January 24 -- The Henry Ford, part 1

.

On the 24th I spent the day with my oldest friend.  We met in our 7th-grade French class.  She has worked at The Henry Ford since the 70s, and has been Curator of Photographs for a long time.  I wanted to take advantage of the depth and breadth of her knowledge of Henry's collection, so I asked for a tour of her favorites.....

We started at what was the original entrance, which is very fancy indeed, with a large chandelier.

This is visible in the above, but is lit better here.  Fancy!

The stairs, in the same entry area.

That blue space, far away, is where we began.  We have walked through this grand hallway, and have turned back to see whence we came.  The main exhibit space is behind us.

Turning back around to see the exhibit space, we see this DC-3.  (My apologies for the blur -- both of the shots I took were blurry.  Alas.)  I should probably have gotten a little video, here, panning from one side to the other, to give a sense of the size of this space.  You'll have to use your imagination -- it's immense. 

A better look at the DC-3.  This is an example of the partnership between the Henry Ford and other significant south-east Michigan businesses -- Northwest Airlines (now subsumed into Delta) donated the plane, and provided resources for restoring it and displaying it.

Thinking about every rivet, put in by hand.....  This plane is big, compared to a person, but compared to a modern commercial aviation plane, it's pretty small.

Underneath the DC-3, we encounter this plaque in the floor.

Note the metal strip in the floor, from the plaque above to the reconstruction of the Wright brothers' first flight.  The strip of metal in the floor is 120 feet long.....  Not very far.

The person on the left, below, is right between us and a copy of the plane which made that first flight......

You can see a model of a man (center, right -- he's all beige) lying down to fly the plane....

We have walked around this display, on the left.

Someone took a pic, using this sort of camera, from this very location (in relation to the plane) as the plane took off on December 17, 1903, 10:35 AM.  (You can see the camera, standing on its three legs in some blue light, under the lower wing, just left and below center in the image above.)

You can see an copy of the photo that was taken, there and then, on a screen you can see at the back of the camera.

All of these objects (including the clamp on the bench, lower left), appear here because they are in that original photo.  You can see the model of the pilot, lying on the wing -- his feet are toward us, beige, upper left.

It was really cool to hear about some of the various curatorial decisions that were made, as a large team of people worked on this display.........


.