What a day, a long, hot, sad day. Detroit loves to roll out the welcome mat for major events for visitors Downtown, but closed down numerous city parks along the entire roughly 10 miles of Detroit coastline from Riverside Park in Southwest to Mariner Park at the Grosse Pointes border. Detroit limited viewing areas to Spirit Plaza and Hart Plaza downtown while Belle Isle was limited to capacity that could fit into the old Grand Prix paddock parking area. Belle Isle opened at 2pm to cars and hit capacity at 6pm. The space limitation was for vehicles so you could travel anywhere on the island on foot or bike, but I assume more people stuck to the Sunset Point area for viewing.
Meanwhile, the City of Windsor across the river with all riverfront parks open, 34 restaurant patios, ran a free shuttle for people to park at a nearby mall and get to the downtown parks. The city closed off downtown roadways as well for everyone to enjoy the Ford fireworks. The Detroit to Windsor juxtaposition is tough, they aren’t the same cities or population sizes, but the optics are mindbogglingly painful. One Detroiter even noted that they purchase a hotel room in Windsor for the fireworks every year because the experience is so much nicer across the river.
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