HACKED!
At the end of March, local business owner Linda W. Fitzgerald discovered that her website had been hacked and that scammers had stolen her company’s identity. This diary is based on a blog she posted as the fraud...
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Mystery Building on Broadway
Q: What is the story behind the brick and wood structure on the south side of Broadway (at Swift) that has been inactive for decades? The location is so good, why hasn’t it been developed?A. Opened in 1969 as an Italian...
Read MoreFundred Dollar Bills
When the armored truck broke down in Virginia, Brian Banks was relieved. Banks, an academic advisor at the U-M School of Art and Design, is the local coordinator for the Fundred Dollar Bill Project. Merging art and advocacy,...
Read MoreGrowing Closer
Kate Long won’t plant the first seeds at her new Deer Tracks Farm in Ann Arbor Township till next year. But she’s already got a gaggle of potential customers for her organic vegetables–as well as volunteer...
Read MoreOrang-Bunyan
“THEY’RE BACK!” announced a message written on the blacktop path near Las Vegas Park in late March. And they were: the path was covered in chalk drawings depicting a virtual menagerie of characters you’ll...
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Housing Commission Coup
“I was shocked,” Alan Levy says. “I didn’t deserve this.” Levy, a retired U-M housing official, had thought that when he got back from vacation at the end of March, he’d lead the Ann Arbor...
Read MorePay to Pave
“It was forty years old, and it was dangerous,” says resident El Weir of the roads in his Scio Township subdivision, Wing Meadows. “I’ve lived here since 1973, and the road was getting really bad. And not...
Read MoreSmoking Ban Starts Today
“Three things make up a bar: alcohol, adults, cigarette smoking.” So says Steve–he wouldn’t give his last name–a manager at the Old Town. He’s reacting angrily to the statewide ban on smoking...
Read MoreCentral Park West
West Park, once a thriving year-round hub of activity, is now often deserted, even on warm summer days. But thanks to the Obama administration’s economic stimulus money, it’s getting a million-dollar makeover....
Read MoreBrit Satchwell at the Helm
Early on a chilly fall Saturday, a man stood just outside the Farmers’ Market on Detroit Street. His face almost hidden in a hooded sweatshirt, he looked like a blue-collar worker among the tidily dressed academics and...
Read MoreClose Call
The car racing the lightat Observatory and East Medical Center Drive didn’t even slow as the signal turned yellow, then red. The walk signal lit up, and a woman waiting to cross East Medical Center stepped into the street...
Read MoreLocation, Bathroom, Location
When the Zaragon Place high-rise on East University opened last fall, its rents set new records for campus housing: two-bedroom apartments listed for $2,500 a month, six-bedrooms for $6,000. Yet this coming fall tenants will pay...
Read MoreSaving Cats at HSHV
“Now we have a building that’s working with us,” says Tanya Hilgendorf.Executive director of the Humane Society of Huron Valley since 2005, Hilgendorf led the sometimes-bruising battle to replace HSHV’s...
Read MoreBonus Round
When Congress passed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) last spring, it earmarked $21.5 billion for scientific research, equipment, and construction projects. Because it didn’t require that the...
Read MoreBob Guenzel Bows Out
“Last year was very stressful,” admits county administrator Bob Guenzel. “I worked more than I’d ever worked, and I had trouble sleeping. My wife said I didn’t talk in my sleep, I yelled.”His...
Read MorePassing the Buck
Just a few months into reviewing development proposals for the city-owned property known as “the library lot,” city council member Stephen Rapundalo sounds weary.”I don’t know where the conspiracy...
Read MoreFebruary 2010 Crime Map
Click here to view of zoomable map of February, 2010, crime reports from the Ann Arbor Police Department and the public safety departments of the U-M and Pittsfield Township.Burglaries continued their seasonal recovery from the...
Read MoreThe Masters of LTL
Here’s Con-way Freight’s problem: pick up 60,000 small consignments of freight from separate locations around North America–anything from a generator to half a dozen pallets of flooring. Bring them to one of...
Read MoreThe Census in Ann Arbor
Sunny or stormy, a group of people will work from midnight to 7 a.m. the last day of March, searching for the outdoor homeless–in tents, under bridges, in sleeping bags near churches. Yep the census bureau strikes...
Read MoreReplumbing Washtenaw Heights
Any way you lay it, 30,000 feet is a lot of pipe. In fact, it’s 5.7 miles–exactly the distance around the subdivision bounded by Packard, Washtenaw, Carpenter, and Golfside. Called Washtenaw Heights by its...
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