Metcalf Modern
Bob Metcalf, at age eighty-seven, is adding a two-car garage to his house on 1052 Arlington. He already has a one-car garage and isn’t currently driving, but he’s building it now because he can’t bear the...
Read More2011 April
Who is Dale Newman?
“It’s not easy. You have to have a thick hide to live with the criticism,” says Dale Newman. “I’ve never Googled myself.” If he did Google himself, he’d find such headlines as “DTE...
Read MoreMeals for Mott
Easter Sunday will be a little brighter for young Mott Hospital cancer patients and families thanks to a promise Ann Arborite Paula Crosby made to herself a decade ago. After her eight-year-old son, John, died of a rare adrenal...
Read MoreA taxing question
“We can have an intelligent discussion of a city income tax here,” asserts city council member Tony Derezinski. “Because it’s a legitimate question: what should be taxed–income or property or...
Read MoreTime and technique
The climax of the Ann Arbor Symphony season will unquestionably be its performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony in the Michigan Theater on April 30. That mighty work not only calls for a huge orchestra, plus women’s...
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Owls in Love
If you heard a bird calling in a “descending tremolo” recently, says Francie Krawcke, you were probably eavesdropping on a screech owl’s courtship.”They call when it’s dark during mating season to...
Read MoreUnderwater
Just outside Chelsea, two whole neighborhoods are missing. One should be southwest of town off Pielemeier Dr., the other to the northwest off Sibley. With their comparatively small lots, the new subdivisions were designed to...
Read MoreTheater Repotted
Last year, the New Theatre Project found a home at Pot & Box, a tiny garden store at 220 Felch. TNTP, which stages classic texts as contemporary performance pieces, ran three shows there–but also discovered its limits...
Read MoreO’Leary at Anderson
You can still buy O’Leary paints in Ann Arbor, but you can’t buy it at O’Leary Paint any longer. The company closed its store on West Stadium on March 1. Now, if you want O’Leary paint, you’ll have...
Read MoreForgiving John Lennon
A well-acted play where a major character declares that his chief goal is . . . tenure is a good bet for Ann Arbor theater lovers. Here’s hoping many locals will set their GPS systems east to catch the premiere of...
Read MoreMajor Changes on Main Street
Four storefronts on the prime-time block of Main between Liberty and Washington have announced major changes. Occasionally, the Michigan-themed shop on the corner of Liberty and Main that specialized in gift baskets, closed at...
Read MoreThat Vacant Condo on Huron
Q. The new condo on the north side of Huron just west of Seventh is complete on the exterior and landscaped but does not appear to be occupied. Any idea why this is still vacant several years after construction?A. “The...
Read MoreMythlogic Computers
Mythlogic might seem like an unusual name for a computer store, but co-owner Josh Tacey says the proprietors are computer nerds and it comes with the territory: “We like mythological things.”Jeff Cline and Charlie...
Read MoreHuron Hills Reprieve
What a neighbor calls “the barbarian attempt to develop the municipal golf course” has been thwarted–at least for the moment. Faced with two competing proposals for Huron Hills Golf Course–turning it over...
Read MoreSze-Chuan West closes
Gallup Properties owns the wildly eccentric building on Stadium that housed Sze-Chuan West, and if you haven’t gotten a look at its cave-like interior, you may have missed your chance. Sze-Chuan West closed in February,...
Read MoreOff and Running
A few mainstream movies lately have focused on kids searching for birth parents (The Kids Are All Right, Mother and Child). If you’d like to see a decidedly non-Hollywoodized treatment of that issue, it’s worth a...
Read MoreArts Funding Cuts
They’re already been battered by drastically lower corporate support–Pfizer’s departure and Borders’ financial struggles eliminated two huge sponsors, and the economy reduced most of the rest–and...
Read MoreGro Blue Grows
Kriss Pullen is the matriarch of an arty family that has been running a fluid and funky retail business under one name or another in the old motorcycle garage behind the Fleetwood since 2007. First it was Geechi Bleu, owned by...
Read MoreCollision Course
Jeffrey Stamm, a former tenor with the New York Metropolitan Opera, has used a wheelchair since suffering a stroke five years ago. He says he moved to Ann Arbor last August because he wanted to live in a safe place. At the end...
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