When business necessitates a trip to downtown Detroit, the location where this laptop sits is typically a small conference room on the 40th floor of our office near the foot of Woodward. Today, the space available was a large conference room, still perched high above the city on the 40th floor, but with a viewscape much larger than usual. It was amazing.
The wide view was southwest, overlooking the Detroit River as it flows underneath the Ambassador Bridge and makes a turn to the left (south) toward the downriver communities, Grosse Ile, and eventually Lake Erie. The water was a spectacular blue, with small craft plying up and down the waterway leaving a temporary footprint in what was just an amazing azure pathway. The sky was sky blue (surprise) with wisps of bright clouds. In the near ground stood the Riverfront Apartments, followed by the green space where the Detroit Free Press printing plant once hulked, then the few remaining train tracks that not long ago were used as an embarkation point for travel across the river on barges, and then the bridge. Beyond it, around the bend, stood the stacks and other accoutrement of the downriver industrial spaces. A freighter with its rouge red hull was tied up at one of these sites, near to the Rouge River entry to Ford's complex. Another was parked across on the Windsor side. Mid-morning a flotilla of five small craft lined up in formation made their way east, leaving behind five v-shaped wakes. The mail boat joined up with an southbound freighter just west of the bridge and made its delivery before heading back to shore. Traffic climbed the bridge and then descended toward land in each direction.
In the foreground out these windows waved the American flag on the top of the Guardian Building, standing out strong toward the southeast in a regular breeze.
To the north, Comerica Park in its ballfield beauty, marked by the brilliant checkerboard green grass of the infield and outfield and foul ground, attracted attention. Next door, Ford Field's rooftop logo stood out in the sunshine. The view all the way up Woodward toward the Mackinac Bridge and all the way out Grand River Avenue toward Lake Michigan was amazing. Actually, the horizon cut off the eventual ending of these thoroughfares, but it was fun to imagine.
What a great day from 400 feet up.
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