Dearborn Day Three: I Got Your Setting Right Here, Pal

On Thursday, February 28, 2008, I toured the Ford Rouge Factory and watched the assembly of a Ford F-150. There were also two films, one on Henry Ford who had more of a Lincoln-like story (failed in business at least twice before making it) than I had ever known. The second film was about the factory and the steps and the people involved in the making of the F-150.

As one tours the factory, Ford, Bill Ford in particular, makes no bones about their dedication to the environment – until you realize that all their references to being green regard their processes (their Green Roof, use of fuel cells and recycled materials), not their vehicles.

There are no immediate plans to include the tour in the book, but I reckon my time at the factory will come in handy down the road. If nothing else, it's an essential part of the community and one that I needed to make myself familiar with.

Another part of the community that cannot be overlooked is the fantastically empty and dated Montgomery Ward department store smack dab across the street from City Hall, caddy corner from the Arab American National Museum, a stone's throw from a local newspaper and right on Michigan Avenue. One would think this makes for prime commercial real estate, but from what the innkeeper told me, the building's been vacant for years. According to that link (from 2006), offices within the building were rented out. Looked like a ghost town to me, but I'll have to follow up.

Well, one community's abandoned relic is another writer's central setting. Where better to set the rebirth of a local economy than from a beautiful building long overlooked?

Before leaving Dearborn, I picked up as many local papers as I could. I look forward to returning in a few months and taking in a Tigers game at Comerica. Now it's back to writing.