Michigan
Mitch Albom: Michigan Central Station celebrates not just Detroit’s future, but its present
‘It’s beautiful to be a Detroiter’: Residents react to Michigan Central Station reopening
Detroiters Darlene Calloway, 67, and daughter Algeria Calloway, 40, came to Michigan Central Station’s reopening to witness the legacy of Detroit.
“The past is a bucket of ashes.”
— Carl Sandburg
Sandburg was right. The past is ashes. And the first thing you should know about Detroit’s newly famous train station is that, much like our city itself, it has now risen from the ashes twice.
A fire claimed the city’s previous train depot in 1913 and rushed a new building in Corktown into immediate service — one day after Christmas. It wasn’t finished, but it didn’t matter. Anyone coming through the doors saw its promise.
Today, 111 years later, history is repeating itself. Now dubbed the Michigan Central Station, the once magnificent Beaux Arts building has risen from the ashes again, this time the ashes of urban decay, under which it sat in shadowed abandonment for 35 ugly years.
And what mattered last century is what matters in this one.
Promise. Hope. A future of the possible.
PHOEBE WALL HOWARD: Childhood memories of Detroit explain emotion of Michigan Central Station opening
Here in the Motor City, we have been making a big fuss over the station’s reopening — special tours, a massive concert, etc. And perhaps the outside world is wondering why we bother. It’s just a train station, right?
Not to us. Michigan Central is more than a building. It’s more than a new beginning. It’s the end of something.
It’s the end of rot as a symbol of Detroit. The end of decay as some kind of Detroit sport. The end of headlines like the New York Times ran in 2012:
“How Detroit Became the World Capital of Staring at Abandoned Buildings.”
Sorry, great Gray Lady. You want poverty porn, you’ll have to go someplace else.
We’re about the future now.
Decades in the making
I recently took a tour through the Michigan Central renovation with the project’s CEO, Josh Sirefman. As we walked through the former lobby, the reading rooms, the elegant parlors and the various magnificent spaces of this 15-story tower and adjacent buildings, covering 30 acres of a future tech and innovation hub, he gave witness to the transformation this project represents.
“It’s been a privilege to help this come together,” he said.
Sirefman himself is a microcosm of Detroit’s full circle. He came here as a young man to get a master’s at the University of Michigan. While enrolled, he moved into Detroit, about six blocks from the train station. This was in the mid-1990s.
“It was a lot different then,” he understated. “But I fell in love with Detroit, and kind of always hoped for an opportunity to be able to be involved again.”
He left for New York and was gone for decades. Still, Detroit stayed with him, the way it stays with many people who come to know it. So when the chance to helm the renovation arose, under the new ownership of the Ford Motor Co., Sirefman jumped at it.
Since then, he has helped spearhead Ford’s nearly $1 billion effort. It’s taken six years, thousands of workers, and everything from an original clock being dropped off anonymously to 3D laser printers re-creating rams heads above doorways. But the results are nothing shy of stunning.
A WORK OF ART: Michigan Central Station still has decades-old graffiti: Why Ford decided to keep it
You can’t fit into words what the MCS now represents. It’s a blend of past and future so bright it appears seamless.
Here, refurbished tiles and copper skylights spill into modern art displays and a virtual mini-museum of historic Detroit posters. Here, the Doric columns and the marble tiles of the early 20th century surround an undulating 21st century history display. Original and freshly created architecture dance together under a 29,000-tile ceiling. In adjacent buildings, modern tech businesses bustle under the arches and exposed rafters of bygone days.
This is not just a train station. Hardly. In fact, trains have little to do with it. Sure, someday in the not-too-distant future, a train may begin to stop here. But for now, this project is about rebirthing an entire neighborhood and anchoring a second Detroit downtown, not only the main terminal, but with the beautifully redone Book Depository building, which already houses dozens of budding startups, shared office space and food options.
Not to mention the hotel that is coming, the massive parks, the additional structures tabbed for tech and innovation, the outdoor leisure options and the parking.
