A peek inside Beth Olem, the cemetery that was swallowed by a GM plant

In the early 1980s, Mayor Coleman A. Young and the city of Detroit conceded a whole neighborhood to General Motors. As GM threatened to end its manufacturing presence in the city by closing its Cadillac plant on Clark Street in Southwest Detroit, Young’s administration did everything in its power to keep the automaker in Detroit. Using eminent domain, the city assembled land for GM on which it could build a state-of-the-art factory to replace the outmoded Clark Street facility. (The use of eminent domain under the auspices of economic development has since been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Michigan.)

The only catch? Assembling the land meant razing 1,500 homes, businesses, and churches and relocating 3,400 people from a neighborhood known as Poletown (named for the area’s Polish heritage).