The local affiliate of the global affordable housing group began building single-family houses in 1989. Habitat sells the houses to qualified families: those with sufficient income to pay their bills, mortgage, taxes, insurance,...
Read MoreThe Gaffield Children’s Garden at the U-M Matthaei Botanical Gardens practically begs kids to run through its leafy arched entrance. On the other side is an understated playland—part garden, part park, part trail—that...
Read MoreCommunity Standards Officer Chani Reaves pulls out of the City Hall parking lot at 9 a.m. Today’s first destination: someone’s called to report an abandoned vehicle blocking a driveway south of Packard.Reaves started...
Read MoreBetween them, Tom Root and Dale Grover have enough cool tools to fill an 11,000-square-foot space. With everything from saws and hammers to 3-D printers and plasma cutters on hand, the partners have made Maker Works the work...
Read MoreThe monogrammed necklace of her dad’s initials she wears, and the quilt made of his old T-shirts on her bed, are just two ways Oceana (Oh-SHE-anna) Bailey stays close to the memory of Richard Bailey—the father she adored...
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In the spring of 1964, the unmistakable sound of a bulldozer emanated from the small wooded area west of Haisley Elementary School. My family lived three houses away from the woods on Haisley Dr.The city’s bulldozer had...
Read MoreWestern civilization turned a corner in July 1914, with the start of the Great War.Ann Arbor was a cozy college town of 15,000. “A hog which was being pursued by a dog ran into Miss Staebler, knocking her down so...
Read MoreQ. Currently, Carpenter Rd. is dug up, and there is a long, light blue plastic tube, maybe six inches wide, lying on the sidewalk on one side of the road. A couple of years ago, I noticed the same thing when they were working on...
Read MoreJesse Shepherd is an expert woodsman. In season he hunts wild turkey and deer, traps muskrats, and hunts small game. In summer he enjoys fishing the lakes in the Waterloo State Recreation Area between Jackson and Chelsea. And...
Read MoreDid you know that Muskrat once had a flat, broad tail? That tail was much admired by Beaver, who asked to borrow it in order to try it out. Muskrat agreed and lent Beaver the tail. Beaver must have really liked it, because he...
Read MoreTraditional library summer reading programs reward children for reading a prescribed number of books while school is out. The AADL has followed that model for decades and still does–children, teens, and adults can track...
Read MoreIn weather fair and foul, Noel Roach’s feathered friends find sanctuary in the growing number of birdhouses–sixty-six in June–that decorate the lawn, fences, and flowerbeds of his modest home on Central Ave....
Read MoreIn a lot of ways, “Ann Arbor Townies ONLY!” resembles thousands of other nostalgia-fueled online groups, haunted by people of a certain age who want to share memories and photos of their hometown with similarly...
Read More“I thought it was so cool. I couldn’t resist it,” says Scott Lankton about Black Betty, the 1976 Volkswagen Beetle he purchased three years ago. (The Ram Jam 1977 cover hit “Black Betty,” playing on...
Read More“Do you know Jesus?” the man growled at a couple walking near Kerrytown on a spring night. He was tilting to one side and held a beer can in each hand. “Good evening, sir,” the man said, not making eye...
Read More“That’s the moon over the rainbow of colors at Anderson Paints,” writes Joshua Rabinowitz. “2386 W. Stadium Blvd.,” adds Pamela Kittel. Founded downtown in the 1950s, the Anderson Paint Company...
Read MoreOver the years, the Fake Ad Czar has been called many things. Devious. Unfair. Lanky. And his favorite, clever. Until this month, however, he’d never been called a theological scholar.That changed with Marty...
Read MoreAt the Blind Pig, Hiawatha Bailey says, “they know how to treat a rocker right.” When he’s not crooning behind the mic or listening to other acts in the bar’s main room, you may find him downstairs in the...
Read MoreOn my bike rides this spring, I pedaled past Mitchell Field and Riverside Park. At Mitchell, four of the six softball fields I played on for years with the Observer’s O Team have been plowed under. At Riverside, where I...
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