The fabulous future. Not the rot of the past.
Take your ruin porn obsession elsewhere
I remember the year I went to the Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. Reporters had heard of impoverished areas in the city that the government was hoping to shield from the press. One day, I got into a taxi and, through a translator, asked the driver to see “one of the really poor neighborhoods.”
He hesitated. He looked upset. Finally, he turned to the translator and said, “Why does he want to see the worst of my city? He is a guest here. Let me show him the best.”
For years, many of us felt that way when people came to visit Detroit. Our Poverty Porn, or Ruin Porn, had somehow become a major attraction, often the first thing outsiders wanted to see. The Packard Plant. The train station. The rows of abandoned homes.
Eight years ago, Britain’s newspaper, “The Guardian,” did a story about those gawkers, and how they were advancing nothing and helping no one.
“The ruins,” it wrote, “are gazed upon for amusement, gratification and pleasure.”
Well, guess what, decay junkies? We’re no longer here for your debris obsession. We are not interested in putting our ugly past on display.
Instead, come look at our growth. Come see a future we’re proud of, not a past we can’t help.
The Michigan Central Station, by itself, isn’t a cure-all. But it’s part. It isn’t a neighborhood. But it’s anchoring one. It isn’t everything to everybody. But it’s a whole lot to a whole lot of people. And anyone who witnesses its impressive span will see what we mean.
There’s a small section of the train station’s reconstruction that deliberately left a rotting staircase and a graffiti wall. It is chained off, and clearly marked as a historic relic. But it’s there: as a reminder of what was, and an appreciation of what is. If we want to be reminded of the bad old days, we’ll set aside a reminder. But that’s our prerogative. It’s no longer the reason for people to come to town.
Carl Sandburg’s full quote is as follows: “The past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, nor just for tomorrow, but in the here and now.”
Pretty good advice, for life, or for a symbol of rebirth in the form of a train station. And like a locomotive pulling to a steaming stop, it’s no longer coming, folks. It’s here.
All aboard.
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom.
Even before high winds have kicked in from a strong incoming storm system, more than 50,000 homes and businesses were without power across Michigan.
The bulk of these outages are in Mid-Michigan. Clare County had the largest outage tally, with more than 16,000. Mecosta County had more than 7, 500 without power, and Isabella County had more than 6,000 out.
A couple counties in the very western Upper Peninsula were also reporting outages.
These outage numbers are expected to increase by early Monday, as high winds come in as part of this storm system. Sustained winds of 25 to 35 mph are expected, but wind gusts could top 60 mph in some areas.
The issue with the Mid-Michigan outages is rooted in Friday’s ice accumulation. Utility officials said there has been about a half-inch of ice accumulation on trees and power lines in that area through the weekend. Temperatures this weekend did not get warm enough to melt the ice, as they did in other areas. Heavy rain on Sunday froze again quickly, causing a heavier ice load and more outages.
Consumers Energy has said they have crews mobilized to work on outages as they arise with this storm.
To see the latest update on this storm coverage, follow our headlines on the MLive Weather page.
Kyle Whittingham says Bo Schembechler, Michigan hooked him on football
New Michigan coach Kyle Whittingham said on Sunday, Dec. 28, that he watched Bo Schembechler’s Michigan team play Ohio State when he was 7 years old.
ORLANDO, FL — Athletic director Warde Manuel introduced Kyle Whittingham as Michigan football’s 22nd head coach in program history on the second story of the Hyatt Regency Hotel on International Drive in Orlando on Sunday, Dec. 28
It was an unusual setting for such a moment, but then again this has been an unusual month for the Wolverines. They began a search for their new coach shortly after Dec. 10 – the day Sherrone Moore was fired after U-M was presented with “credible evidence” of an inappropriate relationship with a staffer.
Manuel discussed the matter – which culminated with an arrest and multiple charges – for the first time Sunday. He called it difficult personally, but something that he had no hesitation about doing professionally.
