“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.

Several people have been wounded in a shooting at a splash pad in Rochester Hills.

As reported by AP, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said there are “numerous wounded victims” after police were called for an active shooter. In a social media post, authorities said there was still an active crime scene and officers “potentially have the suspect contained nearby.”

Also Read: US mass shooting: Ohio firing leaves 1 dead, dozens injured

Moreover, Stephen Huber, a spokesperson for the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, told the Detroit News, “It’s five shot and maybe six.”

Officials did not immediately provide additional information, and the condition of the victims wasn’t immediately known. 

The Michigan State Spartans added their eighth commit of the 2025 class on Friday when three-star wide receiver Charles Taplin announced his decision. Taplin, a Red Oak, Texas native, is the 155th-ranked player in the state and the 141st wide receiver in the 2025 class.

Taplin made his decision soon after he returned home from his visit, he told me. Taplin needed to consult his family and mentors. That was when he decided Michigan State was “the place to be.”

“Knowing that, again like trusting Coach [Courtney] Hawkins to develop me as a man, as a receiver, on and off the field,” Taplin said. “And also how [the Spartans] are family-oriented, you know. I’m gonna be a long way from home, so I gotta be taken care of.”

Hawkins’ track record of NFL receivers, including Jayden Reed and Keon Coleman, played a big part in Taplin’s trust of Hawkins. Hawkins congratulated Taplin upon his commitment announcement, and Taplin said he has already been given instructions from the coach on how to prepare for the college level.

“Him and Coach [Cordale] Grundy sent me some releases to work on,” Taplin said. “Just hitting the field after my summer workouts, to make sure I get some releases in. I go to a sandpit, I can do some releases in the sandpit. … [The releases] are nothing too difficult, but it’s what the pros do.”

Taplin said that next on his agenda is working out and being the best he can be, and he is looking forward to having a great senior season. Taplin told me the team’s goal is to win the Texas 5A state championship, something it failed to do last year when it lost to Aledo.

Taplin is part of an elite wide receiver trio that could be the best in the state of Texas. He is joined by four-star Taz Williams, rated the 51st receiver in the 2025 class, and four-star Brayden Robinson, the 28th receiver in the 2026 receiver class, per 247Sports.

Taplin told me he plans on enrolling to the Spartans early. He said he was most excited for “practicing against the best, playing against the best, [and] learning from the best.”

Taplin is the second receiver the Spartans have secured from the 2025 class. The first was three-star Ohio receiver Braylon Collier.

Michael France is Sports Illustrated’s Michigan State recruiting beat writer, covering all things Big Ten recruiting for Spartan Nation. Be sure to follow him on Twitter/X@michaelfrancesi for exclusive Spartans recruiting coverage.

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