Holes in the wall

The look on his face says it all. 

Vasile Sirca wears an expression of pure fatigue. He's standing behind the cookie counter at his store, Nortown Bakery, on Van Dyke by Seven Mile. He's the only one here, as usual. And he looks like he's been through a war.

"There are a lot of problems on this street. Lots of shootings," the 59-year-old says. "Long ago, it was a lot better than now. But the neighborhood change."

That's putting it mildly. Back when the store opened in 1939, it was a Polish bakery in a Polish neighborhood in the city's upper limits known informally as Nortown. Like much of the east side back then, Van Dyke was lined with mom-and-pop businesses, and the sidestreets were dense with single-family homes. 

Today it looks like a battle took place here. Grassy lots are missing their houses, ashes and cinders mark the shells of others, windblown trash lines the curbs and fences.

In the past decade, most people who had the means to move away did, leaving behind those who can't — the poor and the elderly, the career criminals and drug dealers. They're the ones who've put that look on Sirca's face.

He came from Romania to Michigan in 1980 and bought the bakery from the last in a succession of owners who'd got it after the original owner retired. He'd been a lifelong baker back home, and he freshened up the store's stale offerings by adding breads from his home country and imported foods from central and Eastern Europe. 

Detroit still had a fair amount of white ethnics in its neighborhoods back then, and this store became a convenient stop for neighbors wanting a taste of the old country. Here they could find Polish cookies and Yugoslavian jellies, Romanian sandwiches and Bulgarian peppers.

But there isn't a Bulgarian or a Romanian within miles of here anymore. Most of Sirca's customers are the few from the suburbs who remember this place or whose parents told them there's still that old bakery where they can get real European food. The rest who come in, the residents of this neighborhood, couldn't distinguish a Romanian bread from a cheap sliced loaf.

"The people, they don't know European breads," he laments. "'You don't have regular bread?' he quotes them asking him. 'What's regular?' he'll ask. "'Wonder Bread," is invariably the answer. 

"But this is like you make at home," he notes, holding a loaf the size and shape of a football. "It's salt, water, yeast and flour. That's all. This has no preservatives inside. This is bread the way it's supposed to be."

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