Fords step up to transform Detroit again. Now just one more thing: I want a train

Rochelle Riley | Detroit Free Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Bill Ford Jr. talks Ford buying Michigan Central Station In this June 2018 interview, Bill Ford Jr. talks about Ford buying the Michigan Central Station and his plans for its future.

For the first time since living in Detroit, I set foot in the Michigan Central Station, the iconic transportation hub that has carried only memories for passengers for decades.

I had had opportunities before — to go on secret ruin porn tours, or to sneak in with folks who study the innards of iconic, abandoned buildings. I love train stations, so it would not have been unusual. But I didn’t do it for years because I held out hope that the building would be saved — and I didn’t want to see its broken insides. I knew there was a reason the city lost its battle to tear it down and the Morouns were stubborn enough not to sell it.

So when I stepped onto that floor Tuesday afternoon and stood below its cavernous ceilings and imagined what once was and what could be, I wept.

After 17 years of passing by the city’s largest eyesore (the Packard Plant doesn’t count because it wasn’t a public space carrying the spiritual residue of thousands of traveling souls who took Detroit’s stories across the country), I was standing on hallowed ground.

And I thanked the universe for aligning the stars and creating a negotiating space for a deal between Ford Chairman Bill Ford and Matthew Moroun, son of the man who let that treasure sit vacant for years.

But you know what happens when you give someone something: They always want more. So dear Mr. Ford … as you and your team who have given so much hope to the city’s oldest neighborhood, to the state’s largest city and to urban meccas everywhere trying to get it right, we need one more thing:

A train.

Yes, the building will be a majestic hub that will bring employees and panache to Corktown. Yes, it will change not just the skyline, but the narrative about ruin porn in Detroit.

But the station, first and foremost, is a station. And as the Ford team works on developing brilliance and innovation, I hope that, in addition to retail and office space, it will have a short walk to a long track that will bring people to the New Detroit the old way.

That would be the perfect blend of old and new. If anyone can do it, Bill Ford and his team can.

And if Michigan is going to become a Middle American version of Silicon Valley, in addition to working on driverless cars, Ford should harken back to days when people walked through that station, which is just as grand as Grand Central Terminal in New York, and be able to go somewhere.

And come back.

“This project is going to make Michigan Avenue Silicon Valley, the hub of innovation and technology from here to Dearborn to Ann Arbor,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell. “We will redevelop and repurpose.”

But she remembered another congressman who took trains from that station and wanted a new generation to do the same.

“I’ve already been talking to everybody (about a train),” she said. “That was John Dingell’s dream to have this. We need a connector regionally and statewide. We need a train west to Chicago.”

Her words reiterated what she said in a statement before the event that featured Big Sean and U.S Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith and the Detroit Children’s Choir.

“Michigan Avenue will connect the University of Michigan, the American Center for Mobility at Willow Run, Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, and the new Central Station development right in Corktown,” she said. “For far too many years, the train station stood vacant as a stark symbol of southeast Michigan’s challenges, but today it will serve as a reminder that our best days are still ahead of us and will inspire all of us to improve our region for the better.”

Those days ahead represent a bright future. But I hope the Fords will keep a little bit of the past.

I want a train.

Contact Rochelle Riley: rriley99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @rochelleriley. Find information about her book "The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery" at www.rochelleriley.com.