Michigan Central Station saved by Ford

• 

News release

It is so rare these days to hear stories of corporate philanthropy that one can scarcely believe them when they do surface, but the news which has lately reached us from America is every bit as good as it sounds. It concerns Michigan Central Station, a Beaux-Arts building of quite monumental proportions, which was the tallest station building in the world when it was completed in 1914. It was the product of several leading architects of the time including New York hotel specialists Whitney Warren and Charles D. Whetmore, and New York's Grand Central Station architects Charles A. Reed and Allen Stem. It closed, however, in 1988, and was afterwards allowed to fall into decay, gradually succumbing to general neglect as well as petty vandalism. In 2009, Detroit City Council voted to demolish it.

Fortunately, the demolition never took place and in 2018 the building was bought by the Ford Motor Company, which has recently completed a six-year, $940 million restoration. The work has included the full restoration of the richly decorative Edwardian interior, and while it is Ford's plan to use the building for research and technology offices (for a rather ominous-sounding "connected, autonomous and electrified future"), we hope some of the best aspects will be accessible to the public as Ford also intends that parts of the old station should house restaurants and shops. It must go without saying that anyone visiting Detroit should consider paying it a visit.

We concede that an example of pre-war railway architecture being saved by a modern motor-car manufacturer is only tenuously connected to pre-war cars, but it immediately prompted thoughts of the millions of Model Ts, Model As and V8 Fords that the station will have glimpsed during the golden age of mechanical transport. That is to say nothing of the Herculean Empire State Express that was a vital artery of America in the days before mass car ownership, or the silver-winged Mercury streamliners that sped through the station in the 1930s, and so on and so forth... Quite apart from that, it is most reassuring to see one of the world's largest corporations acknowledging the importance both of local heritage and civic beauty, and we congratulate Ford for setting an example that we hope others will follow.

Words: Zack Stiling

Make a comment, ask a question, give your opinion, share additional information or start a discussion by filling in the fields below.