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Most people know Henry Ford as the founder of the Ford Motor Co. and creator of the trailblazing Ford Model T. But fewer are likely to be familiar with his side occupation as a hotelier. In 1931, Ford Motor Co.s headquarters in Detroit was connected to other major cities by the now-defunct Ford Airport, an airline service for which Ford himself provided the necessary land and main investment. Ford realized that many of the travelers and business partners who flew in to the Dearborn airport would want somewhere convenient to stay after their long journeys. The thought led Ford to build one of the countrys first airport hotels. [Photo: Isaac Maiselman Photography] Today, the historic Georgian-style hotel, called the Dearborn Inn, is reopening its doors after undergoing a two-year-long renovation and restoration process. Its reopening returns the site to its roots as a hotel for Ford executives who these days travel from nearby Detroit Metro Airport. It also points to Ford Motor Co.’s larger strategy to attract business to its recently revitalized Michigan campus, giving the company more ownership over a traveler’s entire experience. [Photo: Isaac Maiselman Photography] Part of the automaker’s widespread revitalization plan Over the past several years, Ford Motor Co. has invested more than $1 billion in restoration projects in Detroit, including transforming the Michigan Central Station, a long-abandoned train hub, into a kind of Silicon Valley-esque innovation center. Now it’s working to revitalize some of the city’s oldest neighborhoodsas well as early relics of its own history, like the Dearborn Inn. The company plans to add another hotel at the top of the Michigan Central Station, signaling that Ford hopes to turn its Detroit-area campus into a kind of destination for business leaders that, rather than serving as a simple stopover, can act as an experience in itself. [Photo: Isaac Maiselman Photography] Like Michigan Central, Dearborn Inn focuses on restoration The Dearborn Inns renovations, which began back in February 2023, were overseen by the Ford family and carried out by a team of partners including AvroKO, Dash Design, and Kraemer Design Group, along with restoration architect Quinn Evans. The refreshed 135-room hotel, managed by Marriott International since 1989, is joining Marriott Bonvoys Autograph Collection of premium, independent hotels. Prices start at $350 a night and go up from there. The property has 19 suites and a grand Presidential Suite (which includes a living room, kitchenette, and dining area). [Photo: Isaac Maiselman Photography] While the hotels interiors have been updated with new fixtures, the project truly shines in its effort to restore many original featuresdetails that were once enjoyed by guests such as Walt Disney, Orville Wright, Norman Rockwell, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. Interiors nod to local design history Thoughtful vintage touches mingle with modern, locally made designs, lending the whole space a fresh-yet-elegant ambience The lobbys Italian marble checkerboard flooring is a feature Ford selected personally. Also in the lobby is an original green marble fireplace, an antique clock fixture, and several vintage bar carts. Among the most intriguing additions is a photo booth, designed to look like the Ford Tri-Motor airplane (first manufactured in 1925), which produces vintage-style passport photos as a keepsake for guests. [Photo: Isaac Maiselman Photography] Other reminders of the hotels history, like a scrapbook of letters from former guests and examples of early menus, are sprinkled throughout the common areas. Even the carpets lining the halls echo local history, pulling inspiration from tapestries created by artist Loja Saarinen, who founded a renowned weaving department at Michigans Cranbrook Academy of Art in the late 1920s. Another subtle nod to the art academy appears in the bedrooms, in the form of furniture designed by Charles and Ray Eames. The Eameses first met at Cranbrook in 1940 before becoming one of the most recognizable forces in the furniture world. At the Inn, every guest room includes its own Eames Molded Plastic Chair. From the moment guests step through our doors, we want them to feel inspired by the history that surrounds them and by the trailblazers who once walked these halls, general manager Joleisha Bradley said in a press release. The hotel is both a welcoming retreat and living museum, with historic artifacts woven throughout the property. [Photo: Isaac Maiselman Photography] Plans to expand The hotels vintage features are complemented by more contemporary touches, like bespoke furniture from local artisans, an assortment of new lighting fixtures, and bathroom tiles made with Ford Motor Co.s signature Pantone blue color code. A new restaurant called Claras Table (honoring Fords wife, Clara, who often hosted guests at the inn) and cocktail bar Four Vagabonds will complete the modern-day guest experience. According to the press release, the hotels restoration is only the first phase of the Dearborn Inns new lease on life. Later this year, Marriott plans to unveil five colonial-style homes on the property, including suites inspired by the homes of literary icons such as Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman. For now, guests who book a room at the Dearborn Inn will be welcomed with an experience designed to feel like an icon of Fords era could be staying just down the hall.
