What follows is an imaginary itinerary across the continents, all within greater Ann Arbor. Whether in search of the familiar favorites that constitute our own version of soul food, or an adventure into ever-widening horizons, it can be found here, and without the jet lag.
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Pet Pals, a grassroots group of five volunteers, helps unhoused and housing-insecure people care for their pets by providing pet food, litter, and other supplies, as well as spay/neuter vouchers, hotel rooms during extreme weather, and other support.
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“I have the best of both worlds,” she says. “It feels like I’m in the country, but I’m close to downtown and the Old West Side.”
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Earlier this year, Kimberly Baker Crouch’s family sold the house on N. Fourth Ave. that five generations of Bakers had called home, and she and her niece Brianna Murphy moved to an apartment on Ann Arbor’s northeast side.
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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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