With its dark walls hung with exotic guitars and covered with concert posters and records, the inside of the Ann Arbor Music Center oozes cool. Coolest of all is its owner, Alex Johnson: teacher, guitarist, and prophet, his long...
Read MoreThe orange construction cones and earthmovers on the corner of Washington and First are a very big deal. Construction is finally under way on the $30 million Ann Arbor City Apartments–eleven years after the city first...
Read MoreRural poverty is every bit as bad as urban poverty. It’s just harder to see.”People can disguise their problems, but not forever,” says Nancy Paul, director of Faith in Action, a human-services group operating...
Read More“When I was elected, I could see that the city had built up too many employees in the ’90s,” says mayor John Hieftje. “Take safety services. The police had more officers in 2000 than they did in 1991, and...
Read MoreDrive north on Maple Road past M-14, and you can’t miss Skyline High School, a postmodern monument in brick, glass, and steel. After two roundabouts at the freeway ramps, visitors turn in at a third for the main entrance...
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Michigan’s 4-0 defeat of Michigan State April 6 at Ray Fisher Stadium promised to be yet another grand game in a rivalry that I’ve enjoyed for more than thirty years.Yet what made it unforgettable weren’t the...
Read MoreJamie and Jordan, which returns on April 28 as part of the monthly Performance Network children’s theater series, is a charming musical about two boys born in the same hospital on the same day who become best friends until...
Read MoreAbraham Hejazi, who is closing his women’s clothing store Allure on the Michigan Theater block of Liberty, isn’t the first shop owner to cite the area’s diminishing foot traffic as the reason. But he has a...
Read MoreThough fewer Christians abstain from eating meat during Lent now than in the past, many still choose to give up indulgences like pastries, or chocolate, or alcohol during the season of penitence leading up to Easter. “I...
Read MoreLast November, Lyn Coffin read from her translations of Jiri [YEER-zhi] Orten’s poems, published last year under the title White Picture (Night Publishing). She was joined by the singer-songwriter, Laz Slomovits, of...
Read MoreYamato, the serene little Japanese restaurant at the back of Kerrytown’s pretty courtyard, will be closing at the end of March, and owner Kazuko Ishizuka will be retiring.Her husband, Norihiro Ishizuka, is not ready to...
Read MoreIn March, Susan Bryan cooked up thirty-four batches of play dough, dyed them blue and green, and packed them in old yogurt containers. No, she’s not a preschool teacher; she’s the county’s rain garden...
Read MoreViolinist Joshua Bell with the Academy of St. Martin in the FieldsIs this some kind of mistake?That the UMS is presenting American violinist Joshua Bell as the soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in their season’s...
Read More“We were taken by surprise by the PJ’s sale,” says Molly Motherwell, general manager of WEMU (89.1-FM). For two years, the jazz and blues public-radio station had been presenting the Jan Winkelman 5:01 Jazz...
Read MoreWalk into the Zamaan Cafe off Plymouth Road, and the upholstered surfaces and Lebanese decor items immediately signal that this is something more than an anonymous fast food joint, genus Middle Eastern. Evocative sepia photos of...
Read MoreJust how clever are the new electrical and gas meters that DTE is installing on homes and businesses throughout Ann Arbor? They’ll tell the utility when a customer suffers a power outage. In the future, they’ll...
Read MoreSome folks say Jack Driscoll doesn’t get out much. The same people are inclined to say that this is the reason Driscoll remains “our best-kept literary secret.” If they mean that this fabulous writer...
Read MoreFans of “Project Runway” are familiar with the phrase “one minute you’re in, the next minute you’re out,” as a panel of celebrities determines who goes home and who stays for another round....
Read MoreSava’s uncle takes an east-side spot.Local restaurateur Demos Panos put his Smokehouse Blues Bar and Grill on Washtenaw up for sale last year so he could concentrate on his other businesses. That paved the way for his...
Read MoreApparently the market is still not saturated when it comes to coffee. If there were a parlor game called “You Know You’re in Ann Arbor When …,” you could now finish the sentence: “… the coffee...
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