The 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“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...
Read MoreLast 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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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“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 MoreOnetime 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...
Read MoreFour 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...
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 MoreAnn 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...
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 MoreDavid 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...
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 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 MoreOncologists 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...
Read More“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...
Read MoreBy 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...
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 More“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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