Michigan
First public tours of Michigan Central Station: ‘Spectacular,’ ‘off the charts,’ ‘so cool’
Tours draw thousands of visitors
Like pilgrims in a cathedral, thousands of visitors from metro Detroit and beyond trekked to the Michigan Central Station on Friday to marvel at the restored beauty of the longtime eyesore.
They took in every detail from the polished floors to the majestic ceilings to the craftsmanship that went into the original clock. The mood was festive as people moved through the building. Dramatic music played in a loop ending with a voice telling them that trains were pulling into the station.
“You see the work they did out here: They re-created everything the right way,” said Tom Toft, as he waited outside for his tour to begin. “It’s spectacular.”
Toft toured with his wife, Renee, and her cousin, Sylvia Ross-Schultz and her husband, Tom Schultz. The families had relatives who worked in the building back in the day.
“We’re so glad to see it getting so much better, and it’s beautiful. … It’s just in my heart, it’s been the neatest thing,” said Ross-Schultz. “It’s another crown jewel in the renovation of Detroit.”
Her husband agreed.
“I made the statement, and I was wrong, that (the comeback) would never happen in my lifetime,” said Schultz. “The rebirth is off the charts.”
‘People are coming in here awestruck’
By midafternoon, about 1,800 people had toured the building and that number was expected to grow to about 5,000 by the time the tours ended at 10 p.m., Michigan Central spokesman Dan Austin said.
Paul Wilson, 42, of Detroit, said he’s just thought of the station as a ruin his whole life — until now.
“It’s so cool how they refurbished everything and still kept a whole lot of the building intact,” Wilson said.
John Martin is a new Michigan Central ambassador after an advertising career and a couple years working part-time gigs. He snagged the job just in time for the station’s reopening and Friday was just his second day of work.
Martin grew up in Lincoln Park, later worked in downtown and spent most of his life watching the city up close. He toured Michigan Central’s open house back in 2018 after it was acquired by Ford and has since been stunned by Detroit’s numerous and gorgeous renovations.
On Friday, Martin stood at the doors of the Grand Hall, greeting people as they entered with smiles widening and eyes lighting up at their first sight of the hall.
“People are coming in here awestruck, they’re not complaining,” he said.
More: Michigan Central Station tours: How to visit Ford’s renovated train depot
More: Michigan Central Station: What you’ll see on the tour
Christina Roki, of Sterling Heights, and Grant Sloan, of West Bloomfield, are two automotive content creators who were invited to opening day by Ford. They said they were brought to tears by the stories preserved inside Michigan Central Station.
“What we appreciate about it most is how much detail Ford cared to preserve to show the story. They kept part of the graffiti on the walls, they preserved a lot of the tickets they found. … Even the brick, all the chisels we see on the brick, they didn’t try to make fine cut lines, they still want to show all the history that this building has,” said Roki.
As they walked from room to room, they remained at a loss for words.
“The inside was literally mind-blowing. I feel like I was walking in on such a big piece of history that’s been preserved for so long, so it’s crazy to think that this is something they’ve been working on in the past few years,” said Roki.
But the pair said one of the most significant parts was just to see how Michigan Central had been given new life, narrowly dodging demolition. Sloan remembered times passing the station with friends just before the renovation began. He saw graffiti and decay. Now, to see the modern history meshed with its historical past was an awesome experience.
“Any Detroiter will agree that this building was such an eyesore for such a long time. Growing up in Detroit and knowing its history but never seeing it operational. … But now seeing it up in running, it’s really touching to see that Ford took on such a large project,” said Sloan. “It’s early but I think it’s safe to say that the investment already paid off.”
‘Not enough wonderful words to describe it’
Bob and Shari Bilkie, of Northville, have deep family ties to Detroit. They often went on dates downtown before marrying almost 41 years ago.
On Friday, they walked the side streets surrounding Michigan Central Station as they waited for the public tours to begin at noon. They parked at 10 a.m. and took in the sights of the Corktown neighborhood on the cool, cloudy day.
