For everyone except this anonymous reader, please excuse the rant below.
If you have a problem with the very concept of naming a building or a project after someone who donated a significant amount of money to make it happen then you are obviously entitled to your opinion. However, I would greatly appreciate it if you would express your opinion without referring the donors as "egomaniacs." If all they wanted to do was have their name on something, Mr. and Mrs. Dauch could have rented a couple dozen billboards for a lot less then what they gave to the Boys & Girls Club of Southeastern Michigan.
I believe they have a geniune interest in seeing some great things happen on that site. I welcome their name being attached to it. That isn't an insult to anyone who lived there. It's a simple recognition that naming a building or project is a common way of saying "Thank you" to the people who financed the project.
This is hardly a new phenomena. When the City of Detroit was originally founded in July of 1701, it was named Fort Pontchartrain du de Troit (French for Fort Pontchartrain by the Straights). Pontchartrain was the Minister of the Marine under King Louis I of France and, more importantly, the man who commissioned Cadillac to set up the city.
Prior to being bought by the City of Detroit, the structure we now know as "Tiger Stadium" had always been named after whoever it was that owned the team (e.g., it was called Bennett Park, Navin Field and Briggs Stadium under succession of owners with the same names).
You finance something; you get to have your name on it. It's a simple, centuries old way of recognizing the people whose money makes everything possible. It does not make anyone an "egomaniac."
As for the other comments that the anonymous reader made, like this one:
My point was don’t play coy with me, all the good old boys from Warrendale know good and well that if the city of Detroit and State allowed you all get away with breaking away from the city with that b.s story yawl ran around with for years about being leased from Dearborn Height/twp/city until 2000 or what every that nonsense was about while Herman Gardens was full of poor black people you would not have laid claim Herman Gardens was part of the new city of Warrendale. I am alleging that all of this talk about Herman Gardens being part of Warrendale is self-serving and comes at a might convenient time. I am saying it’s funny how people over here have flipped the script now that the undesirables are gone.I wasn't being coy. I was being polite and not pointing out your ignorance. However, since you keep pushing the matter, I'll set my manners aside for the moment.
Let's start with the most obvious part. The rumor from the late-1990s about Warrendale reverting to Dearborn or becoming it's own city wasn't started by anyone living in Detroit. In fact, I never even heard a Warrendale resident repeat it.
That rumor came from a handful of suburban real estate developers who were looking to drive up property values in the area. Dearborn already had much higher property values than Warrendale did. They tried convincing folks that if they bought now, they would make a huge windfall when Warrendale left Detroit.
It was the Warrendale Community Organization - the folks that you accuse of being "packed full of old racist Poles" - who were refuting that rumor at every turn. They sent out mailings to everyone in the community and in the news media to let everyone know that the rumor was false. They talked about it at meetings and everywhere else they went.
In short, they did everything within their power to put an end to that rumor. For you to use it as an example of racism only goes to show your own bigotry and stupidity.
The Warrendale community groups are well know for being packed full of old racist Poles who say things like: “I lived here my whole life, as have my parents and grandparents.” and “it's a disgusting shame what has happened to this once tight-knit Polish community”. Being a new school racist your more refined so you will stop short of blaming them damn Negros for “ruining” the community but once and a while you all slip up and show you’re a** and spray paint a swastika a school.Your bigotry is exceeded only by your ignorance.
I invite you to stop by a meeting of the Warrendale Community Organization. Not only would you find an absence of "old racist Poles" but if you opened your eyes, you would see a racially diverse group of people who care deeply about their neighborhood and like the fact that Warrendale is currently one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in southeastern Michigan.
It might not be as much fun as anonymously hurling insults on an internet message board, but I guarantee that it would a lot more productive.
Okay - rant over.
Back to the regular blog.
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