THE RAILROAD STATION

On my recent birthday friends who live in a different city sent me a very nice coffee table book. The book is called "The Station." "The Fall and Rise of Michigan Central".

This is the story of Michigan Central Station and the restoration of the station over the last six years led by Bill Ford. Mr. Ford also wrote the forward to this book.

According to the book it took over 3000 trades people working very hard to restore the station.

The station was opened in Detroit in 1913. The place quickly became a very busy, beautiful, bustling and exciting place for decades. Travelers including solders during the wars were always coming and going from this large and exciting place all the time. The terminal had everything. There was a pharmacy, a barbershop, a florist and places to eat. It was the golden age of train travel

Time moved on and after four decades of a lot of train travel which included two hundred trains a day coming and going from Michigan Central things would change as they always do and train travel was no longer the popular way to go.

January 5,1988 the last train left Michigan Central. The station was closed. It was abandoned for over three decades. The decay was massive do to neglect, weather, thieves, and vandals.

In 2018 Bill Ford decided something had to be done. The place had to be restored and returned to its glory. Michigan Central would become an important part of Detroit's rebirth.

Mr. Ford led this historic project.

I have a couple personal memories of Michigan Central. When I was very young in the late 1940's and early 1950's my parents took me several times

to New Youk where my father was from to visit my relatives. I think we would take a train from Michigan Central that I believe would leave about seven or eight p.m. I remember racing through the busy terminal out to the train tracks and hearing the conductors shouting as they did in the old movies "all aboard" and "last call. "Sometime the next morning we would arrive at Grand Central Station in Manhattan also a very busy place. We would take a cab up to the Bronx where my grandparents lived and stay about two weeks.

I visited Michigan Central years later in the mid 1960's. My friend Larry [ See essay called 'Larry was a Character"} ask me to go with him late on a Friday night to pick his uncle up at the station. It seems his uncle still preferred to travel by train and was returning from a business meeting in Texas. The station was deserted and kind of spooky that night, but we met his train and drove him home.

Many years latter Larry told me that his uncle left him a kitchen table and some chairs when he passed away. I said to Larry if we had not picked his uncle up that night, you might not have inherited that kitchen set.

To my friends.

Thanks again, for the book.

WRITTEN BY

RON TURETT