“It is so cool, the fact that they took something decrepit, falling apart, an eyesore and turned it into something absolutely beautiful,” Shari Bilkie said.
Southwest Detroit resident Jennifer Serra set an alarm in hopes of scoring tickets to see the train station on its first day of public tours.
“There’s just not enough wonderful words to describe it,” Serra, 45, said after taking the tour.
Her only problem? She had somewhere else to be Friday afternoon and wanted to spend more time in the station. She has already made plans to come back for another tour in a few days.
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“I feel like it’s like a symbolic representation of what goes on in our city,” she said of Michigan Central Station. “I feel like there’s just these landmarks in certain cities … that just really kind of embody the overall history of what’s going on. I feel like this helps us bring a little bit of closure to some tough times and shows renewal.”
People’s excitement was obvious, even before they got inside.
NPR reporter Bobby Allyn, 35, walked quickly toward Michigan Central Station as he prepared to interview President Joe Biden’s director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Arati Prabhakar, at Newlab, which is next door to the station.
He said he was super excited to be in Detroit, having heard so much about the city when he lived in Berlin.
“Berliners are obsessed with Detroit because of techno music,” Allyn said. “It’s the birthplace of techno. Look up Jeff Mills, of Detroit, and techno. You’ll see. When you go to Club Berghain in Berlin, it’s impossible to get in but if you wear a hat that says, ‘Detroit,’ they let you in.”
Allyn, a technology correspondent, reports on startups, artificial intelligence, privacy issues and tech litigation. While he was directed to the neighboring building, the whole site is part of the mobility hub led by Ford Motor Co. Allyn said he couldn’t wait to see the inside of the restored train depot after the interview.
Emergency responders navigate Black Lake looking to rescue flood victims
Officers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection were on Black Lake looking for flood victims April 17, 2026.
The Cheboygan River level remained elevated Sunday as forecasters continued to issue fresh warnings about flooding in the region, though measurements at the dam were trending gradually downward.
The river was 7.56 inches below the top of the dam as of 12:45 p.m. Sunday, about a quarter of an inch below the prior measurement taken at 8:30 a.m., according to Michigan State Police. Levels had fluctuated around the seven-inch range below the dam’s top late Friday and Saturday after surging substantially higher earlier in the week.
State officials alerted the public about the emergency at the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex on April 10 when the river was 18 inches below the dam’s top. It then fell 2 inches to 20 inches below cresting on Saturday before starting five consecutive days of rising levels, raising concerns over the potential for a major flood disaster downstream in and around the city of Cheboygan.
Scattered snow showers are possible in Cheboygan and other parts of the northern Lower Peninsula on Sunday and into Sunday night, according to the National Weather Service. Much of the remainder of the week is expected to be sunny.
The weather agency on Sunday morning posted a flood warning for Cheboygan and Emmet counties that’s in effect until 8 p.m. Tuesday. “Expect many areas of slow moving or standing water,” it said.
People should stay away from flooded roads to avoid being swept away, the agency said, adding that “river banks and culverts can become unstable and unsafe.”
The Cheboygan County Sheriff’s Office also warned of “significant debris” flowing through local waterways and urged residents to stay away. The sheriff listed on its Facebook page more than a dozen road closures as of Sunday.
The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development urged residents Sunday to keep animals and farm equipment safe. It said livestock should be moved to higher ground, and utilities for lower-lying farm building should be switched off. Building doors and windows should be left partially open to “equalize pressure and help prevent buildings from shifting.”
The agency also broadly warned about the dangers of floodwater, given that it can contain harmful bacteria, sewage, toxic chemicals and debris. Pets should be kept way, the MDARD said. And all food and utensils should be kept away from it.
