July 22, 2003

Dear Ms. De Vries:

I appreciate your desire to assist with the Tiger Stadium issue. I understand my colleague Dale Atkinson has contacted you as well under separate cover. Dale is a fine gentleman with a great understanding of Tiger Stadium's value as a historic site. As a card caring member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation I'm a person who is grateful that since 1991 your agency has sensed the danger the stadium now faces I hope you will work with us to insure it has a future to accompany its glorious past.

My company Michigan&Trumbull, LLC. was founded 4 years ago when the stadium closed to major league baseball. It was our intention then as it is today to see that Tiger Stadium is utilized and preserved for future generations to enjoy. Too few such locations exist in the City of Detroit today. We are the only company to hold publicly held events in Tiger Stadium (summer 2001) since it closed in September 1999. This is a sufficient feat as it now means this endangered ballpark is also the only sports venue in the nation to see service in 3 different centuries 18, 19, 20 so you see how important this building remains on the landscape of modern day America.

Sadly, since it is an ideal City owned facility Tiger Stadium is tangled in a web of red tape and politics which have blinded City and State officials from seeing its true value to the community and State. Currently the stadium is managed by Detroit Tigers on behalf of the City of Detroit the Corktown Citizens District Council acts as a liaison between the City and Community hoping to have a voice in the stadiums future but mindful nonetheless that if they should demand to much in the form of action or accountability the City funding in the form of designated grant money from the City of Detroit could stop and the CDC office thus eliminated.

Simply put I'm concerned because without Michigan&Trumbull, LLC and the Nationwide pull of the National Trust for Historic Preservation I fear that if left to City and State Tiger Stadium is doomed history and all. So, today I ask for your help, good counsel and most of all your support in making Historic Tiger Stadium a preservation priority in the Midwest and beyond. 

In the final analyze perhaps your President Richard Moe said it best "its up to each community to decide what they wish preserve and what is about their heritage they wish to protect rather than just remember" Historic Tiger Stadium is still present it is a State Landmark and a National Treasure. When I think about today's children going to see a game today connecting the generations from one to the next that is were my true excitement lies.

The great Winston Churchill once said "we shape our buildings with our hands and then they spend a lifetime inspiring our thoughts and feelings." Time will not diminish the glory of her deeds. I will do my best to save her that is all I can do I ask for your HELP and god's!

Thank you Susan for your attention to this matter.


Sincerely,

Peter Comstock Riley
General Manager
Michigan&Trumbull, LLC.