“Friday and Saturday, ‘babies’ will crawl along Fort Street.”
In June 2006, that’s how former News-Herald Staff Writer Bobby Ampezzan started a story about Cruisin’ Downriver.
What he wrote (with little editing) then still rings true today …
These are not the kind of babies who require changing, but their guardians nonetheless pamper them.
Now, in its 11th year, Cruisin’ Downriver is hardly in its infancy. But according to Sandy Mull, interim president of the Southern Wayne County Regional Chamber, the event is hardly more sophisticated than it was in 1999.
“We don’t want to get to a place where you have to register to be in the cruise,” she said.
“One of the things that’s happened is it has consciously stayed pretty much the same.”
State Rep. Edward Clemente (D-Lincoln Park) was president of the chamber in 1999.
‘My main goal that first year was (to make the event) loose enough that it was just a conceptual framework,” he said.
The well-known Woodward Dream Cruise got so big so fast that it got political, Clemente said.
“You have to allow ... flexible domestic creativity,” he said.
In other words, don't micromanage; let cities oversee their part of the cruise.
It also helps to know nothing about cars.
Clemente and Donald Thurlow, then publisher of The News-Herald Newspapers, “weren't car guys,” Clemente said, which opened the door to car clubs to participate in event planning at the aesthetic level: specifically, what car should be featured on the official T-shirt.
And the cruise has returned the favor.
According to Pat D'Anna, one of eight founders of the Roam'n Chariots, the car club grew from single-digit membership in 1996 to 540 by 2006.
The first year of the cruise, the money came from the late Heinz Prechter, founder of American Sunroof Co. and then-owner of Heritage Newspapers. It was allotted among the four cities — Lincoln Park, Southgate, Wyandotte and Riverview — using a formula that considers each city’s route miles and law enforcement contributions.
“It truly is a community event, not a moneymaker for anybody,” Mull said.
Cities coordinate some of the curbside attractions. Along with the Michigan Department of Transportation, cities also reconfigure traffic light patterns to move cruisers along more smoothly.
But the never-ending parade encourages businesses along the route to join in the action, too, and many lure patrons in with sales or provide visual or musical entertainment.
One year, Clemente counted nine bands setting up or playing along the route.
“It’s the microstories that make the macropicture,” he said.
“There is economic value to it,” Mull said, “but I don’t want to overemphasize that because our image and the positive reaction to our community is probably the most positive thing that comes of it.”
Clemente said he envisioned sort of a homecoming for the region — which is exactly what has happened over a decade of the event.
“Where I grew up in Lincoln Park, every other house had a guy working on his muscle car in the garage,” he said. “You might have this cruise up in Woodward, but you have more of the people who actually made the cars in Downriver.”
The cruise got a boost in 2004 when AutoAlliance International climbed aboard as a presenting sponsor — although that sponsorship has since gone away. The company manufactures two highly successful cars — the Ford Mustang and the Mazda 6 — and employs many Downriver residents, a fact that added symbolism and meaning to the event for half a decade.
In fact, AutoAlliance ran the redesigned Mustang as a pace car in 2004. It was the first time many in the area had seen the new pony car.
The greatest challenge to cruise perpetuity might come from the state in the form of revenue-sharing cuts.
Cities were facing severe financial hardship, Clemente said back in 2006, and that hardship has gotten nothing but worse.
Four years ago, Clemente predicted that events like the cruise might seem “tough to support” in the future. Fortunately, all four cities have remained steadfastly behind the cruise, although the same types of financial problems forced Riverview to cancel its annual Summerfest this year. The festival had been a Friday night Cruisin’ Downriver staple.
There’s also the future itself to consider: Eventually, the cruise might tire or morph into just another city carnival, although that hasn’t happened as of yet.
“Like any other good event, it has to find its new champions to make sure it continues to evolve,” said Clemente, among its first champions.
But future leaders might do well to embrace the Zen balance so far maintained.
The cruise is equal parts city planning, business sponsorship and enthusiasm, and car club participation.
No one party should be directing traffic.