Childhood memories of Detroit explain emotion of Michigan Central Station opening

When I first began reporting on the plan to revive Michigan Central Station six years ago, I was skeptical. It seemed insanely ambitious, a potential setup for a letdown.

I wanted better for the city that my family has called home for more than 150 years. So, covering the revival of the train depot has been deeply personal.

As a young girl, I remember going downtown with Papa to pick up Mom from work. Back in those days, gunshots and crime plagued Detroit, and you tried not to draw attention to yourself. People often viewed red lights as cautionary — pause long enough to look both ways and keep moving.

I drove with Papa past addicts and prostitutes in the Cass Corridor. We didn't know whether our car tires would be missing after dinner at the old Chung's restaurant in what is now rebounding Midtown. Those meals remain some of my favorites all these decades later.

One night, while stopped at a light on Jefferson Avenue, Mom and I watched silently as a beautiful woman crossed the street, completely naked, her slender body exposed for all the world to see. Her eyes focused ahead as she took careful, even steps. I wondered why she was naked, who she was, what to do. That image from 40 years ago haunts me to this day.

Arsons filled the Motor City with haze, with a record number in 1984.

Despite all the uncertainty, or perhaps because of it, we loved Detroit in a way that words simply can't capture.

My grandparents lived in the city. My beloved aunts Dorothy and Poppy, both working for Detroit public schools, did too. Papa's family presence in Corktown started in the 1860s or so, as painters, upholsterers, sausage makers and a boarding house operator who helped build our great city.

My family, along with hundreds of thousands of other middle-class Detroiters, moved away. A childhood friend and I recently met for dinner at Campus Martius and talked about how our family homes on Ward Avenue are among the few remaining on the street. She moved to Redford after her Mustang was stolen from the driveway.

Still, all of us are, and forever will be, Detroiters. It's not about cheering for sports teams that lose for generations. It's cheering generations of people who don't give up or give in.

Detroit always comes back; we never leave

Thing is, when people move out of Detroit, they don't really. Their hearts remain in the city. They consider themselves Detroiters for the rest of their lives, no matter their street address. Moving away feels like abandoning a place you love, because it is.

Those who remain, they're the fighters who deserve the victory.

This is why the resurrection of Michigan Central Station is so significant.

To the rest of the world, a crumbling Beaux Arts-style building left to wither symbolized a city in decay, but we never fell out of love. And to see it come back to life, despite ridiculous challenges, is inconceivable.

But in the end, Detroit always comes back.

It's why people cry when they walk through the doors of a building that took nearly a year to dry out, because it was so exposed to the elements that flooding eroded everything that kept it standing. A woodcarver came in to re-create the ticket lobby clock and design that greeted travelers from 1913 to 1988. My husband, a master electrician, is one of thousands of skilled tradesmen and women who brought the building to life.

This past week, people wept and exclaimed as they walked halls restored to their original glory.

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I took so many calls from people furious at Bill Ford

I stood in Michigan Central with Bill Ford, executive chair of Ford Motor Co., in 2018 when he told the world his company had a plan for what would become a 30-acre innovation district. It sounded insane. The cost, which would reach $950 million, seemed prohibitive. But he didn't give up.

When the project began, we'd get calls from workers saying things were running behind schedule and over budget. It was a disaster. As the project evolved, I'd get emails and calls from Ford shareholders who said they were furious about the Corktown vanity project, something that Ford had no business undertaking.

And every single time something at Ford went wrong, whether it was recalls or the projected cost of transitioning to electric vehicles, shareholders and customers would call and trash talk the Michigan Central project as a waste of money that will never pay for itself or help anything.

Papa never felt that way. He sat on the curb in the sunshine at age 89 in Roosevelt Park in the days after news broke in 2018 that the restoration project was underway. He knew what was possible. He believed in Detroit, its food, its jazz clubs, its people. He remembered that the only time he saw his father shed tears was at the train station.

During a time of rapid change, seeing part of our collective past, something that unites our memories of family and love and loss and times of war and times of celebration, the train station is America. With hard work and belief in each other and working together, the job will get done.

The halls of that 18-story building on Michigan Avenue are filled with ghosts of all those who came before us, friends and family members we miss.

Small touches capture the imagination. Pieces of wainscoting left from the original building now decorate the garden. Train track was used to make benches lining a walkway outside the depot. My favorite, though, is the dips worn into the marble floor of the Grand Hall, historically known as the waiting room. It could be caused by swinging feet or the pressure of standing and sitting at the benches so long ago. Terrazzo now fills the rectangular spaces once recessed to hold the benches. Walk carefully and slide your foot over that marble. It's astonishing. Like water that wears a stone. It's just the passing of time.

Yet, somehow, the shiny marble and unique limestone and huge chandeliers also are about tomorrow. The old Detroit Public Schools Book Depository next door, called Newlab at Central Station, is filled with startup companies. And young entrepreneurs are coming to the city.

Getting another chance to say goodbye

Calls and letters have poured in, and these are two that captured my heart:

Jean Kaisch, 85, of Washington Township, used to live on 17th Street and Myrtle in Corktown. She was Jean Heidler back then, and called me Saturday morning to talk.

"Mother and I took the train to Sandy Ridge, Pennsylvania, to see my mother's family. And on that train, it was filled with soldiers. I'll never forget it to this day. I could see the seriousness in their eyes and their bodies. Some were coming home and some were going. I'll never forget our train rides. Some of those soldiers would say, 'Here ma'am. you sit down.' Those soldiers were so patriotic, so kind. I'll never forget them. Never. I never will. I had to call and tell someone."

Pauline Solano, 66, of Woodhaven, wrote, "I have been waiting for a very long time to see the station because it has a special place in my life. When my dad came home from WWII, it was December of 1945. No one was there to meet him. He walked home alone to his home on 18th Street. It would mean so much to be inside the Michigan Central Station in honor of my dad, Bob Solano. I never thought it would be open again."

When we go to Michigan Central, we are all celebrating the Irish forced to flee their homeland, welcoming home soldiers like Bob Solano and others who are no longer alive to see again what once was. And we're honoring the children who used the station as their art school. My father, who died in 2021, would have loved that most of all.

Some might not feel the significance of this moment.

But we are not in Detroit. Detroit is in us.

More: Michigan Central Station still has decades-old graffiti: Why Ford decided to keep it

Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or [email protected]. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @phoebesaid. Read more on Ford and sign up for our autos newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Emotion of Michigan Central Station opening in Detroit is deep