Riverside Park, The People's Riverfront, And Moroun's Fences

I've been reading for a while about the controversy surrounding the Detroit International Bridge Company's takeover of part of Riverside Park (supposedly for security reasons after 9/11), mostly from Joel On The Road (look under "Categories" for "Me and Matty" if you want to catch up). A broader discussion of the issues, lawsuits, and counter-lawsuits can be found by googling Ambassador Bridge or Monty B...oops I meant Matty Moroun (wink @Dyspathy). It's beyond me to try to sound smart about some of this stuff.... but I wanted to see for myself the land that Mr. Moroun has appropriated. For eight years.

See the white railing and tall white lights? That's the part of the park that you can't get to, unless you can tell me how to climb a fence with dogs in tow.

Beyond this gate lies the public boat launch and 6-7 acres of park that Detroiters can't use. For an overhead view of the part of the park that Mr. Moroun has made off limits, look at this. Everything to the right of 24th Street, from the train tracks to the river, is inaccessible. The section between Jefferson and the train tracks, known as the Riverside Park Extension, was fenced off until recently. Now there is limited access to the Extension area.

Riverside Park is at the foot of Grand Boulevard. Before 9/11, it was about 20 acres of waterfront, used primarily for fishing, boat-watching, and wool gathering. About half the park was a popular boat launching site, one of only three public access boat launches in the city. After Moroun made his land grab, the park was down to 9 acres and no boat launch. No rose-colored glasses today...this was and is a park in a blighted neighborhood. At three o'clock on a rainy Sunday afternoon, my fellow visitors to the park were a couple of guys drinking something from paper bags, a lonely fisherman, and ten cars with folks sitting in them, mostly doing legal things. Mostly.

However, the same thing could have been said of the east riverfront fifteen years ago, and look at our Riverwalk now. There are some really remarkable things that this park has going for it....there's the view....There's the awesome factor of the mailboat...complete with its own zip code, delivering mail to boats on the river since 1895. The mailboat's post office headquarters, shown below, is like a little mini-maritime museum, with books on Great Lakes shipping for sale.

The fireboat "Curtis Randolph" makes its home here...

The Fireboat Station....

Even though Riverside Park is in rough shape, it's easy to see the potential. The Riverwalk is planned to eventually extend all the way to the Ambassador Bridge. Riverside Park seems like the natural southwestern terminus. I find it really exciting to picture the Detroit of the future, with a greenbelt extending all the way from the Belle Isle Bridge to this one. Couldn't a gazillionaire like Mr. Moroun figure out how to have a secure second span and a park, too? If he could do that as a legacy, I wouldn't even mind calling it Moroun Park. And if he would do something productive with the train station, I would nominate him for sainthood.

The baseball field at the Riverside Park Extension, available to play ball this spring, due to Mr. Moroun losing in court (he is appealing).