As always, graduation weekend in Ann Arbor meant hotels, shops, and restaurants were packed to the proverbial gills. But this year, downtown Ann Arbor became far more hospitable to guests with vision, hearing, and mobility issues.

The Graduate Ann Arbor on E. Huron St., formerly the Dahlmann Campus Inn, opened just in time for the ceremonies with every room sold out, some of them recently upgraded rooms for guests with disabilities. The Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, which opened last October on W. Huron, was also fully occupied, including its ten rooms designed for guests with handicaps. At the train station, a new ramp allows easier access for travelers using wheelchairs and walkers, and several historic downtown buildings in recent months have added new Braille signage, elevators, wider doors, new restroom facilities, and grab bars.

“People with disabilities have many more opportunities and options here than in many other places,” says Carolyn Grawi, CEO of the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living. “But that’s not to say there isn’t room for improvement.”

Seemingly small challenges that pass unnoticed by most of us can appear insurmountable to elderly and disabled residents and visitors. “Many restrooms have handicapped stalls, but the entrance doors are so heavy or the handle is so high that we can’t get in,” says retired teacher Ginger Ford. She contracted polio in 1950 and used leg braces and, later, a cane for decades. Ford now uses a wheelchair when going out because of post-polio syndrome, and has found that “very few places have automatic doors … and few facilities have enough handicapped parking spaces. Ann Arbor is maneuverable–but it needs many more curb cuts, and someone needs to realize how slick sidewalks can be on rainy and snowy days.” Ford no longer browses downtown shops–because too often her wheelchair can’t enter or pass through narrow aisles.

In 2012, U-M Law School alum Larry Pollack wanted to bring his then eighteen-year-old son, Zach, to his twenty-fifth class reunion. Many activities were scheduled at the Dahlmann Campus Inn, whose website noted that it had been “the home away from home to stars of stage and screen, Fortune 500 presidents, senators, governors and heads of state.” But when Pollack called, he learned it was not prepared to be a home away from home for Zach, who has cerebral palsy: none of its 110 rooms met the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act. There were two wheelchair-accessible rooms at Dahlmann’s smaller Bell Tower Hotel on Thayer, but those were booked.

As Orthodox Jews, the Pollacks don’t drive on Saturdays. Unable to find lodging where they could walk to the reunion events, they cancelled their plans to attend.

“It was amazing to me that in 2012, in Ann Arbor, which is an extremely progressive city, I couldn’t find a wheelchair-accessible room,” Pollack recalls. His son “said we had to do something about this. He is close friends of Richard Bernstein–an attorney on the Michigan Supreme Court who happens to be blind–so we started with him, then discussed the situation with Carolyn Grawi and the Department of Justice, which responded very quickly and thoroughly.”

In 2014 a comprehensive agreement was reached. “They gave us a list of things to do at the hotels and we did them all,” says owner Dennis Dahlmann. Guest rooms were modified with grab bars, raised toilet seats, new door hardware, and thermostats mounted within reach of a wheelchair. Accessible toilet stalls were added to the hotels’ public facilities, entrance doors were widened, lower writing surfaces were added near the front desks, and elevator controls were lowered and labeled in Braille. “I have a letter from the Department of Justice thanking us for our cooperation,” Dahlmann says.

He sold the Campus Inn to A.J. Capital last year, which remodeled and reopened it as the Graduate. He still owns the Bell Tower–where the Pollacks already have reservations for Larry’s thirtieth law school reunion next year.

While the older hotels still have some barriers, the brand-new Residence Inn is fully ADA compliant, with ramps, grab bars, wide doors, handicapped stalls in all public restrooms, and thermostats and elevator controls low enough to be reached from a chair. Seven of its 110 suites are fully wheelchair accessible; since its opening in October, they have frequently been fully booked. Those and three additional suites can also accommodate vision- and hearing-impaired guests with Braille signage and doorbells that flash lights. Even the swimming pool has a motorized lift to lower people with limited mobility into the water. “We are offering something different in downtown Ann Arbor: a place where all guests are welcome, where they can rest, relax, and feel comfortable and safe,” says Darren McKinnon, vice president of hotel owner First Martin Corporation.

But Larry Pollack wasn’t the last visitor to be disappointed by the city’s lack of accessibility. Last year, U-M English prof Eileen Pollack (no relation to Larry) wrote an impassioned email to the Observer describing the humiliations suffered by a wheelchair-bound colleague who spent three weeks here in 2014 as a visiting professor in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program for MFA students.

“I was appalled to learn that in a university community that prides itself on supporting diversity, there are no accessible places for visitors in wheelchairs to stay downtown, making it impossible for them to fully participate in campus life,” Pollack recalls in a phone interview. “My colleague was told that her only alternative was to find a room out by Briarwood, which meant she couldn’t fully participate in campus activities. The distance added a tremendous burden. Yet if a black professor or gay couple faced the same discrimination, everyone would be up in arms.”

