A glance again at Detroit Free Press chief photographer Tony Spina

Paul LaBell was out of faculty for the day, in order that was good, even when he wasn’t fairly positive why he’d been bused downtown with the remainder of his journalism class.

The children from Birmingham Groves High shuffled from division to division on the Detroit Free Press, listening with various ranges of consideration to a grown-up describing what went on there.

“I was thinking, ‘What’s this about?’ ” mentioned LaBell, now 74, who was toying again then with changing into a sportscaster. But he trooped together with the others, after which they reached the photographers’ lair on the fourth ground of a historic constructing on Lafayette Boulevard that’s now residence to 100 Dan Gilbert-owned residences.

Chief photographer Tony Spina spoke to them there for “five to seven minutes,” LaBell recalled, after which the opposite children drifted away — however he, fascinated by what Spina needed to say, stayed put.

“I was so impressed wth him, and how pictures play an important part in telling stories, and how it all works,” LaBell mentioned. “He wasn’t talking down to us. And photos were everywhere. I’m looking at great photos, piles of them, and these were the ones the staff thought weren’t good enough.”

“I found this fascinating,” LaBell advised Spina, who would have been 53 or 54 years outdated. ” ‘Is it doable for me to come back again alone someday?’ ” he requested.

Spina handed him a business card. “You’re welcome any time,” said the man who had photographed popes and presidents, and there began the friendship that might launch Spina’s name to the top of the signpost at Lafayette and Cass avenues.

“Secondary street signs,” the city of Detroit calls them, the annual honors that place the names of notable citizens along the paths where they did grand and valuable things.

Detroit City Council will decide Tuesday on the five honorees for 2025. Spina, who died in 1995, is among the contenders — and it was LaBell, of Waldwick, New Jersey, who nominated the Michigan Journalism Hall of Famer and put the process in motion.

He came back to Detroit for the public hearing Thursday, Oct. 23, that examined the 23 nominees. We caught up with him for a Q&A that discovered, among other things, his open-mindedness with Coneys:

“I like Lafayette downtown and Leo’s in the suburbs, but they’re all good.”

Question: You graduated from Groves and have lived outside Michigan since college, but do you see yourself as a Detroit kid? Do you have Detroit credentials?

Answer: I spent my first year of high school at Mumford. We lived at Six Mile and Livernois, then moved to Beverly Hills after the ’67 riot.

I used to be an enormous Al Kaline fan rising up, and a member of the Al Kaline fan membership. I’ve an autographed Al Kaline ball in my bed room at present.

You had been barely sufficiently old to drive when a legend, somebody who would spend 44 years on the Free Press, invited you to go to. How did that work?

I’d come again to the paper in highschool, or later, he would have me meet him at his home on Squirrel Road (in Bloomfield Hills). I met his household. There had been occasions his spouse was touring, and he’d say, ‘Let’s go to dinner.’ ”

He handled me, as a 16-year-old, like I mattered. That’s how he handled everybody.

You must know some things about Tony Spina that aren’t common knowledge …

Gerald Ford offered him the White House photographer job. He told me he turned it down, and I asked why.

He said, “My family is in Detroit. I love Detroit. I love the Free Press.”

Obvious question: given Tony’s influence, did you become a photographer?

I collect photographs, and I take decent pictures, but I’m no photographer.

He did show me how to hold a camera. How to use it. How to carry it. How to see what’s going on around you.

What other Tony Spina lessons come to mind?

He was a model, a guide for me in how to treat people. He showed me how to listen to them and hear what they have to say. I don’t think there was a better coach than Tony.

What did you wind up doing professionally?

I majored in marketing at EMU, then went to MSU for a master’s at the hotel and restaurant school. I worked in commercial food sales, then in fine art prints. When the economy tanked in the 1990s, I went back to food.

I’m retired, but I just applied for a job with a food bank. I didn’t get it, but there are other food banks.

After half a century living outside Michigan, how did you wind up organizing a campaign to put Tony Spina’s name on a street sign?

I read the newspapers in Detroit. I read about the secondary street signs, and I saw who got it last year. … I had a conversation with Tony’s daughter, Julie Spina-Kilar. She said, “I’d like to figure out what can be done to keep my father’s name and reputation out there.”

With the guidance of Janice Tillmon (of the Historic Designation Advisory Board), I started reaching out to different people who wrote letters of support.

On your list, I see letters from retired newscaster Mort Crim, four city council members and two former Free Press photographers, Taro Yamasaki and David Turnley, who gained Pulitzers (in 1981 and 1990).

He actually hired and nurtured three photographers who won Pulitzer Prizes. I don’t know any other major newspaper that can make that claim. (Note: the other was Manny Crisostomo, in 1989).

Tony did so many great things. He was one of the first to go digital. The Free Press was one of the first newspapers to go color.

He was always ahead of his time. Tony was like a young child in a way, so excited by new ideas and new techniques. You would think somebody like him who’s a seasoned pearl would be hesitant. Not the case.

I know Tony was a chief photographer’s mate in the Navy during World War II, and took pictures during the Africa campaign. The Walter P. Reuther Library even has a picture he shot of Admiral Chester Nimitz signing the peace treaty with Japan aboard the USS Missouri. Did he talk much about his war years?

He told me, with the signing of the treaty, he had no idea what was going to happen that day. He used that as an example. He said sometimes stories that don’t seem like they’re going to be good photo stories turn out to be great photo stories.

If Tony is chosen, will you come back for the unveiling of the sign?

That’s a definite. I’ll be so happy, and so will his kids. This guy deserves it.

Reach Neal Rubin at NARubin@freepress.com.