2255 East Ferry Street
Chene-Ferry Market, Chene-Ferry Recycling Center, RecoveryPark
The City of Detroit created a Municipal Bureau of Markets in 1919 “to handle the administration, maintenance, and general extension of markets in the city.” At this time, the city had two major municipal markets, Western Market in Corktown and Eastern Market near downtown off Gratiot. Previously, there was a Central Market in Cadillac Square downtown, but it was demolished in the 1880s.
With the advent of the Bureau of Markets, Western and Eastern Markets were bolstered with new funding, regulation, and upgrades. In addition to strengthening those that had been operating for decades, the Bureau opened a new market at Chene and Ferry Streets in one of the city’s predominantly Polish neighborhoods.
I haven’t been able to determine the exact year this structure was built; however, I believe it was constructed in or around 1925. It isn’t on the 1921 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, so it wasn’t built in 1920, as some newspaper articles have claimed over the years. According to the book The Chene Street Story by Helen Kraft, “A great addition took place in 1923; the great empty park bordered by Ferry, Dubois, and Palmer was cleared and the Chene-Ferry farmers’ market was built.” I’m not certain that date is correct.
In March 1925, Detroit’s Common Council (later renamed City Council) restored a measure to spend $25,000 to improve the Chene-Ferry Market. However, then-Mayor John W. Smith vetoed the proposal. It returned to the Common Council, who voted to overturn his veto. In 2024, that money is worth over $450,000. It’s possible that this covered the construction of the shed that’s still there today. The shed, crafted from steel framing, a wooden roof, and a concrete floor, was a simple but elegant art deco design, with brick facing both alleys and Ferry Street.
In November 1925, the Municipal Bureau of Markets announced that the Chene-Ferry Market would be open on Wednesdays from 10 AM until 6 PM. This was likely in addition to Saturday, the market’s primary day of operation. For the next 60 years, it would be open on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
In November 1927, the Detroit Free Press featured the Chene-Ferry Market in its “Know Your Detroit” column. The paper explained that the market was the smallest of Detroit’s three markets, covering 1.36 acres, and was the newest. The “market is situated in a heavily populated Polish section and [is] likened to an old-world picture.” The article also explained that the revenue from the three public markets more than paid for the cost of maintaining and running them.
An April 1929 retrospective in the Detroit Free Press reported that the Bureau of Markets was responsible for “11 buildings, 7 acres of paved parking space, 1,370 stalls, and a number of minor structures.” Additionally, the Bureau was involved in constructing the Union Produce Terminal on Fort Street, which was completed in 1929.
Detroit’s public markets thrived in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. During the Depression, the markets were a way for struggling farmers to make money and cash-strapped Detroiters to buy food at modest prices. Into the 1940s, the rural areas around Metro Detroit were still bursting with family farms, and the stalls at the markets were full.
The now vacant and tattered lot on the north side of the market was once home to the Palmer Playground. For many years, parking was allowed here on market days; however, in May 1938, that privilege was revoked by the Detroit Common Council on the recommendation of Recreation Department Commissioner C. E. Brewer. Residents had complained that parking in the park had been misused, so those coming to market had to park elsewhere.
In March 1944, license fees were increased for rentals at Eastern Market, and stall pricing at Western and Chene-Ferry Markets also changed. This switch was estimated to produce $27,000 annually for the Bureau of Markets, which could be used to run the department better and make improvements. George V. Branch, director of the Bureau, was okay with the change because he felt that it wouldn’t create hardships for the farmers and could be lowered again if the economy were to shift.
Harry Arbid, a farmer who sold at the Chene-Ferry Market, was fined $20 in December 1944 for selling a 10-pound bag of potatoes that contained only 9 pounds of potatoes.
Similar to how Eastern Market operates today, public and private organizations sometimes held events on off days at the Chene-Ferry Market.
In October 1946, the market was home to a Halloween party for children. In recent years, there were issues with kids marauding around the city and getting hit by cars, so the city set out to host Halloween parties to ensure kids were off the streets and safe from automobiles.
A four-day festival took over the market in October 1949 to raise money for underprivileged boys under the auspices of the Northeast Optimist Club. There was dancing, games, clowns, and carnival rides. Events like this provided entertainment for the neighborhood and raised money for a good cause.
Though many associate the decline of Detroit as an exclusively post-1967 phenomenon, this isn’t the case. There were signs of industrial slack in the 1950s, leading to tax loss, evident by the tightening of the city budget. The City of Detroit used to operate comfort stations (or bathrooms if you’re too young to remember that terminology) throughout the city. They were located at Capitol Park, Cadillac Square, Grand Circus Park, Woodward at Grand Boulevard, and all three municipal markets. The hours at the markets were set to be stripped down, and then-Mayor Louis Miriani enacted other cost-cutting measures.
