from “le détroit” · the strait
Nearly a decade after buying the backyard folk-art landmark, the Hamtramck collective Hatch Art is still rebuilding it one rotted beam at a time.
Stand in the alley between Sobieski and Klinger Streets in Hamtramck and look up at 12087 Klinger, and the two garages there are stacked with whirligigs, hand-painted figures, propellers, a wooden Statue of Liberty, and year-round string lights. This is Hamtramck Disneyland, a roughly 1,945 square foot backyard installation that one man spent nearly three decades building.
That man was Dmytro Szylak. He grew up in Ukraine, came to the United States with his wife in the 1950s, and worked at General Motors for about 30 years. After he retired in the mid-1980s, he started building atop the two garages he owned and kept adding to the work until he died in 2015 at age 92, per Hatch Art, the Hamtramck collective that now owns the site.
When Szylak died, the future of the installation was uncertain. His family did not want to keep the property, and the two adjoining Klinger lots went up for sale. The asking price was $100,000, according to the Hamtramck Review's account of the sale.
Hatch Art stepped in. The collective, founded in Hamtramck in 2006 and a registered nonprofit since 2007, already had a track record of rehabbing buildings, including the former Hamtramck police station that became its gallery and studios. In 2016 it launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Michigan platform Patronicity to buy and restore the site. The campaign set a $50,000 goal, with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and the Michigan State Housing Development Authority pledging to match donations if it hit that target. Hatch took ownership in May 2016.
The plan was never just to freeze the work behind glass. Chris Schneider, who represented Hatch in the purchase, laid out the funding model to the Hamtramck Review: "With the four apartment units, we would like to rent three of them to people who appreciate the artwork, and then use the final unit to invite artists from all over the world who specialize in installations to live and work," he told the paper. Hatch started an artist-in-residence program in 2017 along those lines.
The restoration is ongoing, and the bones of the site needed the most help. Hatch says it has repaired the rotted garage roofs that hold the art, rebuilt a central wooden frame to bring the installation back toward its original height, restored original pieces, and added new work by local and visiting artists. Fragile pieces that cannot survive outdoors now live in a small gallery set up inside one of the garages. The collective runs seasonal drop-in volunteer days through the summer and funds upkeep partly through the apartments on the property.
Hamtramck Disneyland is visible from the public alley at any hour. Closer access to the backyard and workshop needs to be arranged in advance through Hatch Art. The collective takes donations toward the work at [email protected]. If you visit, drop something in the box, and do not block the neighbors' driveways.
12087 Klinger Street, Hamtramck.
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