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Window replacement progressing at Michigan Central Station
I trust they have security on site to insure they don’t get broken again.
Nice to see some positive news out of Detroit.
I rode a Chicago-bound Wolverine out of this station on Jan 6, 1988. It was a bitter cold day and there was no heat in the building. So we found a cafe across the plaza and had a meal until it got close to departure time.
Clever to do the upper windows first; people can’t throw rocks that far!
I hope the tracks to the station are still intact for the return of Amtrak and possible evolution of future passenger railway entities.
Not likely Amtrack will return, it’s too far from downtown and not on the way to anywhere. It worked when NYC/MC ran through the tunnel to Canada and on to Buffalo, not so much now.
Sounds like whole area around the station needs to be revitalized. Just fixing up the station alone isn’t going to do much. I’m not sure it’d help if it were in Detroit’s downtown, given the last I heard that wasn’t exactly a thriving hotbed of commerce and socialization, but it can’t help to be where it is either, away from projects to fix up the downtown.
It’s a shame a fair number of significant US stations (Buffalo Central also springs to mind) were built away from the cities they’re supposed to serve. In a parallel universe, with the stations built within the communities they serve, the symbiosis between the two might have put off the collapse of both rail and urban centers in the US.
Buffalo has a station in same state. How can both benefit from the strong Canadian dollar?
Amtrak should return, and restore the connection from Chicago to Toronto. The current “Detroit” station is a disgrace anyway. Together with the new Dearborn station this could make a major contribution to revitalising the city.
Canadian dollar is no longer strong due to the low price of oil. Quoted at 76 cents US today. My plans to travel on Amtrak are on hold.
“…strippers then turned the station into the city’s most notorious eyesore…”?? Really?
Actually Paul, downtown is doing extremely well. They just finished rebuilding Cobo and are drawing conventions and visitors to the city. Detroit really is on a major comeback. The station is in the ‘Corktown’ district near where the old Tiger Stadium was. That area is beginning to see positive action as well. But, unless they could connect the MC station with downtown via light rail, no one is going to use it. The Dearborn and Troy/Royal Oak stations are even further away
@John Barlow: I believe the “stripper” reference is to people who remove items which have a scrap or salvage value, usually without the owner’s permission. Commonly used term in larger cities where this is a real problem in unoccupied buildings.
Even if it is put to use as a train station again, that doesn’t explain the use of those upper floors. Some sort of reuse as an office building or even residential condos would make sense. But everything we read about Detroit says it has a huge glut of housing, and who would want a condo in that area anyway? The owner must have some notion of what to do with the refurbished building, but this story doesn’t say what that is.
Moroun has ulterior motives…his interest is money, nothing else.
George is correct. Mr. Moroun wanted some city property next to his bridge and got it by trading with the new mayor for some windows.
Donald Jones, They are expected to install all 1100 windows by the end of the year. There are no known plans for the building. It’s partially a response to a lot of negitive press. Still it sure makes the building look better and should help stabilize the ‘CorkTown’ area. So what ever the reason, thanks Mr. Moroun, it looks great.
The Central Station in Buffalo was built where the rail yard was ( or is ) back then the developers thought that the central business district would expand outward to the train station but the depression of 29 stopped that