In December 1958, Mrs. Adele Lagocki was shopping at the Chene-Ferry Market and lost her wallet. Joseph Paszek found it, but the wallet had no ID inside. However, there was a photograph of some children standing with a man after they had made their first communion. Paszek took the wallet to the police station and showed it to Sgt. Walter Kulaszewski, who recognized the man in the photograph as Anthony Smyrski. The duo took the wallet to his home and showed him, who identified one of the children as Aloysius Lagocki, son of Adele Lagocki, the wallet’s owner. The whole gang went to their home, where the wallet was returned with all of her $221 inside, equivalent to around $2,400 in 2024. She had been praying to St. Anthony and claimed that he returned her wallet and money.
In 1965, Detroit’s Western Market, the city’s second-largest next to Eastern Market, was razed to make way for I75. The market technically combined with Eastern Market, though the closure was evidence of the changes occurring in Detroit and where Detroiters bought groceries.
In February 1974, plans were announced to erect an outdoor mall stretching from Chene-Ferry Market to Chene Street. This required razing three structures and would create “individual activity bays, set off by landscaping, on both sides of a central walkway leading to the market’s east entrance.” The funds and planning for the project came from the Model Neighborhood Agency and Urban Centers Inc., which cost $115,000 in total. In addition to the creation of the mall, the storefronts on Chene Street saw improvements, too, with new awnings paintings by “Alex Pollock, the city’s resident magician with paintbrush and awnings,” according to the Detroit Free Press. Bi-Lo Market, Rosie’s Record Shop, Van Dyke Bakery, Max’s Jewelry Store, Nowak Hardware, Martin’s Bar, Sleder’s Drugs, Chene Bar, Three V’s Market, Salbut Delicatessen, and Stingy Rich Furniture all saw interior and exterior improvements.
When talking about the market in 1974, Victor Rogers, the Eastern and Chene-Ferry Market Supervisor, said the market “could be as exciting as Eastern Market, but not a copy—something completely different.” The refreshed Chene-Ferry Market opened on June 19, 1974, and was called “a colorful success” by the local papers. The new mall bays were to “be used as additional retail stalls on market days and for community social functions at other times.”
In February 1975, the Detroit Free Press reported that “Eastern Market has become a showcase model of how to revitalize an area and turn a profit. Chene-Ferry Market is likewise witnessing a rebirth.” Even with the facelift, the market struggled with one major issue: visibility. People outside of the neighborhood simply didn’t know about the market, even with the new frontage on Chene Street. An editorial in the Detroit Free Press read, “A young man who works daily in a gas station a block away never heard of it. Poor fellow. He is within easy distance of eggs laid yesterday afternoon, 55-pound barrels of homemade sauerkraut, 17-pound suckling pigs, pink grapefruit eight for $1, and sweet corn 10 cents a cob, even in deep winter.”
Though it wasn’t as jam-packed as the decades prior, the market was still a place for residents to purchase produce in the 1980s. Farmers typically lined up their goods on the south side of the central aisle, and wholesale distributors lined up to the north. In addition to produce and meats, you could get Polish specialties like homemade relish, pickles, and sauerkraut.
Poletown East was declining by 1980, but the market stood on its own two feet. It’s easy to look back and say that the market would have closed anyway, but Chene-Ferry Market wasn’t given a healthy chance to survive thanks to a handful of decisions made by the City of Detroit and the State of Michigan in the 1980s that led to the market’s closure for good in the later part of the decade.
According to research completed by the University of Michigan, 4,200 people were relocated from Poletown in 1981 to make way for a new GM plant. Though today we think about the areas as Poletown and Poletown East, this was one large community, sprawling towards Hamtramck, a Polish enclave surrounded by Detroit (and a smidge of Highland Park) just north of the neighborhood. The Chene-Ferry Market was the closest farmers market to the neighborhood, and even if one-fortieth of the removed residents used to go to the market on the weekend, that’s over 100 patrons lost. In addition to residents, the use of eminent domain to take land from private citizens for construction of a business or technology park, which was ruled unconstitutional in 2004, removed “1,500 homes, 144 businesses and 16 churches,” according to the Detroit Historical Society.
In addition to the loss of residents and local businesses, the construction of the GM Poletown Plant completely cut off Poletown East from Hamtramck. Prior to this, Chene Street, the main thoroughfare of the neighborhood, angled after it crossed Grand Boulevard and converged with Joseph Campau to run directly into Hamtramck’s central business district. Hamtramck didn’t have a farmers market, so it’s likely that many residents frequented the Chene-Ferry Market. However, after 1981, the streetscape was so drastically altered that getting from Hamtramck took more than 10 minutes compared to closer to the five it took before.
All the hope of the 1970s was utterly decimated by 1985 when the Poletown Plant opened. According to the Detroit Historical Society, the plant was criticized for “providing only half of the promised 6,000 jobs due to the use of automation.”
Through all the turmoil, the Chene-Ferry Market remained open, a shell of its former self, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. An August 1981 piece in the Detroit Free Press highlighted Chester and Lottie Olejnik and their family, small-town farmers from Mount Clemens. At one time, they sold everything they grew at the market. As things slowed, they had to expand, going to the Pontiac Market on Tuesdays and Mt. Clemens Market on Fridays and Saturdays. The family still had produce at the Chene-Ferry Market on Wednesday and Saturday, splitting up the family for the busy weekend days. Additionally, they set up a small stand near their farm for self-service sales. The farm crisis of the 1980s was rearing its ugly head, and local farms owned by families like the Olejniks were becoming few and far between, especially as Detroit suburbs became less rural.
