The Harts’ home, a “school bus yellow” Cape Cod with a huge garden, was the second one built by high schoolers in the Ann Arbor Student Building Industry Program, an experiential learning initiative. The first was on nearby Yellowstone Dr., and the third, says Donna, “is right around the corner, on Carl Ct.”
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Marilyn Kirking says that the first time she and her husband, Duane, saw their future home in the Abbot neighborhood, “we didn’t even bring our checkbook.”
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I could’ve written another version of this essay and blown the entire word count just describing how the canopy of trees changes from season to season, or the way the maple leaves scatter sunlight across our chalky sidewalks in bouncing dapples.
Read MoreOn Tuesday, Ann Arbor voters headed out to the polls to cast their ballots on Proposals A and B for the special 2025 August election. After a heated race marked by lawsuits, lawn signs, and fervent online discourse, early...
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As the increasingly bitter campaign over the future of the downtown library races to a close, both sides are spending the final days before Tuesday’s election making their cases by going door to door, flooding social media, and pushing targeted ads through mail and online platforms.
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These aren’t old favorites like Monopoly. These are board games invented by some of those in attendance. Their creators brought them to Sylvan Factory, a hobby store in Westgate, to have others test them out.
Read MoreQ. Why aren’t the wood planks used in the Argo boardwalk and elsewhere in our parks ever painted? Wouldn’t that help them last longer? And what about using composite materials?
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“It’s probably the biggest sale in town,” says bookseller Gene Alloway. He plans to line up early on Friday, September 5, when the three-day event begins at WCC’s Morris Lawrence Building. “The books are in fine shape,” says the owner of Motte & Bailey Booksellers, “and they have lots of different subjects.”
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Hats. Hats. And more hats!
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Church members, neighbors, and passersby all enjoy seeing the tower, but they will have to live with a shorter one for several months. At almost seventy years old, its spire—the metal section on top—is about to be removed for repair.
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At ten o’clock on a Sunday night, my eighty-six-year-old mother received a call from a girl who sounded like my daughter, then a college student. Crying, the caller said that she had gone to Canada with friends, their car had broken down, and they were stranded without money. Could Grammie please wire $700 right away, so they could get back to campus?
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I spy “the ‘Tree of Life’ statue on the corner of State St. and North University,” writes Catrin Koselka.
Read MoreThere are more than 270 sales charted here, and we wish we could say the market is suddenly roaring. In truth, that crowd of triangles and circles reflects the assessors of Scio and Superior townships catching up after not uploading their sales to the state’s online database for months.
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I think my life hit its peak when I had a bike and two dollars in my pocket.
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“‘This isn’t Lycra U’ is very cute,” writes Steve Worden, “and using a U and you for (w) for the record, is one of your cleverer name arrangements.”
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Since its modernization, the Summer Game has increased significantly in popularity. Retyi says that last summer they hit record numbers of participants, amassing nearly 15,000 sign-ups. This year, they’re on track to beat that record; more than 11,000 players and 3,000 lawn signs with redeemable codes for Summer Game points have been registered already.
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“I spied with my little eye a mural at the entrance to [the] building at 124 W. Summit St.,” writes Isabel McEwen. It’s “in a little garden that backs up to the train tracks on the east border of … Water Hill,” says Dyke McEwen. “I visit friends nearby,” adds Dave Bicknell, “and always look to make sure it’s still there.”
While the team at Fake Ad Central was collating this month’s responses, the Czar happened to get his water quality report, and did something few people have probably ever done: read it.
Read More“It won an award for its unusual design—a concrete slab building, with windowless interior walls [and] indirect natural light,” reader Louisa Griffes wrote in response to Sally Bjork’s 2021 Observer I Spy contest. It “was named Holy Toaster because of its slab-sided design,” added Terri Klein Gordinier.
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Litman brings a blend of humor and scholarship to her new book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes. Pop culture references that include Barbie, Game of Thrones, and Taylor Swift help illustrate her witty analytic history of key SCOTUS rulings.
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