Detroit, MI
Judge blocks steam line project on Lafayette Park property
Youth in Lafayette Park speak about the park they love
Youth in Lafayette Park speak about the park in the Mies van der Rohe Historic District in Lafayette Park, Detroit, on Apr. 28, 2025.
A Wayne County judge has blocked a local heating and cooling company from doing work on a steam line project on Lafayette Park property in Detroit, a ruling some residents of the famed development are cheering.
Detroit Thermal, a company that provides heating and cooling to buildings through an underground network, said it will appeal the decision.
Detroit Thermal wants to upgrade and reconnect a steam line to the 1300 Lafayette East Cooperative. But residents who live in the housing cooperatives designed by famed architect Mies van der Rohe worry the project would damage their community’s landscape because it would involve excavation work.
Earlier this week, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Annette Berry granted a permanent injunction, which the Mies housing cooperatives had sought.
Berry ordered that Detroit Thermal is enjoined, or prohibited, from entering on Lots 19-22 of the Lafayette Park Subdivision, excavating on the lots and using the lots for the purpose of installing a slip line into existing steam pipes.
“I think generally that we feel vindicated and … feel like it was important for us to stand up for our property rights,” said Randy Essex, a resident of the Nicolet Co-op, one of the housing cooperatives.
What is Lafayette Park?
Completed in stages in the 1960s, the Mies van der Rohe Residential District is considered one of America’s most successful post-World War II urban redevelopment projects, according to the Detroit Historical Society. Located east of the Chrysler Freeway and roughly bounded by Rivard Street, Lafayette Avenue, Orleans Street and Antietam Street, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
It includes three districts in connected sections: 21 multiple-unit townhomes and a high-rise apartment building on the west side; Lafayette Park, 13 acres of greenery, recreation facilities, and a school; and twin apartment towers and a shopping center to the east.
‘Inappropriate use’ of old easements
Essex said the four housing cooperatives in the Mies van der Rohe Historic District believe Detroit Thermal’s planned work would be “an inappropriate use” of old easements. Essex said the cooperatives believe there are alternate routes for Detroit Thermal’s project.
Berry said Detroit Thermal and 1300 Lafayette East Cooperative must find an alternate solution to the cooperative’s problem. Detroit Thermal said previously that 1300 Lafayette East Cooperative was connected to the underground steam system until the 1980s, when residents installed their own boilers. The boilers failed a few years ago, and the community wants to reconnect to the Detroit Thermal system.
“We want 1300 Lafayette to have heat,” Essex said. “We just believe that Detroit Thermal was taking the shortest, most profitable route possible and that its plan was inappropriate, and the judge found illegal.”
Detroit Thermal calls decision ‘wrong’
Detroit Thermal said in a statement that Berry’s decision is “flatly wrong” and “dangerously framed” in a way that will have an adverse effect on Lafayette Park and adjoining neighborhoods.
“The ruling runs counter to a jury’s verdict that upheld Detroit Thermal’s right to access the public right of way alongside DTE Energy and other utilities,” the company said. “Not only does the Court’s order deny 600-plus Detroiters the heating system they need, but based on the Court’s reasoning, water, sewer, gas, electric, internet, cable, and telephone companies are barred from using these public utility easements to service 1300 Lafayette East Cooperative or any other property outside the Lafayette Park subdivision.”
Earlier this spring, Detroit Thermal applauded a Wayne County jury verdict that it said affirmed its right to access public easements in Detroit’s Lafayette Park neighborhood, but Essex said at the time that the company’s steam line project couldn’t move forward amid other legal issues.
asnabes@detroitnews.com
The Detroit Red Wings announced on Wednesday that Steve Yzerman is stepping down from his role as GM and executive vice president.
Yzerman will continue working with the organization as a senior advisor to Red Wings governor and CEO Chris Ilitch.
The Red Wings are now searching for a new head of hockey operations.
