Detroit’s New Bus Station
I have fond memories of Detroit’s old bus station downtown. My mother told me I used to call the Greyhound buses, the “big hound” when I was a little boy growing up in Allen Park. We would take the buses to PA in the summer to visit relatives. As the years passed and I became an adult, I would frequent the station to make money shooting pool in the sixties. It was a pretty cool place to hang and I miss the action.
Welll, I doubt you will be able to shoot pool there but construction on the new $14 million Rosa Parks Transit Center facility is set to begin next month. If you are wondering why the old Lindell AC was torn down at Michigan and Cass, this is where the 25,000 sq. ft. building will be erected. Mass transit advocates and developers are calling it a step in the right direction by encouraging more people to come downtown. With the ongoing renovation of the Westin Book Caddilac and a proposed adjacent parking structure with condo’s above, Capital Park will emerge as another great additon to the Central Business District.
That bus station will be the biggest boon to the west side of downtown. Capitol Park is such a shady place to have a bus station. The immediate vicinity around it is just a haven for derelicts and dealers. A nice bus station will help clean that up.
In the 60s, at the San José Greyhound, an old guy named “Blue Ball” would hustle the travelers.