Mass Mob Photos by John De Lorenzo

8423 South Street in Detroit’s Delray Neighborhood near the Detroit River in southwest Detroit

“Four waves of immigrants came from Hungary to Detroit. The first stream, arriving in the late 19th century, settled in Delray, a village that was founded in 1850 and remained an independent township until 1907 when it was annexed by Detroit. The second wave arrived from Hungary after World War I when the Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared and the victors redrew the map of Eastern Europe. Jobs in Downriver industries, and then in Cadillac’s Clark Avenue plant, provided a secure economic base for immigrants to Delray. Another stream of Hungarian migrants arrived after World War II. In 1956, a revolution in Hungary sought to overthrow Russian control. Many expected that during this Cold War era, President Eisenhower would strongly support the revolutionaries in Hungary. Indeed, some presumed that US intelligence personnel may have encouraged the attempted revolution in Hungary. President Eisenhower did not, and the Russians quickly put down the challenge to their authority. The United States, however, adopted a very liberal immigration policy, allowing those Hungarians who escaped to Germany or Austria to enter this country. By this time, the Hungarian population of Delray was moving to the suburbs, but some immigrants from Hungary settled in this neighborhood after 1956. Hungarians were a religiously diverse
immigrant stream: many Roman Catholics, some Jews, numerous Protestants and some Eastern Orthodox Catholics This parish remains open because it caters to the needs of Hungarian-speaking Catholics in southwest Michigan. It is now staffed by Franciscan monks from Hungary. The architect who designed this structure, Henrik Kohner, desinged nearby Szent Janus Templum for an Hungarian Orthodox congegation 13 years before he designed Holy Cross. Kohner desgined for Hungarian congregation but did not limit himself to Christian churches. He was the architect for the massive Congregation B’nai Moshe synagague on Dexter that opened in 1929. And he lived long enough to resume his work after the Depression and World War II terminated most commissions for architects. He designed one of the about two dozen synaagues that were built in Detroit after World War II: Yeshivah Beth Yuheda Mogen Abraham, also on Dexter.”