Michigan’s Disneyland Reminds Me of Chernobyl

Hamtramck — For most residents of the state, this enclave off I-75 is another country. Business signs are in Arabic or Bengali. Some bakeries are still Polish. It’s the grungy Detroit version of the American melting pot, and it even has its own Disneyland.

But unlike the expensive name brand version, Hamtramck Disneyland can’t be described as “the happiest place on earth.” But it’s certainly a unique in-person experience that’s emblematic of the American dream.

You can find Hamtramck Disneyland in the alley between Sobieski Street and Klinger Street. Or you can park on Klinger and walk through the gate to the back. If you go the front way, look for a Lady Liberty figure holding a torch out from a front porch.

The structure and pieces were created by Dmytro Szylak, an immigrant from Ukraine who worked at General Motors for 30 years. He started building the structure in the 1980s, according to a sign hanging in the alley.

He passed away in 2015, and Hatch Art purchased the property that houses it. They have kept it open to the public as long as they are respectful. That level of trust is rare today.

It feels odd to be tramping in someone else’s backyard. But one of the tenants who lives in the house says she’s used to it.

Anyone can come and tour the towering chaos that is Hamtramck Disneyland. You can walk underneath it and around it. Stay as long as you want. The colors are bright but the motifs are trite. There’s a chair with the words “third row seating” taped on it.

These are the kinds of “art phrases” interspersed between Cold War era missiles, a helicopter and what was once probably a sleek jet that now looks like it has been in a crash: “Don’t stop making art” and “Hobby is not an easy job.”

It’s post-apocalyptic garage-sale humor.

And on a dead weekday in early April, it’s eerie. Add in the discordant combination of kids’ toys with various religious and political iconography and it’s like a scene out of Chernobyl.

Hamtramck Disneyland is a wonderland of artistically placed junk and unsettling imagery. It’s a flea market table of political and physical tchotchkes.

In the alley, there have been some posthumous updates to include references to the war in Ukraine. Blue and yellow lines adorn one of the garage doors in the alley and the fence gates to the front yard.

Like Lakenenland in the Upper Peninsula, Hamtramck Disneyland seems to posit that art isn’t much more than junk mixed with political sloganeering. But it’s a testament to what’s possible in the United States because of what we have historically defended as vital.

Szylak worked for a Big Three automaker, purchased enough space and then started to fill it with his ideas. His work is a testament to the American dream, even if it is sort of convoluted and run down at this point.

Hatch Art says it wants to repair the electrical components of the installation, which would help make it more effective. They ask for donations for those upgrades as well as investing in some security cameras and public safety lighting.

Until then, Hamtramck Disneyland shows what’s possible when a man is free to spend his retirement building a monument to what he would call art.

And visitors are free to either accept or disagree with Szylak’s premise as they walk around the junk in his former backyard—a microcosm of everything or nothing.