Michigan Central

This weekend, I am visiting Lena in Ann Arbor. As usual, I took a Wolverine train after work, and as usual, it was delayed, but not very bad – just over 20 minutes.

As usual, Lena planned a weekend full of activities, and today, we went to Detroit. Both attractions we visited were jaw-dropping, so I will try to write down everything I remember before the information spills away from my brain.

First, we went to the Michigan Central. This grand train station was opened in December 1913, marking a new era in the history of Detroit. We know what happened seventy-five years later: the cars and air travel diminished the role of the railroads in the USA, and little by little, the Michigan Central started to deteriorate, along with the whole city of Detroit.

In the days of glory (pictures from here)

There are some photos of the abandoned station from the 2000s (taken from here)

I knew about the sad history of Michigan Central, which was emblematic to the whole story of Detroit’s decline, and nobody thought this deterioration could be reversed.

The miracle happened in 2018 when Ford Motor Company bought the building and started the restoration. Looking at the pictures above and then looking at the pictures I took today, you can’t call it anything but a miracle!

Only the ground floor is now open to the public. On September 1, the station will be closed again to complete the restoration, but it is open and free now and until the end of summer.

Can you imagine that in 2013, Detroit City Council voted to demolish the station and it was saved by a miracle? (The city didn’t have enough money for that!)

I will tell more about the station restoration in the next post.