“Listen man, it’s hard,” Manuel said. “It’s hard when you have a colleague that is going through something personally, professionally, in his family and [knowing the] people and impact that it has on so many staff, student-athletes and the Michigan community.
“Personally, I’ve known him for seven or eight years, so it was difficult to see him, as a person, go through what he went through. But professionally, it was an easy decision to make because of the expectations that we have for everyone on our side.”
Moore was arrested hours after he was fired from U-M for allegedly breaking into the staffer’s home and threatening to kill himself, according to a police report.
While it was by far the most dramatic scene, in the eyes of many, it was simply the latest negative headline for the Michigan athletic department.
As a result, Michigan brought in outside law firm Jenner & Block to conduct a review into Moore’s situation and the athletic department at large. Manuel told reporters it was in part his idea – something he brought up to interim president Domenico Grasso as an effort to understand how everybody can improve.
“There’s not much I can say. There’s an investigation continuing into coach Moore, there’s a cultural evaluation around the department and so we will we obviously know some facts,” Manuel said. “There’s some things that are out there that I can’t comment on, that are untrue, and there may be some things that they find, but that’s why we do an investigation, and I’m very open to that. Wanted the cultural analysis to be done to help us get better.
“I asked the President to help with a cultural analysis and have somebody come in. So yes, I am very supportive of that, because as a leader, I face reality. There are things that happen. I don’t step away from it. Never have, never will. So we need to get better, and that’s part of is getting somebody to come in and to assess.”
Whittingham, for his part, was not deterred by the optics of instability in Ann Arbor. U-M is likely weeks away from naming a new president, and Manuel’s job security has also been called into question.
Whittingham said he didn’t know the details, but that he believes that his job is to focus on what goes on in Schembechler Hall and allow others to figure out what’s next.
“The answer is no, I didn’t have any hesitation,” he said when asked whether he thought twice about taking the job. “There are some issues, missteps that are being taken care of, but the key is the court players here are rock solid. … I’ve got no doubt everything is going to be handled properly.
“I’m not close enough or knowledgeable enough and privy enough to exactly what’s going on in the details, but I’ve got full confidence that we’ll come out of this just fine. … What I’m concerned with is the players.”
How the hire went down
Manuel has been criticized for not formally interviewing any other candidates before hiring Moore. This time, the initial list was “extensive” before Michigan had more official conversations about 6-8 true potential fits.
Michigan had initial interest in Whittingham and it didn’t take long before the Wolverines learned the feeling was mutual. Whittingham explained how the timing was “uncanny” with how things lined up. He had mulled 2024 being his last season in Salt Lake City but after going 5-7 and cycling through a host of quarterbacks, he didn’t want to go out that way, nor did he want to leave his impending successor, Morgan Scalley, in a hole.
He announced his decision to step down from the Utes on Dec. 12; days later people in his circle and members involved with the search for the Wolverines began contact.
Whittingham wasn’t going to leave for just anywhere, but as a U-M fan from afar since the first football game he turned on the TV at age 7, he had to hear the Wolverines out.
He liked what he heard. The more Manuel heard, the more he liked as well. It’s a sentiment he believes is echoed by the U-M faithful – he said he has already received “hundreds” of text messages from former players, coaches and those involved with the university praising the hire.
“He was a great person for Michigan for us to bring in and continue to drive success,” Manuel said. “With his character, with his integrity – the things that people [around him] talked about were high on my list of characteristics that I wanted from the [next] coach.”
Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This season’s Michigan wrestling lineup features a new face in every place.
Yes, there are new starters in all 10 weight classes, including five who had never wrestled a dual in a Wolverines’ singlet before this season.
Despite all the turnover, the Wolverines are off to a 4-2 duals start and placed second in the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational earlier this month, their best showing in seven years. In all, six Michigan wrestlers are ranked among the top 20, including two who are in the top 10.