“Steve’s lifetime of contributions to the Red Wings has meant more to this franchise than words can truly express, and I have the highest level of respect for his continued commitment to our organization,” Ilitch said in a statement. “We are thankful for Steve’s hard work and dedication as General Manager and are grateful knowing Steve will remain where he belongs – here with the Red Wings family.”
Yzerman returned to Detroit in April 2019 after a successful front office career with the Tampa Bay Lightning, replacing longtime GM Ken Holland.
“I am sincerely grateful to Chris and the entire Ilitch family,” Yzerman said in a statement. “This organization has given me incredible opportunities, from my time as a player to the privilege of returning as General Manager. I’ve appreciated every experience throughout the years, and I’m extremely proud to remain part of this great franchise.”
As the Red Wings commence their search for Yzerman’s replacement, Yzerman will remain in his current role to facilitate the day-to-day of hockey operations until a replacement is named. The organization says it will consider both internal and external candidates for the role.
“Clearly, we are not where we and our fans expect to be as an organization,” Ilitch said. “I’m looking forward to bringing in new leadership to build the championship-caliber organization Hockeytown deserves.”
“My commitment to the Red Wings and this community will never waver, and I look forward to supporting the organization in whatever role is needed to achieve our collective goals,” Yzerman said. “I want to thank our passionate fanbase for their support, as they are what makes Detroit and the entire state of Michigan a very special place in the hockey world.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
DETROIT ― The crowd wasn’t large ― a smattering of about 40 or so people at Detroit’s historic Palmer Park just north of downtown on a warm and muggy summer evening.
The people who did show up were there because they feared something precious could be lost: the relationships between therapists and the people who trust them with their deepest wounds.
This is what democracy often looks like. A tent. Some speakers. Livestreaming on social media. And waning sunlight seemingly trying to figure out whether to set in fiery red-orange or fade behind rainclouds.
It was my pleasure to witness this moment firsthand because we live in a new era ― a period when the most powerful leaders in our government increasingly move to trample on our First Amendment rights. This was the second time within the past 30 days that I have found myself covering the debate surrounding Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan’s planned reimbursement policy changes affecting limited licensed mental health clinicians.
I’ve written previously about the policy itself. This time, though, something else captured my attention.
It was the people.
Last Friday night’s rally was organized by Caitlin Fleming, a mental health therapist and co-founder of Healer’s Choice, who demonstrated the kind of leadership that rarely makes headlines but often changes communities. She listened as much as she spoke. She created space for others to tell their stories. She reminded those gathered that advocacy is less about anger and more about refusing to become invisible.
At one point, Fleming shared that she lost her former husband to suicide.
Her words carried weight, especially because only days earlier I had written about losing my aunt Geraldine and how grief leaves permanent marks on those left behind. Mental illness, suicide and trauma are not abstract policy debates. Nearly every family carries a story. Every interruption in care has a human face.
That reality echoed through the entire evening.
Mars DeWitt, a limited licensed clinician who previously worked as a teacher, reminded us that change has happened before in Detroit. After addressing the audience, DeWitt told me that they watched the fight for teacher pay, recalling Detroit educators’ successful efforts to improve salaries. “So, I know it’s possible for therapists to fight back in a similar way.… Detroit is one of those inspiring cities in the world because we know how to fight back.”
Their words were less criticism than a declaration of home.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, connected the issue to another community she knows well: veterans.
“Every interruption in treatment increases the risk that a patient, including veterans, falls through the cracks,” she said. “Our veterans should not have to retell their trauma, rebuild our trust or start the therapeutic process from the beginning due to an insurance billing policy.”
Jess Riley of the National Association of Social Workers-Michigan added sobering context. Twenty-five Michigan counties have no psychiatrists. Ten neither have a psychiatrist or psychologist. The Upper Peninsula has no child psychiatrists and no pediatric psychiatric beds.
Whatever one’s position on reimbursement policy, those numbers reveal a behavioral work force already stretched dangerously thin.
Fleming also reminded the audience that communities of color are especially vulnerable to changes in insurance coverage policy because they understand what generational trauma in health care looks like. She cited historical abuses such as the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis. She emphasized that clinical supervision should not be a sign that therapists are somehow viewed as inadequate.
