THE GREAT DEPRESSION IN DETROIT: NEAR BEER, BANK RUNS, AND RUIN.
On a chilly Tuesday in October 1929, Detroit was rocked by the crash of the stock market. The crash and America’s response to it would soon plummet the nation into the Great Depression. Banks closed and businesses shuttered. Hoovervilles, script bills, and breadlines became common sights, and few cities felt the depression in a more unique way than Detroit. Factories laid off workers in droves. Henry Ford refused to believe it was happening. Prohibition made some men rich and cost others everything. From eating muskrat to carrying a few bottles of whiskey across the river, Detroiters learned to survive until Roosevelt's New Deal, World War Two, and the greatest undertaking of public works projects in our nation's history dragged the country back onto its feet. Join The Detroit History Club as we explore Detroit in The Great Depression.
This event will take place inside a building built to be the Merchants & Mechanics Bank of Hamtramck. Later the building changed hands, becoming The State Bank of America, Hamtramck in 1929. A run on the bank, criminal charges against a member of its board, and the Great Depression shuttered it in 1930. Today the building has found new life as Bank Suey, a privately owned community space. For lunch, you’ll enjoy a meal common to Detroit residents of the 1930’s: soup and homemade sausage with bread and “near beer” (after all prohibition was the law of the land). Our chef for this humble but delicious meal is Chef Gary Marquardt C.E.C. Chef Gary is a native Detroiter and the chef emeritus of the University of Michigan. A two time Bocuse d'Or finalist. Chef Gary is currently chef instructor at Washtenaw Community College specializing in charcuterie and classical cuisine. He hold numerous awards in both ice sculpting and culinary competitions. The afternoon's lecture will be presented by The Detroit History Club’s own Bailey Sisoy Isgro. Following our discussion of the tragedies, adventures, and innovation of the Great Depression, Alissa Shelton of Bank Suey will speak to her family's rehabilitation of the former bank/Chinese restaurant (is the name making sense yet?) including a tour of the behind the scenes workings of a roaring twenties bank turned Chinese food restaurant turned community space.
$45-- Purchase tickets through Detroit History Club here. If you are a Hamtramck resident, the first 10 Hamtramckans are elligble for a discount. Please use our contact form to recieve the code for your discount!