And that’s with 2024 All-American and four-time NCAA qualifier Dylan Ragusin not making his season debut until last Saturday’s Kent State Holiday Open.
“Every year you get a new set of guys in your lineup — this year we have a lot — but the standard is the same,” Wolverines coach Sean Bormet said. “By the time we hit the mat to compete, we’ve spent months together with this team preparing them for the season and building toward putting the best 10 guys on the mat. We’ve had success with recruiting the right guys, adding the right transfers, developing them and building great team chemistry.”
Beau Mantanona and Dylan Gilcher are the only Wolverines who started a majority of last season’s duals who are doing so again this season, albeit in new weight classes after bumping up.
Mantanona, a redshirt sophomore and 2025 NCAA qualifier, has moved from 165 to 174 and is 10-3, including four pins and two technical falls. Currently ranked #12, his best wins thus far have come against two-time NCAA qualifiers M.J. Gaiten (Iowa State) and Cael Valencia (Arizona State).
Gilcher, ranked #30, has jumped from all the way from 149 to take Montanona’s former spot and is 7-3, including three technical falls and a major decision, and one of five Wolverines who have gone 5-1 in duals.
The redshirt sophomore decisioned three-time NCAA qualifier Maxx Mayfield (Missouri) during last month’s National Duals.
Gilcher, ranked 30th, made the 2025 NCAA Championships field and is well on his way to bettering last season’s 10-12 record.
Brock Mantanona (184) and Cam Catrabone (157) are also wrestling at higher weight this season.
Mantanona, a redshirt freshman, spent last season down at 165 and won all three dual matches he started before redshirting. He has adjusted well to his new weight, boasting a 9-2 mark, including 5-1 in duals. He has two technical falls and three major decisions and is ranked eighth.
Mantantona has edged three-time NCAA qualifier, 2025 All-American and 2023 Big Ten champion Silas Allred (Nebraska) and majored two-time NCAA qualifier Brian Soldano (Oklahoma).
Catrabone, also a redshirt freshman, has bumped up from 149 and is 8-4. All but one of his victories have come via pins (four), technical fall (two) or major decision (one). He began the season unranked and is now #15.
Catrabone and Beau Mantanona are tied for the team lead in pins. NCAA qualifiers Colton Washleski (Virginia) and Stoney Buell (Purdue) did not last one period against Catrabone, who is 4-2 in duals after going 1-2 last season before redshirting.
“With a handful of guys going up one or in some case two weight classes, we’ve focused on training them for that and getting them consistent with their nutrition to maintain the weight they need and to take advantage of additional training and energy output that cutting less weight provides over the course of the season,” Bormet said. “That requires toughness, discipline and consistency and buying into the process of gains and growth. They’ve been doing a good job.”
Of the starters who had not started a dual for the Wolverines prior to this season, 2024 All-American heavyweight and four-time NCAA qualifier Taye Ghadiali has clearly made the biggest impact, returning to form after being limited to six matches last season and redshirting due to injury.
Back in his home state after spending six seasons at Campbell, the Warren Fitzgerald graduate and 2019 state champion is off to an 11-2 start, including 5-1 in duals. Ghadiali, ranked #6, is the Wolverines’ leader in dual points (25) and bonus-point wins with nine, including five technical falls, three major decisions and a pin.
Ghadiali, who owns a 113-30 career record with 71 bonus-point victories, intends to give Michigan an All-American heavyweight for the seventh straight season and the 10th time in 12 seasons, joining Josh Heindselman (2025), Lucas Davison (2024), Mason Parris (2020-23) and Adam Coon (2015-16, 2018).
His best career wins have come against All-Americans Owen Trephan (Lehigh) and Tate Orndorff (Ohio State).
“Taye has brought great energy and just a great personality to our team and he’s a good leader,” Bormet said. “He immediately fit in with the other guys when he arrived during the summer and came in with a lot of gratitude and it’s easy to just pour yourself into it with that mindset. I think he’s appreciated the additional resources and training partners he’s had here.”
