In BBC: Michigan Central and the rebirth of Detroit



By Jonathan Marcus

“Rick Novasky has never forgotten the day back in the 1980s when he was working a shift in the ticket office at Detroit’s Michigan Central Station.

“A gentleman walked up to the ticket window with tears rolling down his cheeks,” he says. “I asked him if he needed help. The man just pointed toward the subway where everybody boarded the trains and said, ‘that’s where I last saw my oldest brother back in 1943. He turned around, waved to us and then got on his train.  We never saw him again. He was killed in the Pacific.’

“That was some 30 years ago,” says Novasky, a tremor in his voice, “and it still hits me even today.”