This is an opinion piece by MLive.com columnist David Mayo.
It was the dispiriting 1980s in Detroit, when the city's roads led one way, out. Investment in the city deteriorated. The population dwindled and the tax base shriveled. Buildings were crumbling.
That's when Mike Ilitch came back.
The Detroit native bought and revamped Fox Theatre, then moved his burgeoning Little Caesars empire from Farmington Hills into the building. Detroit wasn't the place to be, it was the place to be from. It was 1988 and no one was doing what Ilitch, who then owned the Detroit Red Wings, and soon would turn them into the National Hockey League's dominant force, was doing.