Larry Alexander Quotations

The perception is all we are is smokestacks and empty buildings. It's an opportunity to let the world see what's happening here.

I was simply amazed; in my 20-plus years as a funeral home director, I have never seen workers come out in force in a display of respect as I had here today. There were state highway department workers at every intersection on the way to the cemetery and about 40 to 50 state trucks on hand. The Illinois Department of Transportation takes care of its own. It was very impressive.

We do not have and never have had the authority to force people to leave their homes.

We'd still be a host county. But I think what's happening now with the magnitude of the storms we're looking at is we're going to see a lot deeper intrusion by these storms when they get over Polk County or get over Central Florida.

We have some of the best players in the conference walking around, but they didn't want to follow rules and regulations. It's real simple, come to practice from 5-6:30 p.m. It's not hard. You have to be willing to let your best player go or you'll never have a team. It's worked for us all our lives.

We're talking to a lot of major groups that may not have considered us in the past.

We try to take advantage of everything. If we have one mismatch we'll ride it as long as we can.

We could be on scene and see someone mistreat an animal and we couldn't arrest them.

The mood in Comerica Park, downtown Detroit and around the region during All-Star Week was electrifying, and our residents were welcoming, happy and proud of metro Detroit as their hometown.

Detroit was pictured in a totally different light. You can't pay for that kind of advertising.

There wasn't anything I could do about it. I lost three docks. I've been here 35 years, and I've never seen devastation like this.

It showed the national spotlight that Detroit has the wherewithal to pull off a major national event. It also changes the conversation about Detroit.

I had to be No. 1 in everything.

In addition to the economic impact dollar figure, of particular interest to us was that the All-Star Game and related events generated nearly 20,000 hotel room nights, with an average lodging expense of $403 per group.

Hosting a Super Bowl is so much more than a game. It's about global visibility, economic impact, competition for conventions and more visitors.

The Kilpatrick administration has done a lot of work to improve downtown with getting new businesses to move in.