Critics refer to the kids who covered the iconic Beaux Arts-style building as vandals and hoodlums. But graffiti writers look back and describe it as sort of a gritty community center viewed as a safe space for children who loved to draw and paint but didn’t have art programs like students who attended elite schools in the suburbs.

But how does a company spend $950 million on the massive 30-acre campus and keep graffiti, a reminder of when the station was an eyesore?

“Often, graffiti is referred to as blight, as something that scares away our economy, and people don’t want to live near it,” [muralist Freddy “SW Freddy”] Diaz said. “If we learn to embrace our past, I think we can have a good future. The Central Station embodies that. It was a landmark that maybe didn’t have a future but what it meant to the people that were painting in there and hanging out, and seeing what it is now, man, it almost gives you goose bumps, to really learn to appreciate the good and the bad of everything, you know?”

Paul Carmona, 45, of Allen Park, is a former Detroit Police officer [who] began his spray painting at age 15 as “Phame.” He focused on lettering at Michigan Central and other parts of the city with his spray cans over five years. “Going into the train station to paint, it was peaceful,” he said. “You went into a different world where you didn’t have to worry about nothing. You went there with your sketchbook and tried your best to put something up there that people would like.”

“You would look at the architecture and attention to detail and arched cathedral ceilings and it makes you feel like you’re sitting in the Sistine Chapel or a place that you know is sacred,” [artist “Fel3000ft”] said. “Keep in mind, I was a kid that had nowhere else to go. I needed a safe place to practice my art. I thank God that I had it. I don’t think there would be a career for a Fel3000ft from Detroit without that place. … To see someone save it is, it’s moving to me. I cried my eyes out when I was invited back in there.”

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