“We want people to be supervised not because they are not quality therapists; it’s the human experience. We should always be working in teams.
Notably, Fleming said Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has not publicly released data estimating how many patients may lose access to their current therapists under the proposed policy. She said representatives from BCBS Michigan were invited to the forum but did not participate.
Regardless of where this debate ultimately ends, something encouraging happened last Friday evening.
Citizens assembled peacefully. They exercised their First Amendment rights. They shared data, personal stories and deeply held convictions. They urged elected officials to listen. They asked a powerful institution to explain itself.
That is not something to fear.
It is something to celebrate.
That’s because healthy democracies depend on citizens who care enough to show up – even if there are only 40 of them standing together in a Detroit park at the end of a long week, refusing to believe their voices don’t matter.
Byron McCauley is a regional columnist for USA Today Co. in Michigan. Email: bmccauley@usatodayco.com; call (513) 504-8915.
(WXYZ) — The highly-anticipated premiere of “The Odyssey” is officially here, with showtimes starting Thursday across metro Detroit.
The epic, directed by Christopher Nolan, was shot entirely with IMAX cameras, the first film to be shot with them. It will be available to watch in a variety of formats in the area and across the state.
On the website for the film, it lists all of the premium format options and where you can find them. Check out the details below.
IMAX 70mm
This is the premiere format to watch the film, presented in IMAX’s 1.43:1 expanded aspect ratio, according to the website.
“It is the largest and highest-resolution format available and gives you an unparalleled sense of immersion as the image fills IMAX’s signature floor-to-ceiling screen,” the website reads.
Across the country, there are only a 30 theatres that are capable of playing IMAX 70mm, and only one in Michigan. To see the film in that format, you’ll have to go to Celebration! Cinema in Grand Rapids.
IMAX
As we’ve said, “The Odyssey” is the first feature film shot entirely on IMAX cameras. “The film was shot and designed to be experienced on the biggest screen possible, and IMAX delivers on this,” star Anne Hathaway said.
It comes in the 1.90:1 expanded aspect ratio, filling your entire field of vision.
There are several theatres showing the film in IMAX in metro Detroit. They are:
- MJR Southgate
- MJR Troy
- AMC Forum 17 in Sterling Heights
- AMC Livonia 20
- AMC Star Great Lakes
- Cinemark Ann Arbor
70mm
The 70mm film is a large format that “offers a bright, clear image up to 3 times the resolution of standard digital projection formats,” according to the website. It’s shown at a 2.20:1 aspect ratio.
In metro Detroit, there are three theatres showing it in 70mm. They are:
- MJR Southgate
- AMC Forum 17 in Sterling Heights
- AMC Livonia 20
35mm
35mm is the classic film format shown at a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. “It projects light through the entire 35 millimeter frame to deliver clear, high resolution images with rich analog color,” the website reads.
Only the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor is showing the film in 35mm.
Dolby Vision
According to the film’s website, The Dolby Vision projection system has a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.
“Dolby Vision allows you to experience every detail and nuance captured by the large format film cameras Christopher Nolan used in production,” the website reads.
You can see the film in Dolby Vision at AMC in Clinton Township, Sterling Heights and Great Lakes.
Premium Large Format
The premium large format movie will be in either 2.39:1 or 1.85:1 aspect ratio, depending on the theatre. “It features larger wall-to-wall screens, superior projection technology, including laser projection,” the website reads.
Here are places you can see “The Odyssey” in Premium Large Format.
- MJR Southgate
- Emagine Royal Oak
- Cinemark in Taylor
- MJR in Sterling Heights
- Emagine Woodhaven
- MJR Westland
- The Riviera in Farmington
- Emagine Canton
- MJR Partridge Creek
- Emagine Rochester Hills
- Emagine Macomb
- Emagine Novi
- MJR Chesterfield
MJR Waterford - Phoenix Theatres in Monroe
- Emagine Saline
- MJR Brighton
- Emagine Hartland
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