When Marta Dabis first visited Great Oak Cohousing, she says, “I immediately knew that I had arrived home.” A Hungarian native and Zen Buddhist priest, Dabis says her neighborhood, where she’s lived since 2017, “feels like Europe inside,” with its colorful buildings clustered close together, community gardens, walking paths, and residents who know each other by name.
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As one of the “Morton Moms,” Erika Boehnke can count on getting at least ten texts a day—and she wouldn’t have it any other way. The Morton Moms, eight women who all live within a block on Morton Ave. in Burns Park, depend on each other to help out when life happens .
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Many Washtenaw County towns were founded during a land rush following the defeat of the Midwest’s Indigenous inhabitants and construction of the Erie Canal.
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Since 1975, a Christian cross and a Star of David have stood side by side before a single building—the one that both St. Clare’s Episcopal Church and Temple Beth Emeth call home.
Read MoreA $150,000 sale on Hemlock Dr., Dusty May’s $2.2M Barton Hills pad, and a big month for $1M+ sales, sort of.
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Ron Warhurst was a U-M coach for thirty-six years—cross-country and track. He was Big Ten coach of the year four times, won nine conference championships, and coached 129 All-Americans, multiple Olympians, and a winner of the Boston Marathon.
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My formative years, from grade school through twelfth grade, were spent in a house my grandfather built on Miner St. I can’t imagine a better place to get started in life.
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That’s the title of an exhibit on the second floor of the downtown library. Subtitled “45 Years of Pages from the Ann Arbor Observer,” it covers five large walls with reproductions of 500 pages published in the magazine between 1976 and 2022.
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“The Fake Ad is on page 42 for the Whippoorwill Bar and Grill,” writes the always reliable David Karl. “Ah yes, who hasn’t been driven to insomnia by the constant nighttime singing of the Whip-poor-will. I know I have. But unlike Thurber’s Mr. Kinstrey, I just took a sleeping pill and called it a night. Much easier, less hassle and mess free.”
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“The OG Dentistry building at 299 Fletcher has such beautiful lines in their glasswork,” says Mary Adams.
Read MoreStarting more than a century ago, when Ann Arbor built its water and sewer system, owners of property that hadn’t yet been annexed to the city had a choice: accept annexation and connect to city services or keep their own wells and septic systems and stay in their townships.
Read MoreQ. I think it is great that the city is providing public restrooms, but when I loaded the app on my phone I wondered why it required personal information and phone location.
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“I spy: the Land Title Building at 106 N. Fourth Ave. designed by Albert J. Rousseau,” writes Kate Pasola.
Read MoreMini-sub complete behind Courtyard Shops; ex-U-M provost returns; and Barton Hills sees unusual sales action.
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Last month’s Fake Ad for Mickey’s Heating and Cooling on page 48 of the June Observer elicited 196 correct responses.
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An Ann Arbor native, Joan Belgrave is a two-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter. Four years after her husband died, her life took another dramatic turn when a routine biopsy resulted in an especially dangerous diagnosis: “triple-negative” breast cancer.
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On a pleasant Tuesday night in late April, the dining room at Miss Kim filled up not once, but twice.
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About once a week, they tape large sheets of paper on either side of “Graffiti Alley” by the Michigan Theater. One says “eye contact” and the other “smiles.” For several hours, they make a mark every time a passerby responds.
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Eric Parker was a self-described “earth traveler” who lived by his wits and took great pride in his independence as a schizophrenic, unhoused man. He was highly intelligent, a lover of birds and animals, and a solo explorer of Ann Arbor and southern California. His last year of life was spent under the care of the author, his aunt, who deeply misses her firstborn nephew, a complicated, remarkable human.
Read MoreJim Harbaugh sets another record; the dinnerware collector departs; and the Wall Street Journal says A2 is No. 3—and an anomaly.
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