Farewell, Hated Livernois Median: One Of 7 Things To Know Around Detroit

Good Wednesday afternoon, and welcome to a super Detroit-y edition of your Daily Detroit.

Today, we walked over to the Avenue of Fashion, where Mayor Mike Duggan came to speak about the streetscape redevelopment of a roughly 1-mile section of Livernois to calm traffic and make the commercial district more attractive to pedestrians and, hopefully, prosperous to business owners.

Construction crews were already at work demolishing the 13-year-old median added by now-imprisoned former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Plans call for narrowing traffic to one lane in each direction, adding 24-foot-wide sidewalks to encourage more outdoor cafe seating, and adding sidewalk-grade bike lanes separated from the road by parallel parking spaces. All good.

But reporters at the groundbreaking announcement wanted to talk about the controversy swirling around Duggan and his ties to the Make Your Date nonprofit. The Freep reports today that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is looking into the nonprofit’s fundraising activities. So is the Detroit Office of Inspector General. Duggan has been linked to the nonprofit’s director, Sonia Hassan.

Also on today’s episode:

• Ford is working on a major overhaul of its customer experience efforts, rolling out efforts like a new customer rewards program and new retail dealership concepts. [Autoblog]
• The nonprofit Friends of the Rouge needs volunteers to help with its annual Rouge Rescue cleanup May 18.
• Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in honor of Judge Damon J. Keith, the civil rights icon and longtime federal judge who died last month. Check out our interview about Keith’s legacy with Detroit historian Ken Coleman.
• Little Caesars turns 60 today. Check out a sweet TV ad from 1985, below.

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