Rumors began swirling in the early 1980s about the Chene-Ferry Market closing. Eventually, it did, but I haven’t determined exactly when. According to Market Supervisor Riley Albritton, in 1983, there were plans for a complete renovation of the Chene-Ferry Market, but the funding fell through, leaving it in limbo.
In June 1983, the City of Detroit published a projected use of funds, listing several city projects, including work to be completed on Chene-Ferry Market, totaling $100,000. The job entailed replacing the overhead steel door, sandblasting, and painting the exterior.
The project may have been cut, as the same project was posted in September 1984. After that, mentions of the market were few and far between. There was an ethnic food rally there in June 1987, a family fun day for Halloween in October 1987, and a Christmas Gala in 1988. In February 1989, the Detroit Free Press reported that the market was still there, but “trade has dwindled and the retail trade is scattered.”
In 1987, plans were laid to build the $438 million Detroit Incinerator by the Greater Detroit Resource Recovery Authority, an entity created by the cities of Detroit and Highland Park. The operation was built less than a quarter mile from the Chene-Ferry market. Right away, critics were worried about the emission of dangerous gasses into the surrounding area, including cities as far as Warren. Still, the builders were sure that their dry acid gas scrubbers would be enough to keep the area safe, though experts called for better, newer equipment to be installed. The Detroit Incinerator opened in 1989 without the use of said better, newer equipment.
At its best, the Detroit Incinerator covered the neighborhood with the smell of burning trash. At its worst, it may have caused thousands of Detroiters to get asthma and cancer and experience other health issues.
Within a few years, the state threatened to shutter the Detroit Incinerator due to its emission of hazardous gasses at higher than legal levels. Many speculated that this was due to the amount of toxic materials being burned there, as the city didn’t have a proper recycling program. By removing batteries and other metals from the incinerator, the released air wouldn’t be as dirty.
On April 14th, 1990, the Chene-Ferry Market was opened again, this time as a recycling center. The grand opening only drew a handful of residents, arriving to recycle paper, batteries, glass, and metal products. The Detroit Free Press reported, “Some area residents complained, however, that city officials failed to involve them in plans for the facility.” Initially, the recycling center was open on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month from 10 AM until 2 PM. It was run by the Greater Detroit Resource Recovery Authority, the same operation running the incinerator.
Some reports indicate that the Chene-Ferry Market housed a flea market in addition to the recycling center at some point in the 1990s, though I’ve only heard that mentioned once or twice.
In 2004, the Chene-Ferry Market building was said to be reopening at the hands of the Michigan State University Land Policy Program to provide fresh produce to a heavily polluted neighborhood without a proper grocery store. The plans never materialized, and the market remained a recycling center until 2007. In its final days, it was open on Wednesday and Saturday, the same days that it was open as a farmers market years prior.
After it closed, the market continued deteriorating and was walloped by scrappers. The price of scrap metal rose to all-time highs in 2008, thanks to demand from China. Though the structure appeared tattered, it was still a viable property, as there wasn’t much to the design, and it didn’t have a basement. It quickly became popular for graffiti, video shoots (including Transformers 5), and unlicensed art shows.
In 2010, Gary Wozniak incorporated a nonprofit called RecoveryPark. The nonprofit’s mission was to create urban farms in Detroit and hire returning citizens to work at the farm, which would sell to local restaurants, grocery stores, and residents. The idea was a novel one, gaining national media attention and catching the eye of officials from the City of Detroit. The unproven non-profit was handed around 40 acres of land at a steep discount, including properties like Max’s Jewelry Store and the Chene-Ferry Market. Up until this point, the market had been owned by the City of Detroit.
The organization planned to make the Chene-Ferry Market building their focal point, with fresh local produce available for residents to purchase at wholesale pricing. The market had a live music program one summer; however, no work was done to preserve or prepare it for renovations.
The nonprofit constructed hoop houses off Chene Street and began farming, but the organization faltered and fired all its employees except Wozniak in February 2020. Wozniak claimed the layoffs were due to the pandemic, though they came weeks before there were any closures related to COVID-19 in Michigan.
Since then, the nonprofit has fallen into the abyss. Most of its properties are now held by a holding company tied to Matthew Tatarian, a local property hoarder with a bad reputation in historic preservation circles.
Today, the Chene-Ferry Market’s prospects are far worse than before it was sold to RecoveryPark. Though the deterioration is similar to when it was sold, it’s now owned by an investment consortium that shows no interest in protecting its historic value or maintaining it in any way. If the city still owned it, the likelihood of it becoming a neighborhood commodity again would be much higher.
In my personal opinion, the only hope for the Chene-Ferry Market’s survival is if the city gets serious about blight tickets, higher taxes for vacant land via the Land Value Tax plan, and standing tall against negligent property owners like those who own the market.
Check out this page if you want to get involved in the fight to save Chene-Ferry Market.
