Yahoo Autos Ford Unveils First Rehabbed Building in Long-Derelict Detroit Train Station Complex
The Ford Motor Company is opening a newly rehabilitated building Tuesday as part of a larger project to bring life, and jobs, back to one of Detroit’s most recognizable landmarks.
Michigan Central Station opened in 1913 when Detroit was already established as the booming heart of the America auto industry. The gorgeous building, as well as several buildings surrounding the towering train station, were designed by American architect Albert Kahn who penned many of the art deco skyscrapers that still stand downtown to this day, as well as a few buildings in Henry Ford’s jungle city Fordlandia.
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The building Ford will open to the public Tuesday is called the Book Depository building. Just across the street from Michigan Central Station and once known as the Roosevelt Warehouse, this Kahn building was famous for decades among urban explorers for the trees that grew out of piles of destroyed Detroit Public School textbooks.
Tom and Burt Relive... Roosevelt Warehouse - Detroit, MI
Today, the Book Depository building looks very different. Called NewLab, the space will serve as office space for all sort of automotive startup companies dedicated to transportation research in everything from autonomous technology to air pollution monitoring. Ford hopes it will be a new tech breeding ground to show Silicon Valley how transportation gets done. The Michigan Central Station itself is slated to open next year. You can actually watch a livestream of the grand unveiling of the space here.
