Trailblazer
Construction is underway on Fire Station 4 at 2415 S. Huron Pkwy. The name of the new station is a nod to a pioneer: Mindy Kerr, Ann Arbor’s first female firefighter.
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Community
SNAP Judgment
On a chilly mid-November Wednesday morning, volunteers from Food Gatherers assembled in a parking lot at Briarwood Mall, outside JCPenney. It was the second in a series of four hastily announced food distributions following a freeze in federal food benefits.
Read MoreThe Yellow and Blue
Some years back, I went to the Michigan Union Ticket Office to get tickets for a U-M Men’s Glee Club concert. But when I finally got to the front of a long line, the young clerk politely told me MUTO didn’t sell Glee Club tickets. This surprised me, I told him, because the Glee Club website said this was in fact the only place that sold them. He assured me that no, MUTO did not sell Glee Club tickets. I gently persisted: “Another indicator is the sign behind you that says ‘Glee Club Tickets Sold Here.’” This observation delighted the people in line behind me.
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Pat Deneau
Deneau, who works regular twenty-four hour shifts, finds comfort in his woodchuck friends. “On a day where things aren’t going our way, our station mascots are still out there doing their thing—unbothered by circumstances outside of their control.”
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Fixing Barton Dam
When I lived in Ann Arbor back in the 1980s, Barton Dam was barely on my radar. The Huron River was scenic enough from the road: a heron or hawk here and there, maybe a deer ambling just off the shoulder. The dam itself, tucked out of sight from Huron River Dr., might as well have been invisible.
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The School of Yoga’s Uncertain Future
There’s a secret room in the basement of the Ann Arbor School of Yoga (AASY). Below the studio space, behind the changing areas, there’s a room where three huge shelves groan under the weight of Blakeney’s collection of yoga books. Her students are allowed to read the books, but not take them home, so many of them peruse the private library before and after class.
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A Farm in Dexter
Amy Ramsey watches the sun rise over her neighbor’s field every morning. She’s up before dawn, a strong cup of coffee in hand, ready to open her barns and feed her animals. Wild Apple Farms is named for the centuries-old apple trees scattered across the property, and Ramsey strives to live in harmony with the land, respecting the rhythm of the year. “There’s a feeling of peace and contentment that doesn’t exist anywhere else,” she says. “If you pause to pay attention, you can smell the seasons changing.”
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From Confinement to Connection
Something was off about Kevin. He was affectionate and cheerful like most toddlers, his mother Kerry Kafafian recalls, but “he was doing a movement which we later understood to be a seizure.” A pediatric neurologist determined that he had Lennox–Gastaut syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy that causes severe cognitive impairment.
Read MoreCommunity and Wine at Social Vines
Just east of Dexter, in a bucolic setting known for hosting increasingly popular Fourth of July fireworks shows, Lori and Brian Herron’s vision for Social Vines is bearing fruit.
Read MoreIn Chelsea, the Joy of Books and Painting
“It was completely bonkers!” recalls Michelle Tuplin, owner of Serendipity Books, about how her store’s April move from Middle St. to Main went viral.
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A Woodshop in Chelsea
On a September morning, Susan Kizer opens the door to the cheerfully cluttered brick carriage house behind her Main St. home. There’s a light layer of sawdust on her work tables, and wood of all varieties—from South American purpleheart to a maple burl she discovered in an antique shop—surrounds her. Anchoring the space is “Tinkerbell”—her nickname for the 750-pound lathe she uses to create her one-of-a-kind wood pieces.
Read MoreDexter Brunch House Replaces Dexter Riverview Cafe
A longtime breakfast and lunch destination is in new hands this year, and “we’ve been super busy since the day we opened,” says Nela Shahinllari. She manages the front of house, while her husband Enzo is the main chef at Dexter Brunch House. Nela, twenty-five, emigrated at age eighteen and soon met fellow Albanian native Enzo, whose family moved here when he was five.
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“It’s Really a Time Machine”
Otto’s Arcade & Club, headquarters for Mitch Rohde’s curation of vintage video games, serves several purposes: museum, social club, event space, and public gaming venue.
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A Classroom in Saline
Stomping, clapping, and chanting—“Kona, Kona, Kona!”—thundered from the two front rows of the bleachers. The family, friends, and students of fifth-grade teacher Kaylee Harmon’s eight-year-old Shepherd mix cheered on the winner out of five canine contenders in Saline Community Fair’s Fifth Annual Dog of the Year Contest. Kona took home a first-place blue ribbon, plaque, and $150 gift card from Saline’s Tractor Supply Co.
Read MoreClay + Code Stimulates Both Sides of the Brain
Salinians Tara and Hardik Joshi are combining their respective skills in pottery and robotics for Clay + Code, their new learning center and retail store.
Read MoreCourageous Books Comes to Dexter
It’s more than just her own lifelong love of literature and language that led Jen Stevenson to launch Courageous Books.
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A Tale of Two Houses
Over the summer, a neighborhood vanished. In the hilly rectangle bounded by S. Division, Hill, Fifth Ave., and E. Madison, backhoes methodically crushed scores of wood-frame houses, a handful of small apartment buildings, and the old Fingerle Lumber sales room.
Read MoreThe New Dorms
Clearing the blocks south of Madison kicked off Phase 2 of the U-M’s Central Campus Residential Development. It was a signature project of ill-starred former president Santa Ono.
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Sign of the Times
The September ceremony featured speeches both lofty and bitterly political; a serenade from a transgender singer; the dramatic lifting of a white sheet from the marker; and a steady parade of attendees snapping selfies with DeGrieck and Kozachenko. (Wechsler, who lives in Boston, could not attend.)
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