Dexter Village voters will soon make their biggest political decision since the town was settled in 1824: to be or not to be a city. And the clock is ticking: as the Community Observer went to press, voters were selecting nine...
Read MoreEven in an election year with no national or state offices at stake, ten candidates are competing November 5 for five seats on city council. It’s the most heavily contested council race in the last ten years.Because only a...
Read MoreThe city’s costliest building project has a fresh-air payoff. If you take the Border-to-Border trail past Geddes Dam, or walk the grounds at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, you might have noticed that the air is pleasanter...
Read MoreA small sign saying “Closed for Renovations” is taped to the enormous front door of the U-M’s Clements Library. Kevin Graffagnino unlocks it and leads the way into the Great Room. It’s not looking so...
Read MoreAt the fibrillating heart of hard-partying undergrad-ville rises University Towers, a well-worn apartment building that until a few years ago loomed unchallenged over its campus neighborhood.”Did you know Madonna lived...
Read More
In his first two years as head coach, Brady Hoke brought Michigan football back from the land of the undead. He did it by humbly adapting his style to the talent he inherited–something his predecessor, Rich Rodriguez,...
Read More“It was like a movie,” says Ahmed Hamdi. Seven years ago, when he was twenty-one, men with guns burst into his family’s home in Baghdad. They shoved Ahmed and his father to their knees and pushed their heads...
Read More“We’re all marching toward the cliff,” says Glenn Nelson, treasurer of the Ann Arbor school board, “and we want Ann Arbor to be far back in the line.”The cliff is the seemingly inevitable bankruptcy...
Read MoreWhat do the painted rock and Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s annual Mud Bowl football game have in common?If you answered that they’re both beloved and messy U-M traditions on Washtenaw Avenue, then you’re right, up to a...
Read MoreI don’t eat locally grown food because it makes me feel better, though it does, or because I want to support local farms and the local economy, though I do.I eat locally grown food because it tastes better. Carrots so...
Read MoreOn June 7, in public sessions at City Hall, four artists from around the country presented their plans for the new Stadium Boulevard bridges. As a member of the task force reviewing the designs, David Huntoon was...
Read More“We’re at a crossroads of politics in Ann Arbor,” says Steve Kunselman, an incumbent city councilmember from the Third Ward on the southeast side seeking a fourth term.”We are at a turning point,”...
Read MoreTo grasp the scale and scope of the changes to the Malletts Creek watershed in recent years, visit the two big parks it flows through.Start at Mary Beth Doyle Park on the city’s southeast side. Enter from Birch Hollow...
Read MoreWhen residents describe East Ann Arbor, they use terms such as peaceful, quiet, and tranquil. The neighborhoods around the intersection of Packard and Platt have block after block of small, neat homes, many built in the 1940s...
Read More“The way things are currently structured, it’s inevitable,” says Dexter school board president Larry Cobler. “At some point every school district in the state is either going to be under an emergency...
Read MoreNote: All children were interviewed and photographed with permission from their parents. And in a healthy moment, one artist, Yos Belchatovski, stopped us from taking their pictures until he verified that.”I just like...
Read MoreNot so long ago, farmers markets looked like an endangered species. “Sales are down and fewer farmers are coming to Ann Arbor,” the Ann Arbor Observer wrote in 1988. “Will the market survive to the year...
Read MoreThe city’s proud of the Argo Cascades–and why not? Since it opened last spring, the aquatic playground has won two design awards and proven enormously popular. River trips increased 57 percent last year, despite low...
Read MoreBlogging was big in the late ’90s and early 2000s, as an explosion of Internet users cottoned to the idea of sharing with their circle of friends through an online journal. These days, much of that content has migrated to...
Read MoreGeneral Tso’s chicken doesn’t get much respect these days. Those deep-fried chicken nuggets with their brown, sticky sauce have taken chop suey’s place as the most mocked item on a Chinese restaurant...
Read More
