Rose Valley Nursery
This month, Janine Shahinian was drawn as our Fake Ad winner for a record-breaking third time. Her response, while delighted, was also selfless.
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Community
Sugar Shanty
After dusk on a cold, starry night, guests can easily follow the enticing aromas of a wood fire and a sweet treat across patches of snow to Elsi and Bob Sly’s sugar shanty. Open the door, and a fog of evaporating sap and an array of hot dogs, baked beans, and salads promise a one-of-a-kind winter picnic.
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17 Blocks
A Community High and U-M grad, Rothbart has worked as a ticket scalper and pizza delivery driver, created a magazine, and won an Emmy. This year, a Knight-Wallace journalism fellowship brought his family—wife Margaret Box and their kids, Desi, six, and Birdie, three—to a rented house on the Old West Side. And this month, he’s reuniting with his second family—the one featured in his documentary 17 Blocks—in an event at the Michigan Theater.
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Marty Somberg
On Sunday nights, Conor O’Neill’s Irish Pub reverberates with the sounds of guitars, flutes, fiddles, bodhráns, harps, accordions, harmonicas, whistles, bouzoukis, and uilleann pipes. Often, the toe-tapping, soul-searching tunes are led by Marty Somberg on the Irish fiddle.
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Furniture as Art
Since establishing her Ann Arbor studio in 2016, the U-M art grad has won nineteen international design awards for the ingeniously styled furniture she builds at Maker Works, the nonprofit south-side workshop. Often custom made for her interior design clients—she also has an interior design degree from EMU—they include colorful wall-art Squiggles made from PVC, acrylic, and wood, and Bolts, wooden cocktail tables threaded on marble bases. “The furniture work has a monolithic nature that is somewhat serious and whimsical at the same time,” she says.
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The Old City Building
“This month’s I Spy is an imposing building on N. Fourth Ave. that was called the ‘City Building,’” writes Ken Koral. Built in 1893, it “housed city offices until city hall opened,” in 1907, shares Dyke McEwen.
Read MoreJanuary 2025 Home Sales
The return of a familiar name, timing is everything, and are older condos the new starter homes?
Read MoreQuestion Corner | March 2025
How often are Ann Arbor’s restaurants inspected?
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Ella in Furs, Forrest Tucker in the Parking Lot
I was sorting hotel room keys one afternoon in 1978 when I looked up to see Ella Fitzgerald approaching the front desk at the Campus Inn. “Miss Fitzgerald would like to check in,” a man accompanying her announced.
Read MoreSummer Camps and Activities
Let’s get ready for a summer of play! The Ann Arbor Observer is here to help you find the camp perfectly suited for your camper, with overnight, full-, and half-day camps in Washtenaw County and surrounding communities. Explore...
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Power Couple
On October 7, 2023, as Jon Mallek married first-term state representative Jason Morgan in matching navy suits with teal bowties under a trellis draped with eucalyptus leaves, the thought of running for office himself was the furthest thing from his mind.
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The Negro-Caucasian Club
On one autumn afternoon in 1925, two U-M students stopped for lunch at a restaurant in Nickels Arcade, but no one came to take their order. After a long wait, a busboy approached them with a stack of dirty dishes and placed them on the table.
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The Wisdom of Soupy Sales
I had a seminal experience in sixth grade. I rearranged my school schedule to maximize my exposure to the wisdom of Soupy Sales.
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Yost Ice Arena
“You thought you could skate this one by the readers, didn’t you?” quips Mary Adams about January’s feature. “I believe the ‘cathedral’ is Yost Ice Arena on S. State,” writes David Cooke, referring to the clue. “I admit that I don’t get the clue,” writes Mike McGraw, “but I recognize Yost.” “One of the best sports environments anywhere,” says Jane Thurston.
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Finding Her Voice
Born in Berlin, Germany, in 1930, the retired U-M professor remembers a wonderful childhood—until 1937, when the Nazis confiscated her father’s bank and gave it to “non-Jews.” Ever resourceful, her father managed to find a job with American Express and moved the family to Amsterdam. “But we had not moved far enough,” Butter says. The Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940 and instituted the same anti-Semitic policies the Hasenbergs had fled three years earlier.
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A Sherpa’s Story
Recently, a book appeared among the Nepali handicrafts in the window of Himalayan Bazaar on Main St. Beyond Everest traces the path that took the store’s co-owner from grinding poverty to the top of the world’s highest mountain. He and his wife and co-owner, Moni Mulepati, were married there, drawing international coverage.
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Weiss Haus American Diner
“‘We’re going back’ can be taken a couple ways but add in the 1600 Penn Street address I know what it means to me 😢”
Read MoreQuestion Corner | February 2025
Could congestion pricing be used in Ann Arbor to reduce traffic congestion?
Read MoreDecember 2024 Home Sales
U-M football legend Desmond Howard, now an ESPN sportscaster based in Miami, plunked down $800,000 for a 2-bed, 2-bath, 1,459-square-foot Liberty Lofts unit at 315 Second St.
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