, Stas Wisniach and His Club Polka Orchestra, and Ted Gomulka and His TV and Recording Orchestra frequently performed at the West Side Dom Polski during the 1930s to 50s and later at wedding receptions and at dances sponsored by the Polish National Alliance and Polish church societies and other organizations. Other nearby west-side venues included the Falcons Hall, 4130 Junction near Buchanan; Senate Theater, 6424 Michigan Avenue west of Livernois; Richard's and Cieslik's Halls, both on Junction; Ukrainian National Temple, 4655 Martin near Michigan; and the Polish Legion of American Veterans Hall, 3801 Martin near Michigan. The West Side Dom Polski served as an important hub of Polish-American life and culture in the west-side community until about 1970.

The West Side Dom Polski is a nearly rectangular two and three-story brick building that presents to the street a three-part limestone-trimmed, orangish brick facade of mixed Renaissance and Classical derivation featuring an Ionic portico in the center fronting the entrances. The other sides are finished in reddish-brown brick. Built for the Polish United Societies, the building contains a large auditorium as well as office quarters and a large room long used for rehearsals. The now substantially renovated basement once housed a kitchen and dining and social areas, including two bars.

The building stands on the east side of Junction Avenue one block south of Michigan Avenue in the one-time heart of the west side Polish community. The twin-towered Neo-Baroque St. Hedwig Church, a key landmark of the old Polish neighborhood, stands one long block to the south, and a mixture of mostly small-scale late nineteenth and early twentieth-century commercial buildings and houses forms the neighborhood near the building.

A broad three-part facade displays in the slightly recessed center a shallow balustrade-capped portico of four Ionic columns fronting the three entrances and, in the otherwise blank wall above it, a broad pediment-capped window. The portico frieze is carved with the inscription, Dom Polski Z Jednocz Towarzystw (loosely, Dom Polski United Society).

The slightly projecting sections to either side stand on limestone bases, the south one containing at the building corner a cornerstone bearing the inscription, Jednosc i zgoda to sila nasza (Unity and harmony are our strength). The projecting sections each display side-by-side paired windows, with transoms, in the two stories, the lower ones with segmental-arch heads, the uppers square-headed. Each vertical bank of windows is set in a rectangular limestone surround that contains a swag-decorated spandrel panel between the lower and upper windows. A simple beltcourse, plain brick frieze, and a simply detailed dentiled classical cornice in each section support brick parapets, flat-topped except in the center section, where the parapet rises toward the center in steps, with a half-round crown, perhaps intending to be suggestive of a Flemish gable. A flagpole marks the center of the facade. A limestone plaque containing the Polish eagle fills the center of this stepped parapet.

The hall is comprised of three sections, from front to back—a shallow two-story front part, containing the lobbies, main staircases, and one-time office spaces for the Polish United Societies; the slightly lower main part, containing the auditorium and its rear balcony; and a slightly wider three-story section at the back that houses the stage and fly space and, above it, a large room. Except in the lobby, floors throughout the building, including the staircase risers and treads, are of wood. Door and window trim and staircase railings are of dark stained wood and simple and unadorned in their design.

The three front entrances lead to a terrazzo-floored lobby, with grayish marble dado and decorative plasterwork cornice in classical style. Directly inside the doors three steps rise to the lobby's main level. To the left (north) are a small ticket window with metal grille still in place and, next to it toward the street, a small coatroom with coat-check window. To the right or south, facing the street, is a front room, reportedly once used as office space but later as a place for new brides coming from the church to reorganize before entering into the reception in the auditorium. Behind (east) off the lobby are staircases to the basement and second story and balcony.

A broad central doorway leads into the oak-floored auditorium with its plastered walls, with three arched windows on each side, and ceiling shallowly arched from side wall to side wall. The balcony, with its bowed, paneled wood front, projects deeply into the space. Four large round ventilator grilles, with curvilinear detailing, are evenly spaced in a line in the center of the ceiling. Standing beneath the balcony in the room's southeast corner is a small L-shaped modern bar with mirrored backbar. In the corresponding position north of the central entry beneath the balcony, a player piano, complete with boxes of rolls of music stacked on it, remains in place along the rear wall north of the doorway.

The staircase to the second story from the lobby leads to a broad hallway extending across most of the building. It provides access to four rooms across the front—one in the building's northwest front corner larger than the rest, so that it forms the north end of the hallway. These rooms housed the society's offices. A small lavatory stands at the other end of the hallway near the staircase.

The hallway also serves as the lobby for the balcony. A broad central entry opens into a narrow corridor along the back of the balcony with five steps in each direction leading up to the level of the balcony's rear. The balcony's wood floor rises upward from its front in four tiers, with no fixed seating. The low plastered breastwork has a simple wooden cap.

The building's third or rear section stands three stories in height and extends outward slightly on either side beyond the auditorium's side wall. The first part of the building to be constructed, it possesses its own cornerstone, located at the back southeast corner. The rear section contains the stage, with its round-cornered proscenium, and backstage flyspace area, reached by a short staircase from the auditorium itself to the left (north) of the stage and through a doorway from another staircase that, located south of the stage area, provides access to the upper floor in this part of the building. This staircase rises two stories past the stage area to provide access to a large room that occupies the entire third story. This room, used in the 1930s and 40s and perhaps later as rehearsal space for the Laur Dance Group, now displays modern finishes—vertical T-111 or similar paneling on the walls and a drop ceiling—but an elaborately decorative pressed metal ceiling remains in place above it, visible here and there where ceiling tiles have been removed.

The building is today little used except for the basement, which currently houses a food service kitchen operation. The basement is reached by a staircase from the lobby and also from an outdoor entrance from a driveway along the building's south side. The basement historically housed a kitchen, dining room and bar areas, and social rooms, but has been substantially renovated and now retains only vestiges of the historic plan and finishes.

The West Side Dom Polski served as a social and cultural hub for Detroit's west side Polish neighborhood from its construction down to the 1960s. Built in two stages, in 1916-17 and 1925, the building was designed by one of Detroit's Poland-born architects, Joseph D. Gwizdowski, who is best known in Detroit for his buildings for Polish churches and cultural institutions. The West Side Dom Polski, with its façade harkening back to the old country, the Polish eagle prominently displayed in the front parapet, and the inscription in Polish above the portico, is one of a small number of key Polish landmarks in Detroit's west side neighborhoods.

The West Side Dom Polski is a nearly rectangular two and three-story brick building that presents to the street a three-part limestone-trimmed, orangish brick façade of mixed Renaissance and Classical derivation featuring an Ionic portico in the center fronting the entrances. The other sides are finished in reddish-brown brick. Built for the Polish United Societies, the building contains a large auditorium as well as office quarters and a large room long used for rehearsals. The now substantially renovated basement once housed a kitchen and dining and social areas, including two bars. The building stands on the east side of Junction Avenue one block south of Michigan Avenue in the one-time heart of the west side Polish community. The twin-towered Neo-Baroque St. Hedwig Church, a key landmark of the old Polish neighborhood, stands one long block to the south, and a mixture of mostly small-scale late nineteenth and early twentieth-century commercial buildings and houses forms the neighborhood near the building.