Ilitch Puts Damper on Downtown New Year's 2011 Celebration

[DetroitDad]

New Year's Eve at Campus Martius

9:30 P.M.| Campus Martius: The Coneys Are Ready
Elmer Fudd must be hunting wabbits around Campus Martius in downtown Detroit tonight, because it's "verwy qwuiet" around here.

A group of eight, plus a couple of other patrons, were dining at Lafayette Coney around 8:15 p.m.

Aveja Purovic, who has worked at Lafeyette Coney for 27 years, said he expected it to get "very busy" after midnight with a good -- not rowdy -- crowd.

"We are ready with a lot of coneys -- a lot," he said. "The party starts after midnight."

There were also a handful of diners at the American Coney, as the staff stared vacantly out the famed restaurant's windows.
A normal, decently small, crowd of ice skaters skated around the rink.

Three weeks ago Matthew Severson, the founder and president of Stockbridge-based Firehouse Neon, got a call to create the "D" that will be dropped for the first time at midnight for the Campus Martius New Year's Eve celebration.

"We're living the dream," Severson said about his 10-year-old company selling $11 million of neon products over the company's website.

He was originally going to re-create the famed old English D for the drop until he got cease-and-desist calls from Major League Baseball and the Ilitch family, which owns the Detroit Tigers.

"I had to reconstruct a whole new D on the fly," said Severson, who finished the D himself on Wednesday. The "2011" placed above the D is designed to light up when the D drops at midnight. It also comes with a percussion cannon effect he hopes somebody told Detroit Police about.


Read more: Blog: New Year's Eve at Campus Martius | freep.com | Detroit Free Press http://www.freep.com/article/2010123...#ixzz19kb6SvB0

I will try to post some clear pictures on my blog; Campus MArtius Chronicle, later this morning.

A link to the Campus Martius Park webcam can be found on the Campus Martius Park website.

The official website for Motor City NYE 2011 can be found here.

Detroit Mom and I would love to see other's photos and reviews!