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E-Commerce
A heated debate has recently erupted between two groups of supporters of President Donald Trump. The dispute concerns the H-1B visa system, the program that allows U.S. employers to hire skilled foreign workers in specialty occupationsmostly in the tech industry. On the one hand, there are people like Trumps former strategist Steve Bannon, who has called the H-1B program a total and complete scam. On the other, there are tech tycoons like Elon Musk who think skilled foreign workers are crucial to the U.S. tech sector. The H-1B visa program is subject to an annual limit of new visas it can issue, which sits at 65,000 per fiscal year. There is also an additional annual quota of 20,000 H-1B visas for highly skilled international students who have a proven ability to succeed academically in the U.S. The H-1B program is the primary vehicle for international graduate students at U.S. universities to stay and work in the United States after graduation. At Rice University, where I work, much of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research is carried out by international graduate students. The same goes for most American research-intensive universities. As a computer science professorand an immigrantwho studies the interaction between computing and society, I believe the debate over H-1B overlooks some important questions: Why does the U.S. rely so heavily on foreign workers for the tech industry, and why is it not able to develop a homegrown tech workforce? The U.S. as a global talent magnet The U.S. has been a magnet for global scientific talent since before World War II. Many of the scientists who helped develop the atomic bomb were European refugees. After World War II, U.S. policies such as the Fulbright Program expanded opportunities for international educational exchange. Attracting international students to the U.S. has had positive results. Among Americans who have won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, medicine or physics since 2000, 40% have been immigrants. Tech industry giants Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google were all founded by first- or second-generation immigrants. Furthermore, immigrants have founded more than half of the nations billion-dollar startups since 2018. Stemming the inflow of students Restricting foreign graduate students path to U.S. employment, as some prominent Trump supporters have called for, could significantly reduce the number of international graduate students in U.S. universities. About 80% of graduate students in American computer science and engineering programs (roughly 18,000 students in 2023) are international students. The loss of international doctoral students would significantly diminish the research capability of graduate programs in science and engineering. After all, doctoral students, supervised by principal investigators, carry out the bulk of research in science and engineering in U.S. universities. It must be emphasized that international students make a significant contribution to U.S. research output. For example, scientists born outside the U.S. played key roles in the development of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. So making the U.S. less attractive to international graduate students in science and engineering would hurt U.S. research competitiveness. Computing PhD graduates are in high demand. The economy needs them, so the lack of an adequate domestic pipeline seems puzzling. Where have U.S. students gone? So, why is there such a reliance on foreign students for U.S. science and engineering? And why hasnt America created an adequate pipeline of U.S.-born students for its technical workforce? After discussions with many colleagues, I have found that there are simply not enough qualified domestic doctoral applicants to fill the needs of their doctoral programs. In 2023, for example, U.S. computer science doctoral programs admitted about 3,400 new students, 63% of whom were foreign. It seems as if the doctoral career track is simply not attractive enough to many U.S. undergrad computer science students. But why? The top annual salary in Silicon Valley for new computer science graduates can reach $115,000. Bachelors degree holders in computing from Rice University have told me that until recentlybefore economic uncertainty shook the industrythey were getting starting annual salaries as high as $150,000 in Silicon Valley. Doctoral students in research universities, in contrast, do not receive a salary. Instead, they get a stipend. These vary slightly from school to school, but they typically pay less than $40,000 annually. The opportunity cost of pursuing a doctorate is, thus, up to $100,000 per year. And obtaining a doctorate typically takes six years. So, pursuing a doctorate is not