Michigan State Police scheduled a meeting at 6 p.m. Sunday to provide the public an update on the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex situation. It will take place at the Cheboygan Opera House, 403 North Huran St., in Cheboygan. Residents can also join remotely via Zoom, with details on the agency’s social media pages.
lramseth@detroitnews.com
Lansing — Jocelyn Benson, the front runner for the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor, said she believes her work in eight years as secretary of state will help convince voters to promote her this fall.
On Sunday, during a convention in Detroit, Democrats will pick a new secretary of state nominee. And on Thursday, Benson’s campaign for governor submitted about 30,000 petition signatures to get her name on the Aug. 4 primary ballot.
Amid those key moments in the 2026 election cycle, Benson, a former law school dean, sat down Thursday afternoon for an interview with The Detroit News about her time as secretary of state.
“I think that’s what people are looking for: A government that saves them time, saves them money and makes their life easier,” Benson contended. “I’ve done that as secretary of state, and I’ll do that as governor.”
The following interview was edited for length and clarity.
Question: You just dropped off your signatures this weekend. The Democrats are going to be gathering to nominate a new person for secretary of state. I was just looking over your campaign promises from 2017, do you feel like you hit them?
Benson: I had two goals when I came into office: wait times down and voter turnout up. And we did both, and I’m really proud of that.
When I started, we did a strategic planning session every January, and during our first strategic planning session in 2019, we filled the whiteboard on every wall in the office. And in our most recent one, the final one, we had just sort of one, just one little to-do list item left, which was really gratifying. Because we have not just increased turnout, but we’ve transformed our elections, eliminated gerrymandering, implemented the state’s first-ever citizens redistricting commission, which was no easy task, and then also implemented a number of new election procedures and options, educated voters about them and took Michigan’s elections from being ranked 31st in the country to No. 2.
We also did that while reducing those wait times (in Secretary of State offices), transforming our customer service experience. … Wait times are consistently 20 minutes or less, which was my No. 1 campaign goal.
Q: What were some of the strategies you used to get the wait times down for people?
A: No. 1, we listened to our employees, and No. 2, we collected data about what wasn’t working. You can’t fix what you can’t measure. And No. 3, we actually went around the country and looked at what states that actually had low wait times were doing. There weren’t many, but there were a few. Indiana and Illinois, had some interesting things that they did, and we took best practices that were working in other states and replicated them here.
But that first piece was key, listening to our employees. Early on in the process, we brought everyone in, all the branch office directors. I was expecting a daylong retreat where we would be discussing ideas, and I sat down with the director of branch office services. He had a whole PowerPoint presentation that went through everything we needed to do, from filling 900 vacant positions that were just vacant and not filled, to creating internally this opportunity for people to schedule the visit ahead of time.
We didn’t pay someone else to build that. That was built by our employees.
Q: When you ran in 2018, one of the big things you were talking about was election security. Do you feel like you’ve achieved that: improving election security? And what do you think about more people probably having faith in the results of elections then than they do now?
A: I am really proud of the fact that in this era of misinformation, we were able to protect our elections and ensure they remained secure.
While withstanding this unprecedented scrutiny and an unprecedented level of frivolous lawsuits, sham legislative hearings and falsehoods spread about our elections in the eye of the storm, we not only met the moment, but we built a better election system through it. That’s evidenced by the fact that we now have choices on how to vote in our state, we’ve modernized how you can register to vote and have increased the registration numbers we have.
Q: If one of these current candidates for secretary of state came to you and said, “I believe that the election is secure and everything is fine, but obviously there’s a lot of voters who don’t. How do we improve that?” What would you say to them?
A: Transparency is our friend.
Q: Just continue to open the process up as much as possible?
A: Well, the facts are on our side. The process is secure. So one of the most important things we need to do first is just continue to give people the tools that they need to get their questions answered and work with folks across the aisle, like we worked with Sen. Ed McBroom in 2021 to invite them into the process as well as answer questions that they have, while also, of course, maintaining any necessary confidence or security about the information that we’re providing.
But the through line is just transparency.
