An expert in Detroit-style pizza and a veteran restaurateur are collaborating on a full-service and takeout business they expect to appeal to both Saline locals and destination diners. Joe Maino and Jason Branham’s DropTop Pizza includes a vivid dining room and bar along Saline’s main drag, with a back entrance for takeout orders and grab-and-go food and drinks.
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Early one morning two years ago, Gail Kuhnlein left her beloved home in Pittsfield Township’s Hidden Creek subdivision for heart surgery and almost didn’t return. Kuhnlein, now sixty, suffered complications during the scheduled repair of a congenital defect in her mitral valve, and was in a medically induced coma for weeks before she recovered. When she returned two months later to the home she shares with her husband, Tim, it was with a new perspective on life. “This,” she says, “is all bonus time.”
Read MoreLynnea Harris spent three years playing professional volleyball overseas. “My job in Italy was to perform or I didn’t get paid,” she says. “I was drinking like one or two [protein] shakes a day. I was in the best shape of my entire life.”
Read MoreWhitetail, Mary Baude’s design, home, and lifestyle shop on S. Main, closed in April. She’d launched her business in Dexter in 2016, and moved it to Chelsea in 2022; in March 2024, she announced her retirement on Instagram. Chelsea Home, interior designer Kitty Golding’s boutique, is set to open by November 8 in Whitetail’s former space.
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The November 5 election is about the schools’ past, present, and future—the current board’s firing of superintendent Jeanice Swift last summer, the discovery of a $25 million hole the budget in March, the hiring of Jazz Parks as the new superintendent in June, and the need to grow enrollment to keep the schools financially sound in the future.
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“This whole store is me,” beams Amanda Debek from a deep U-shaped booth upholstered in pink velvet and topped with a rich arrangement of artificial flowers at her new House of Chimney Cakes Café.
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University Flower Shop has expanded from Nickels Arcade to the west side with a second, much larger production and sales site. The 4,000-square-foot facility on S. Wagner Rd. provides ample space for creating custom floral arrangements and planning events, as well as free, on-site parking for drop-in or pickup customers.
Read MorePROCAM Photo & Video Gear has soft-opened its fourth retail store, offering a range of imaging products and services for hobbyists, students, and professionals alike.
Read MoreCiting rising overhead costs and fewer customers dining out, the McDevitt family is closing Mancino’s Pizza & Grinders Oct. 12 after thirty years on the far west side.
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Dr. James Johnson Duderstadt, President Emeritus and University Professor of Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, died on August 21, 2024.
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At 11:11 p.m. on August 18th, on a full moon, Trudy Bulkley, known affectionately as Mother Goose, died peacefully with her family by her side after a brief and unexpected battle with AML. Two weeks before, she was working in her garden, doing yoga, tending to her bonsai, an active member of her book group, having friends over for delicious meals she made, walking her beloved dog Maggie, playing Wordle, being in touch with friends and family near and far, practicing for her piano recital, writing postcards to remind people to vote, and being Mother Goose at preschools and her monthly gig at Kerrytown.
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Musician and photographer Howard Bond was born in Napoleon, OH and lived in Ann Arbor, MI since 1962.
Read MoreFive houses sold for under $200K: You read that right—and one distressed 867-square-footer at 2110 Champagne Dr. in Bryant-Pattengill went for just $100,000.
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Rachel Ufer has looked forward to Halloween on Granger Ave. ever since she moved there in 2017. “You can’t really believe it until you see it,” Ufer says of the spooky decorations that drew roughly 1,400 trick-or-treaters to her block in Burns Park last year. But a few days before Halloween, a large inflatable skeleton was stolen from her house—and the next night, an inflatable spider.
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The historic contest between Democratic vice president Kamala Harris and Republican former president Donald Trump at the top of the November 5 ballot is expected to draw huge numbers of voters on Election Day. But with no city council seats contested, the most impactful items locally are proposals near the end of the packed ballot—particularly Ann Arbor proposals A, to create a city-owned “sustainable energy utility,” and C and D, which would make city elections nonpartisan and provide public funding for council and mayoral candidates.
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We received 132 entries correctly identifying the Fake Ad for Bespoke Monorail Cars on page 86 of the September issue.
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Whether he plays at Blue LLama, the Kerrytown Concert House, or does a solo gig at the Earle, Rick Roe usually includes a few of Monk’s tunes and some of his own. These show Monk’s influence, but Roe has studied many other great musicians—“Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, and not only piano players”—as well. His music integrates their influence and is entirely his own.
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“This month’s I Spy is the Thelonious Monk mural by Brian Whitfield on Ashley Street,” writes Silvia Ruiz. David Karl identifies it as “the old Del Rio Bar building,” which Dyke McEwan adds is now home to “the Cellar by Grizzly Peak.” The mural, writes Kathy Scott, honors both Monk at the bar where he sometimes performed. Dan Romanchik credits his wife Sylvia for spotting it, even though “I walk by there all the time—so if I win I’ll have to give the prize to her.”
Read MoreQ. Where did the poet Joseph Brodsky live in Ann Arbor?
A. Brodsky was born and raised in the Soviet Union, but his poetry was deemed critical by the government, and in 1972 he was convicted of “malicious parasitism.” Declared a “pseudo-poet in velveteen trousers,” he was pressured to leave the country.
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Several years ago, a CAT scan revealed a cancerous 2.5-centimeter mass on the retired Ann Arbor elementary school teacher’s right lung. He says a biopsy revealed “a rare form of lung cancer called NUT carcinoma.” Surgeons removed a lobe in his right lung and thirteen lymph nodes.
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