The visiting lecturer, who has limited use of her arms, relies upon a motorized wheelchair. According to Pollack, “She had enormous difficulties finding downtown places to eat, shop, and get her hair washed. She is very independent, and she travels all over the world–to Russia and China, even–but she ran into humiliating situations here.”

When the professor asked her south-side hotel for minor accommodations (sticks duct-taped to water faucets so she could turn them, a board to help her wheelchair cross the threshold, and transportation to campus), she found workers and drivers very helpful–“but the hotel administrators acted like her requests were a huge imposition,” Pollack says. She prefers not to name the hotel, but says the visiting scholar “was constantly made to feel embarrassed.”

Then, when her guest visited Nickels Arcade, store proprietors refused to make minor accommodations to enable her wheelchair to cross thresholds. “To most of us, that one step into the shop looks very small. But to someone in a wheelchair or struggling with a walker, it might as well be twenty feet high,” Pollack says. “The motorized wheelchair is heavy, so someone can’t just angle it up over the step. In other cities, stores keep a board or a piece of metal they can pull out and put next to the threshold, to serve as a small ramp. Not here.”

One shopkeeper declined to open a secondary door so the guest could enter the store; another refused to bring samples of her jewelry to the shop door, Pollack says. “If a local store refused entry to any other visitor, we’d all be furious. We need to display the same sense of outrage on behalf of the handicapped in our community. Changes have to be made–in our thinking as well as our facilities.”

Ginger Ford agrees. “Awareness of the challenges the disabled face is improving, but it must get better,” she says.

In the early 1960s, Ford attended a Florida college because U-M was completely inaccessible. By the late 1960s, the university had begun to install curb cuts and elevators, enabling Ford to enroll in its graduate school of education–but only in the summer and fall terms, because she couldn’t maneuver easily in snow and crowds. Even then, she sometimes had to ask strangers to lend an arm to help her climb stairs.

The Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living was founded in 1976, fourteen years before the ADA. “Our mission is to offer hope, provide support, and transform lives,” Carolyn Grawi says. Her own life was transformed in 1986, when she was declared legally blind. “At that time I decided to stay in Ann Arbor because of what it offered people with disabilities: many more opportunities than other places.” She has worked for the CIL since 2005.

By then, the center had already proved itself a strong champion for people with disabilities. In 2003, it realized the city was building sidewalk curb cut ramps that fell short of ADA standards. When the city refused to negotiate changes, the center sued–and won a settlement that led to replacing hundreds of substandard ramps.

In addition to advocacy, CIL provides information, referrals, peer mentoring, independent learning skills, and methods for adapting to life with a handicap.

Even travel by car can be difficult for the elderly and those with impairments. Nowadays, few gas stations offer attendants to pump gas, check fluid levels, or adjust tire pressure. “One fine exception is [Mallek’s] gas station on the corner of Jackson and Huron. They’ve helped us for years,” Ford says. “I’m so grateful to them.” Members of Ford’s post-polio group regularly update information about accessible gas stations, hotels, and restaurants in Michigan and on travel routes.

Despite ADA legislation, dining out remains such a challenge that many handicapped customers either order takeout (when available) or remain loyal to just a few establishments. And downtown’s congestion and older buildings mean that those frequently are located on the edge of town. “Weber’s will let me drive up to their door,” Ford says. “It doesn’t open automatically, but they always have someone available to open it and offer to park my car. I can take a ramp to the main dining room.” Knight’s Steakhouse on Dexter Ave. and the Carlyle Grill on Jackson are other favorites for those in wheelchairs–Ford’s post-polio group met at Carlyle in May.

Restaurants should also consider vision-impaired guests, Grawi says. “We need to encourage them to provide large-print and Braille menus–just one or two copies would be enough.”

Grocery shopping can be a nightmare, but Meijer and Kroger have risen to the challenge, according to Ford. “Meijer’s in particular is wonderful. When I call the office, they send someone out with a scooter. The curb cuts are wide, the parking lot and entrances are all level, the doors are automatic, the scooters are well maintained, the aisles are wide enough, and there is always someone for carryout help.” And, like Mallek’s in town, the superstore’s gas station staff will pump gas for disabled people.

“What handicapped folks need more than anything is general courtesy,” Ford adds, describing a rainy day when she waited patiently, blinkers blinking, for a handicapped spot. But a black Malibu stole it. The young driver jumped out, waved, and ambled away. “People like him make me so mad! If he didn’t care to be kind, he could at least care that he ran the risk of a stiff fine. Was it convenience? Daring? Laziness? I ask that question a lot when I’m out in public.”

“I have a wish list for our community,” Grawi says. “First of all, we must continue to change attitudes. To make significant changes, everyone must become aware of the needs of their neighbors. We all need to encourage accessibility, so everyone can attend events, shop, dine, stay overnight, enjoy facilities, and find employment. Once we can make people aware of what life is like for people with various disabilities, everything else will follow–the sooner, the better.”