Q: What do you say to some of your opponents who will say, “Yeah, you decreased wait times. But what about the campaign finance website?” It’s not functioning, as they would hope it would.
A: Well, it’s certainly better than what we’ve had in the past. I think it’s important to remember that when I first ran for office, one of the things I heard most on the trail was actually, when are you going to get rid of MERTS (the former campaign finance disclosure system)?
Q: But that’s from people who are on the back end of it?
A: Right. Yeah. So I didn’t want to leave office without taking on that behemoth, knowing that it wasn’t going to be a smooth process, but it’s a necessary one if we were actually going to have a more transparent system, which I would argue also is something that the next secretary of state really needs to lean into more: getting money out of politics. I’ll be an ally for that as governor.
But when it comes to MITN and that process, one, what it really underscores is that I’m not afraid to take on big behemoths that others, frankly, past secretaries of state, refused to do, because it was too hard. And it does invite criticism. Whenever you try to transform a massive system that’s broken, yes, there are going to be hiccups along the way.
Q: Do you think voters are interested in that message: “I’ve improved these systems. I’m in government. I’ve succeeded in government. I can make it work.” Or are they looking for someone to just change everything?
A: People see a broken system that needs fixing, and they know I have transformed and fixed a system that every single one of our residents has interacted with. The other day, I was picking up food for my son and husband, and walking out with bags of food, and this gentleman in a pickup truck pulled up next to me in the parking lot and said, “Excuse me, are you the secretary of state?”
I was like, “I am.” And he said, “You know, I’m not political or anything. But I just was driving down this road the other day and realized when I passed the secretary of state’s office that it’s been years since I’ve had to go in there. Thank you for everything you’ve done to make that possible for me.” And I said, “Yeah, now imagine if all of government worked that well.”
Q: Do you think all three of the Democratic candidates running for secretary of state would be a good secretary of state? I know you’re not endorsing.
A: I’m committed to working with whoever comes through the convention and making sure they’re prepared to build on what we’ve done and achieve even more success.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
Before-and-after images of homes on Black Lake near Onaway provide perspectives on how the community was affected by April flooding.
Snowmelt and rain have stressed dams and caused lakes to flood in northern Michigan.
The Cheboygan County Sheriff’s Office shared on social media photos and videos that the agency captured of Cheboygan County floods on Friday, April 17 from both the ground and air.
Deputies “observed a level of destruction that simply cannot be understood from ground level,” the sheriff’s office said in the post.
Google Maps images taken from two locations on Black Lake in 2024, compared with the Friday images, show how the floodwater has changed the landscape.
On North Black River Road and Taylor Road, the water has overflowed to North Black River Road.
In the 400 block of South Black River Road, water has also flooded homes and lakeside property.
“Black Lake, Black River, Cheboygan River, Burt Lake, Mullet Lake, the Sturgeon River − and nearly every waterway in the county have overflowed beyond their banks, swallowing docks, roads, yards, and in far too many cases, homes,” the sheriff’s office post said. “What should be familiar shorelines are now unrecognizable expanses of water.”
“Our hearts are with every family affected by this flooding,” Cheboygan County Sheriff Todd Ross said in the post. “We know many of you are facing significant damage to your homes and property, and the emotional toll that comes with it. Please know you are not alone. We are working around the clock with our partners to ensure safety, provide support, and begin the process of recovery. Stay strong, stay connected, and don’t hesitate to reach out for help, we will get through this together.”
Nearby, the UAW Black Lake Conference Center shared images on social media of floodwater threatening its Old Lodge.
The conference center is located at 2000 Maxon Road in Waverly Township.
The Cheboygan County Road Commission and the Cheboygan County Office of Emergency Management closed the bridge at Five Mile Point Road on Saturday, April 18 due to significant road washout in the area of South Black River Road and Red Bridge Road.
The sheriff’s office had encouraged residents in parts of the area to evacuate earlier in the week and said Saturday it had completed evacuation efforts on the west side of the lake.
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