City of the Week in Hamtramck 2021

City of the Week in Hamtramck! Nothing says PACZKI DAY quite like New Palace Bakery! Melanie and Neal bought one THOUSAND paczkis to take back to their restaurant, Market 22, in Traverse City!

These are Angel Ears... how can they not be delicious?

New Palace Bakery also has a lot of other sweet treats!

New Palace bakery has been around since 1925. They are known for their specialty paczkis.

New Palace also has the more traditional fruit paczkis and the super old school PRUNE paczkis.

New Palace Bakery’s specialty pack: triple chocolate, strawberry cream cheese, buttercream and peanut butter and jelly!

Suzy makes the paczkis with love in every bite! Suzy married into the New Palace family 27 years ago and has been baking ever since!

Hamtramck murals are amazing! Doni and Joel chose poses to match it.

Ladies and gentlemen, Hamtramck presents... The Pope.

Harlequin Tattoo is OPEN... by appointment.

The world in 2 square miles! You know it must be Hamtramck!

Our new best friends, Henry and Virginia. They own Ceramic School part of the Carpenter Street Creative Corridor in Hamtramck. Henry and Virginia both have masters in ceramics and love inspiring others!

Sherry, one of Ceramic School’s members works on her next masterpiece.

Joel and Doni did NOT create a masterpiece.

Ceramic School is home to two rescue parakeets. The space is full of energy, good vibes and clay!

Dude! This store is the greatest! Known to locals as the Rock n Roll Party Store, they blast WCSX every day!

Kelly has been a part of Hamtramck’s Rock n Roll Party Store for 25+ years.

Frank rocks with WCSX! Wait til you see Frank’s BIRD.

Meet Snowy! This beauty is nearly 16 years old! Frank got him when he was a baby! When Frank asks him if he wants a head massage, Snowy leans in to get his head rubbed!

They even asked Doni to autograph a guitar for them!

Joel popped back in to the Rock and Roll Party Store to drop off some WCSX gear!

Another famous Hamtramck bakery is the New Martha Washington Bakery. EST 1925

Sandy’s family has owned Martha’s for 50 years! That’s a lot of paczkis!

You can get anything, any way in Hamtramck!

Atomic Cafe has one of the more creative and unexpected store fronts we’ve ever seen.

Come check out their mannequins then head inside for a ton more art!

Welcome to Hamtramck!

Old school Polish Market- Bozek's at Caniff and Sobieski!

We love the benches at the newly improved Sarah Garrett Park!

Reading is fundamental.

Hamtramck has a ton of amazing murals!

It's a snow day at Ant Hall, home of the Planet Ant Theatre on Caniff.

This is how you do it in Hamtramck. #puremichigan

Ready for a tour of Hamtramck‘s version of Disneyland?

Dmytro Szylak grew up in Ukraine and immigrated to the United States with his wife in the 1950s. Mr. Szylak worked for General Motors for 30 years. After retiring in the mid-1980s, he began building Hamtramck Disneyland atop the two garages on the properties he owned.

Thousands of visitors a year from all over the world have made “Hamtramck Disneyland” one of their stops.

After Mr. Szylak passed away, his estate was in limbo, with no plan to protect or keep the art.

Driven by the energy and support of the community, a group of residents and artists formed to save this great local treasure. Hatch Art, which operates an art gallery and studios in the former Hamtramck police station, took ownership of Hamtramck Disneyland in May of 2016.

Hatch Art repairs and maintains the installation, preserving the core components of the artwork while proceeding with gradual updates as materials wear from the elements.

The project took nearly 30 years to construct, and was constantly being updated and modified by Mr. Szylak until his death in 2015, at the age of 92.

In 2006, famed photographer Bruce Weber did a photo shoot with Kate Moss at this location.