Visiting Michigan Central Station in Detroit’s Corktown area was one of my favorite family moments over the 2024 end-of-year holiday break.
With holiday decorations throughout the station, it was hard for me to stop oohing and aahing as I walked through the station with my son.
I had to point out the ticket lobby clock to him the moment we stepped inside Michigan Central. I heard a bit of a sigh from him as I gave a brief summary of how the clock came to be restored. (I’m sure my son is tired of the history stories I’ve shared with him over the years.)
The story behind the clock is fascinating; I hope you enjoy it, too!
How the Ticket Lobby Clock was Restored and Returned
When Ford Motor Company announced in 2018 they were buying Michigan Central with plans to build a new mobility campus and to restore the building to its former glory, word spread quickly in southeast Michigan.
Ford announced a no-questions-asked policy for anyone wanting to return Michigan Central items.
People from the area and beyond were thrilled to learn about the station’s restoration, and quickly returned artifacts and other materials from the building.
Skilled trades people, designers, architects, engineers, planners, and historians worked together over six years, combining over 1.7 million hours to restore the station which opened in June 2024.
The stories shared about the restoration were incredible to read; the story about the clock caught my attention.
According to the Detroit Free Press story about the ticket lobby clock, 75-year-old Romanian woodworker Andrei Marek who moved to the United States and retired in North Carolina, recreated the original cast iron clock by hand chiseling mahogany wood.
From broken pieces of the clock, Marek was able to create patterns for what would become the six-foot tall eight-foot wide 1000 pound clock.
So I redrew the clock going to full scale and then I started work on that clock. I did the drawing and carving the parts they needed.
It took a few months, back and forth, to do the drawings and get approval and make the changes and wait for approval. … It’s not like you start work at 6 and finish at 5.
There’s research and trial and error and we reach a final conclusion and agree and then start working.
I learned it took almost a year to recreate the clock.
If you want to read more fascinating stories about Michigan Central, I highly recommend The Station: The Fall and Rise of Michigan Central. (It was one of my Christmas presents in 2024!
