By Barbara Ziemba, Heritage Newspapers
WYANDOTTE — From most accounts, residents and officials in this
city would welcome back car cruisers next year to do it all again.
Mayor Lawrence Stec, who had a hectic day officiating at a
sculpture dedication at BASF Waterfront Park as well as the cruise, thought the
car cruise was worth doing again.
"I think it went really well … next year, we’ll put the
proper time to it," he said.
Stec was alluding to the conflict between the sculpture
dedication, which took two years to plan, with the car cruise.
Not surprisingly, the crowds were thin when the cruise got
under way at about 9 a.m.
But Stec said that changed as the day progressed.
"It was fun to watch how the crowd steadily grew during
the day … by 7 or 8 p.m. it was really packed," he said.
One last-minute snafu was solved when BASF Corp. in Wyandotte
donated some portable toilets for Wyandotte’s portion of the cruise.
Stec blamed the snag on liability problems because the city
doesn’t own any property along Fort Street. But several business owners along
the strip agreed to station the temporary toilets on their properties, he
said.
BASF spokesman Randy Hicks said the company’s engineering
department stepped in and found the portable toilets after an SOS went out from
the Wyandotte Business Association.
Police Chief William Lilienthal agreed that everything in
Wyandotte’s part of the cruise went swimmingly.
"It went very well … The spectators were there to watch
and have a good time," he said.
Traffic along Fort slowed to a crawl just north of Goddard in
Lincoln Park and south of Eureka because it narrowed from four lanes to three,
but Lilienthal said those were just about the only problems that surfaced in
Wyandotte.
Wyandotte police wrote 32 citations during the cruise, ranging
from speeding and excessive noise to tire violations and excited cruisers riding
on the outside of their vehicles.
The only cruise-related accident occurred when one vehicle
rammed into the back of another. No injuries were reported, the police chief
said.
Lilienthal estimated Wyandotte’s cruise crowd at about 40,000
during the course of the day.
And the party at Yack Arena that capped off the event for many
cruisers went off very well, according to party Chairwoman Debby Paducha.
"Moose and Da Sharks (the featured band) were absolutely
fabulous," she said. "They had three costume changes throughout the
evening."
Many partiers donned 50s dress to get into the 50s mood,
Paducha said.
And the Wyandotte Business Association twice sold out of
T-shirts promoting the cruise.
"We got a few more cases from the chamber (the Southern
Wayne County Chamber of Commerce) and sold those during the party," she
said.
Perhaps one of the biggest compliments came from radio station
WOMC personality Gene Taylor, who hosted the Yack bash.
"He told us we are way ahead of the game and that we did
really well for our first cruise," Paducha said. "In a couple of
years, we’ll be on a par with the Dream Cruise."