Bormet is also quick to credit the growth experienced at Campbell for how he has performed in Ann Arbor.
“(Campbell coach) Scotti Sentes really helped cultivate a great work ethic in Taye and we’ve seen that and his passion here from day one,” he said. “Our guys all respect that.”
Ghadiali is one of three transfers in the starting lineup along with seniors Diego Sotelo (125) and Lachlan McNeil (149).
Sotelo, a two-time NCAA qualifier for Harvard, is 9-3, including 5-1 in duals, with two technical falls and a major decision. He has a 64-37 career mark. He has climbed to #18 in the rankings.
Sotelo’s best wins are decisions over two-time All-American Anthony Noto (Lock Haven) and All-American Jore Volk (Minnesota).
McNeil, a three-time All-American at North Carolina, has gone 7-3 (5-1 in duals) with a pin and a major decision. He owns an 89-28 career record, including 51 bonus-point wins.
McNeil, #16 in the rankings, boasts some eye-opening wins, including over three-time All-Americans Brock Hardy (Nebraska) and Real Woods (Iowa) and two-time All-American Dylan D’Emilio (Ohio State). He has beaten seven other All-Americans.
Sophomore Hayden Walters has stepped into the starting role at 197 in his third season with the program. Walters is 4-2 overall and in duals thus far with a pair of major decisions. He defeated NCAA qualifier Brock Zurawski (Rider) last season.
“We have a young team for the most part, so we’ve been monitoring and placing extra emphasis on consistency in their approach, mindset, technique and presence on the mat,” said Bormet, whose team kicks off Big Ten duals Jan. 9 against Michigan State. “We’re doing a lot of teaching and helping the guys build up some mental endurance. They have responded well and their hunger and determination will dictate their further progress.”
Ragusin, who is expected to make his dual debut against the Spartans, wrestled a competitive match for the first time in more than a year with a 2-2 showing at Kent State, good enough for fourth place at 141 pounds. He has moved up to that weight after four seasons at 133.
Ragusin won his first six matches last season before suffering a knee injury during the 2024 Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational and dropping his last three matches of the tournament. The injury required season-ending surgery.
He is working to regain the form that has led to an 87-32 career record with 36 bonus-point victories.
Ragusin’s best season came in 2023-24 when he placed fifth at the NCAA Championships, second in the Big Ten Tournament and finished with a 28-4 record, including 14 bonus-point wins.
His most significant wins have come against two-time NCAA champion and three-time All-American Jesse Mendez (Ohio State) and two-time All-Americans Patrick McKee (Minnesota), Sam Latona (Virginia Tech) and Chris Cannon (Northwestern).
“Dylan has been back on the mat training hard for about nine weeks and we’re excited to get him back into our lineup,” Bormet said. “As Dylan’s been back on the mat this semester, we have really seen his determination and drive ramp back up, and he’s made good, continual progress to get back to his best wrestling.”
Lemley Takes Another Tourney
Sergio Lemley, a two-time NCAA qualifier, is redshirting this season, but staying sharp by wrestling in open tournaments.
The junior, who has also moved up from 141 to 149 pounds, captured his second tournament title of the season with a first-place finish at the Kent State Holiday Open. Lemley went 5-0, knocking off Kent State’s Silas Stits, 8-1, in the championship match.
Lemley, who also won the Michigan State Open last month, is 8-0 this season with three pins and a major decision.
Lemley racked up a 42-20 record his first two seasons in Ann Arbor with half of his wins coming via technical fall (13), major decision (five) or pin (three).
Also at Kent State, redshirt junior Codei Khawaja went 3-1 to finish third at 184, outlasting Kent State’s Trent Thomas, 16-9, in the third-place match. He is 7-1 this season and has improved his career record to 25-14.
A contingent of Wolverines will compete at the Midlands Tournament hosted by Northwestern on Dec. 29-30.
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