an economically viable decision for many Americans. The reality is that a doctoral degree opens new career options to its holder, but most bachelors degree holders do not see beyond the econmics. Yet academic computing research is crucial to the success of Silicon Valley. A 2016 analysis of the information technology sectors with a large economic impact shows that academic research plays an instrumental role in their development. Why so little? The U.S. is locked in a cold war with China focused mostly on technological dominance. So maintaining its R&D edge is in the national interest. Yet the U.S. has declined to make the requisite investment in research. For example, the National Science Foundations annual budget for computer and information science and engineering is around $1 billion. In contrast, annual R&D expenses for Alphabet, Googles parent company, have been close to $50 billion for the past decade. Universities are paying doctoral students so little because they cannot afford to pay more. But instead of acknowledging the existence of this problem and trying to address it, the U.S. has found a way to meet its academic research needs by recruiting and admitting international students. The steady stream of highly qualified international applicants has allowed the U.S. to ignore the inadequacy of the domestic doctoral pipeline. The current debate about the H-1B visa system provides the U.S. with an opportunity for introspection. Yet the news from Washington, D.C., about massive budget cuts coming to the National Science Foundation seems to suggest the federal government is about to take an acute problem and turn it into a crisis. Moshe Y. Vardi is a professor of computer science at Rice University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
Shoppers at Uniqlo in New York City can now purchase a matcha and a cold brew alongside their new pair of work trousers. As of March 14, Uniqlos Midtown store is the first North American location of the Japanese-owned fashion brand to open a Uniqlo Coffee. The cafe, owned by Uniqlo, serves a standard beverage menu including coffee, espresso beverages, cold brew, and matcha, as well as hot chocolate and orange juice. Its located inside the store itself, with the same sleek, monochromatic branding as the retail sections. Uniqlo is one of several other everyday luxury retailerslike Muji, Aritzia, and Ralph Laurenthat have likewise opened their own branded coffee shops. Its the modern-day, status-signaling version of a Starbucks inside a Barnes & Noble; turning the store itself into a kind of third place for shoppers to gather in an attempt to earn the coveted reputation of a lifestyle brand rather than merely a clothing store. View this post on Instagram A post shared by UNIQLO USA (@uniqlousa) Why every retailer has a coffee shop now Uniqlo Coffee may be new in the U.S., but its already a staple at Uniqlo locations in Asia, including in Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Malaysia. These locations tend to have extended menus that also offer small snack foods with local touches. At the Manila global flagship store, for example, shoppers can find melon buns, hojicha gelato, strawberry mint tea, and a cookie butter cheesecake on top of the standard coffee offerings. Brands within Uniqlos niche of elevated basics have already found success in North America with starting their own coffee shops. Artizias A-OK Cafe, which serves coffee, tea, and pastries, has expanded to 11 locations in Canada and recently opened two new stores in Chicago and New York City. Ralph Laurens Ralphs Coffee can be found in multiple New York locations as well as both Europe and Asia, where it sells sweet treats alongside merch like a Ralphs-branded tumbler or a ball cap. And the Japanese retailer Muji recently opened a full-on food hall inside NYCs Chelsea Market, where a robot barista named Jarvis will bring you a black sesame latte on wheels. The coffee shop trend is just another expression of many trendy retailers desire to become known as a lifestyle brand, or a brand that transcends its actual products to encompass a whole vibe or aestheticthink Erewhon releasing a $335 sweatsuit, or Sweetgreen starting its own merch-based loyalty program. An added bonus to the physical coffee shop concept is that it plays into Gen Zs desire to gather in third places post-pandemic, a trend that formerly DTC-only brands like Chamberlain Coffee have also embraced by debuting an actual in-person shop. Market calculation aside, its a well-known fact that shopping is simply more enjoyable with an ice-cold beverage in hand (and it might even keep you browsing those aisles a bit longer.) The A-OK Cafe website spells it out pretty clearly: Don’t let snack-free shopping happen to you.
Category:
E-Commerce
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