News

A Tale of Two Buildings

At 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...

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Semi-Privatization

“If we didn’t have this opportunity, we’d have to sell off half our properties,” says Jennifer Hall.”HUD is shrinking so fast it’s scary,” says Hall, executive director of the Ann Arbor...

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RIP AnnArborcom

Last summer, bright blue billboards proclaimed AnnArbor. com the “#1 local newspaper site in America.” Yet in September the website’s owners, the Newhouse family, abandoned the four-year-old brand and its acorn...

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Reanimating Michigan Football

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,...

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The Schools’ Fiscal Cliff

“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...

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A Seat at the Table

Onetime Lions quarterback Eric Hipple has joined the former players suing the NFL–but he’s not in it for the money.Hipple got concussed on the field many times. Like the 4,400 other former players who’ve filed...

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New balance

Four days after beating seven-term incumbent Marcia Higgins in the August Democratic primary, Jack Eaton sat in his kitchen enjoying his coffee and his victory. After two unsuccessful campaigns against Margie Teall, he’d...

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Is It Art?

On 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...

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The New E-waste Landscape

Ann Arborites gain new options for getting rid of those old TVs.Hot tickets or Black Friday sale items are usually the reasons behind lengthy customer queues. But drivers whose cars snaked slowly through the Pioneer High School...

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Ann Arbor at the Crossroads

“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,”...

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7-Eleven Bottle Return Protest

David Harrison’s picket flummoxed the AAPD—but the state is on his side.David Harrison deliberately chose noon on the Fourth of July to test the bottle return law at 7-Eleven on State Street—not so much because he was...

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Reinventing Malletts Creek

To 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...

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Lessons in Survival

“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...

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Cancer Cuts

Oncologists squeezed by the federal “sequester” are looking for help–from their patients. St. Joe’s docs sent out what one calls a “Dear Patient” letter emphasizing that while they will still...

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Catastrophic Reform

“This is a cash grab, pure and simple,” says state rep Adam Zemke.Asked about his new job as Ann Arbor’s Fifty-Fifth District representative in the house, Zemke replies, “It’s very different being...

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Superintendent Scramble

By the time Andy Ingall was hired as Chelsea’s school superintendent, he’d been in the district administration for thirteen years. He’d been director of instruction under superintendent Dave Killips, and, when...

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The Argo Cascades: Wild Ride

The 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...

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Burned Out!

“I’ve had a lot of adventures in my life, but I could have done without this one,” says Tom Fournier, eighty-seven. As he cleaned up his kitchen one night last month, he noticed light flickering outside his...

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Fundraising’s New Wave

Alarmed by the school district’s deepening financial hole, the twenty-two-year-old Ann Arbor Public Schools Foundation recently hired its first full-time director, Mary Cooperwasser. “It is time for all of us to...

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Green Religion

“One minister called our wind turbine our steeple,” says Hannah Hotchkiss, welcome ministry coordinator at the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor (UU). Across the country, thousands of faith...

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