Michigan Central Station: What you'll see on the tour

Today is the day when Detroiters get to go inside and see restored marble, limestone and carvings for the first time.

The ground floor of Michigan Central Station opens at noon for public tours that will include 60,000 people over 10 days, based on free tickets given away by Ford Motor Co. and the Michigan Central teams to residents throughout the community and those who went online from all over the country.

Visitors will experience film, art and storytelling about the history of the building and the future that Bill Ford, executive chair of Ford, envisions for the 30-acre campus in Corktown and southwest Detroit.

Here is what people will see, according to materials provided by Ford in advance:

• The Cube, A Dynamic Film Experience: Inside the historic women’s waiting room, an LED installation "tells the journey of Michigan Central Station: history, restoration and the next chapter."

• The Story of The Station: A 1,000-foot sculptural timeline of "shared moments of triumph, adversity, innovation and resilience that flows down the center of Grand Hall."

• Faces of Michigan Central, A Portrait Gallery: Listen to memories recounted by people in their own voice.

• What’s Your Station Story? In the historic reading room, visitors will be invited to recount their memories and hopes for Michigan Central. "These messages will be memorialized in a time capsule so that future generations can connect with our voices and experience what the station’s reopening means to Detroit residents during this once-in-a-generation moment."

• Open Archive, Resurrecting a Landmark: Photographs and artifacts that offer a glimpse into what it took to restore the deteriorated site.

• Poster Vault, A Visual Trip Through Culture: Walls covered with original train posters, vintage postcards, concert announcements, local sports team memorabilia and flyers for past raves.

• Windows into the Future: A vibrant light installation within the Historic Arcade to learn about the innovative opportunities and programming at Michigan Central, and how it will evolve.

• Interactive light sculpture: Speak a single-word vision of the future and watch as technology translates it into a pattern of light and color that shimmers across the structure, like a mandala, unique to each visitor.

• The Kids’ Zone: Includes “color-your-own” posters for people of all ages, a scavenger hunt and Lego blocks modeled into the station.

• Michigan Central in Motion: Learn about the innovation district where "leaders, thinkers, communities and creators come together to accelerate bold ideas and technologies" and the upcoming park south of the station.

The Faces of Michigan Central exhibit include a range of stories, past and present. Below is just a sample.

Real stories: Kohler

Tomasita "Tammy" Alfaro Kohler and her husband, Ken Koehler, are third-generation owners of Honey Bee Market on Bagley just south of Michigan Central.

"The original owners, my grandparents, were from Mexico. They were immigrants. My husband and I became a team almost 30 years ago," Tammy said. "Michigan Central Station coming here and it being right at the tip of a Mexicantown, we're neighbors. As we call it: Primos."

Ken said, "Ford, he had a vision. We all know what the building looked like. Look where it's at today. When we were building the store, they said, you're going to fix that building up? Are you crazy? I heard that from so many people. My wife and I, our hearts were in it. We want this for the community."

Real stories: Younk

Tiffany Younk is a journeyman ironworker who worked for Midwest Steel at the train station. Her father, Robert Younk, is an ironworker who served as foreman on the project.

"My first day at the station I looked at it and I was, like, 'Well, crap, this is a lot of work. I don't know what I got myself into.' And throughout the three years that we worked here, going through and learning the trade, from being so new and also watching the train station transform into what it is now, it's just awesome to see that."

Robert said, "The station to me, back in the day when I was driving down through Detroit and I was working all around the Detroit area: It was just a lonely, dark old building. It sat all by itself. And you think, there's no way that building's ever going to be salvaged again."

Real stories: Heinzman

Kitty Heinzman arrived in Detroit at age 16 from Westport, County Mayo, Ireland, on March 31, 1958. She waited an hour before her uncle picked her up at the train station, and the majesty of the ceilings captured her imagination that she remembers all these years later, she said.

"You never get over that feeling. I knew this was my destination. And you never get over it. You get emotional, you know, because it's beautiful. Don’t start me again … It's like yesterday," Heinzman said. "... You’re next door to Mexicantown, which is lovely. You've got the Irish, you've got the Mexicans, you've got the Maltese. So look at all the mixtures of people you got here. Everything."

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: Michigan Central Station: What you'll see on the tour