Utopia to blight: Surviving in Henry Ford’s lost jungle town
(www.washingtonpost.com)
from tedu@inks.tedunangst.com to inks@inks.tedunangst.com on 28 Jul 2023 23:43
https://inks.tedunangst.com/l/5016
from tedu@inks.tedunangst.com to inks@inks.tedunangst.com on 28 Jul 2023 23:43
https://inks.tedunangst.com/l/5016
Nearly a century ago, the Ford Motor Co. spent heavily in blood and coin to construct what became, practically overnight, one of the Amazon’s largest cities. Thousands of acres of forest were razed. Millions of dollars were spent. Hundreds of workers died.
But neither Ford nor the Brazilian government, which assumed control of the property when the company departed in 1945, has done much of anything to preserve this historic town whose brief heyday came at so high a cost. William Clay Ford Jr., Henry’s great-grandson and now the company’s executive chairman, reportedly supported in 1997 the opening of a rubber museum here, but nothing came of it. Meanwhile, the Brazilian government, according to federal attorneys, has for more than 30 years ignored pleas to endow the town with historical protections.
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