Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain at Hart Plaza OFF - Vandalized!

[Zacha341]

I went downtown this weekend to attend the Ribs and Soul Festival and walk the Riverwalk and noted that the big Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain was not running! The GM vertical spray fountains are down too! Talked to a few people and I hear the scrappers stole the copper works from both.

Great! Is there going to be any effort going forth to monitor this area? This type of vandalism has to take some time to accomplish. I guess it's scrapper delight after dark...

Older article but it speaks to the shut down of the fountains. Interesting comments as well....

http://www.freep.com/article/2013071...Plaza-shut-off

Detroiters and visitors looking to cool off along the riverfront with some whimsical splashing are in for a surprise.

No splash of cold water on the face here.

The General Motors Plaza fountain behind the Renaissance Center and the Horace E. Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain at Hart Plaza — both part of the quintessential Detroit summer — have been turned off.

The GM sprays have been down since mid-June for maintenance issues, according to Alan Adler, a spokesman for the carmaker. He quoted CBRE, which manages the RenCen for GM, as saying there is no date set for when the fountain will be spritzing once more.

The Dodge fountain has not been working since January, when vandals did more than $1 million worth of damage to Hart Plaza, said Alicia Minter, director of the city’s Parks Department, which oversees it. She said the city has done $400,000 worth of work so far, though the fountain fix alone costs $300,000 to $400,000.

“It’s very expensive to repair and we don’t have the funding,” she said. “It’s disappointing to us that our facility would be vandalized to that level that we can’t offer that feature to our visitors who go to the plaza.”

See link above for the rest of the article......