Pete Stidman

DORCHESTER REPORTER

Polish-Americans are slowly trickling out of Dorchester's Polish Triangle, say members of the neighborhood. They are trading in or renting out their three-deckers and single-families for quieter, roomier layouts in the suburbs. The Polish-American Citizens Club (PACC) has been a little too quiet.

But on the Dorchester Avenue side of the triangle, opposite Boston Street and Columbia Road, a trio of Polish storefronts are doing better than ever. All of them are relatively new to the area, joining Polish-owned anchors DJ's Market and Boston Street Deli over on Boston Street in the last ten years or so. Even the Boston Street shops are doing well. With Polish still heard on the streets, four thriving markets and a new restaurant, one might think the triangle is as Polish as it ever was, but apparently the teeming customers come from out of town.

"It's like virtual reality Poland," said Maciej Oltarzewski, who helps his wife Grace promote a series of musical and cultural events in the PACC. "More and more Poles are moving out. Downtown Boston has to move in this direction. It's easy to predict. In ten years it will be even more attractive to these people, some who are not too rich, to sell these houses and move somewhere else."

The Oltarzewski's call Wrentham their home.

Teddy Jurczuk, owner of the Boston Street Deli on Boston Road, agrees with Oltarzewski that the exodus is happening, but he would like to reverse it. He says he'd be interested in buying the PACC building and setting it in a new, upscale direction.

"If I made it nice I think more Polish people would come back," said Jurczuk. "I'd put rooms for new arrivals in the basement. The Italian club in the North End is way different. The Polish club just ruins them, the drinking. I want it to help people."

Jurczuk hails from Milton these days, although he said he has many friends and family-members who still live near his shop.

Joe Kulcheski, president of the PACC, did not return phone calls for this article and bartenders on duty at the club declined to comment on its status.

The club donates the use of a hall to Mr. and Mrs. Oltarzewski's events, and the acts brought in by the pair have attracted hundreds of Polish-Americans hungry for live music.

"We have rock and roll, Polish music but not many polkas. That's like old-old," said Grace Oltarzewski while putting final touches on glittery decorations for a New Years Eve 2007 celebration Sunday. "And polka is from the Czech Republic, not Polish."

Along with a team of generous volunteers, the couple runs Pro Musica Inc., which rents the hall above the bar at PACC. A steady flow of musicians with long lists of European credentials, but not as widely known in the U.S., visit the hall every third Friday.

Next up on the Pro Musica roster is Bogdan Holownia, a premier jazz pianist from Poland. He headlines a Jan. 19 show at the club; doors open at 7:30 p.m. The Warsaw Voice describes his music as "a rich romantic mixture of jazz riffs, with a gospel base and Latin, soul and classical accents, simmered sometimes fast, but mostly slow." Other event listings can be found at promusicaonline.org.

The PACC's dark, wood-paneled interior is lit up by beer-sign neon and a widescreen TV. Last Saturday at noon, college football players battled across it and three men sat quietly at the bar nursing beers. But for the red and white flags and the white eagle on the front door, it could be any vintage bar in the city.

Jurczuk's idea for installing basement rooms to house recent immigrants in the club, however, might not attract many guests either. Poland's shrinking unemployment rates and its European Union membership garnered in May of 2004 are opening up plenty of job opportunities for Poles on their home continent. The relatively few who still relocate to Boston are educated professionals such as engineers and medical researchers, and they are often fluent in English already.

The same year Jurczuk's father, Geno Jurczuk, bought DJ's Market down the street in 1981, martial law had just been declared in Poland as part of a government reaction to Solidarity. The ensuing violence pushed a large wave of Polish-Americans onto Boston's shores. Earlier waves around World War II and the turn of the century have added up to over 320,000 self described Polish-Americans in the 2000 census.

Boston's Polish triangle had a different character in those days, said the younger Jurczuk. There were fewer cars, everybody knew everybody and DJ's was a gathering point.

"Before, it wasn't just for the food. It was fun," agreed his sister Alina Morris, who took over DJ's from Geno with yet another brother. "It was where to get a job or a place to stay. People would come straight from the airport with their suitcases in hand. Mainly, it was just meeting other Polish people, a hangout."

Dorchester Avenue, has a slightly different flavor. Our Lady of Czestochowa's parking lot fills to capacity every Sunday. Suburbanites in leather jackets and fur-lined parkas hurry to find a place in city's only pews where Catholic mass can be heard in Polish. If they arrive even a minute after 11 a.m., they will have to settle for standing room in the aisles or just outside the doors.

After Father Jerzy Auguscik finishes Mass, the congregation slowly splits up, some walking a few doors down to Café Polonia, others crossing the street to the Baltic European Delicatessen or heading South to Euromart just blocks away.

In both markets stacks of Polish light rye bread disappear from the shelves and long lines form in front of the chrome stocked with kielbasa and other fresh meats.

"This is pretty nice," said Arthur Jurczyk of Natick after loading up a few bags at the Baltic. "You get the same food, the cravings you developed when you were a kid. Most of the people here speak Polish and you often see people you went to school with."

In Café Polonia, the only Polish restaurant in Boston, the churchgoers rub shoulders with a more diverse patronage in search of pierogis, kielbasa, and babka breads.

"It's funny because in the store about 80 percent of our clients are Polish-speaking, whereas in the restaurant, 80 percent of our clients are not Polish-speaking," said owner of both the Baltic, Café Polonia, and co-owner of a regional bi-lingual newspaper called the White Eagle, Darek Barcikowski. "There isn't a culture in Poland of people going to restaurants."

"We live in Quincy. There's a lot of criminals around here," said one Euromart shopper while his family laughed at him. "This store was robbed twice and that one down there [pointing towards the Baltic] nine times."

After walking off, he came back in his car and rolled down the window.

"It's New Year's Eve, so I am only joking," he said.

But the joke had a fraction of fact to it. Barcikowski said that the Baltic had been robbed at least four times circa 2005, maybe more. But after media attention focused on the mini crime wave, things calmed down . Barcikowski didn't think crime was prompting people to move.

"It has mostly to do with socio-economic status," he said. "People are making money and moving on. That area of Dorchester has been relatively calm over time."

For other information on Polish-Americans in Boston see PolBoston.com.