There's a lot of Polish in this town. A short
Free Press
piece highlights some of the connections Detroit has to the storied,
and beautiful, city of Krakow. One thing that the story doesn't mention
is Hamtramck's Pope Park - a small homage to Krakow-native Pope John
Paul II - on the corner of Belmont and Caniff. Inside this small
enclosure is a statue of the Pope and a
mural depicting Krakow's famous market square.
Excerpt:
You may never have noticed a statue in downtown Detroit on the corner of Third and Michigan Avenue near the MGM Casino.
That noble figure is Gen. Thaddeus Kosciuszko, hero of both the
American Revolution and Polish independence. It is a duplicate of a
famous statue outside Wawel Castle in Krakow, where it is photographed
hundreds of times a day by visitors.
The statue in Detroit was a
gift of the people of Krakow to honor Detroit on the occasion of the
1976 U.S. Bicentennial. The statue in Poland was a gift from Germany in 1960 to replace one that was torn down by the Nazis in World War II.
Read the entire article
here.
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