The Short-run Kings
The Edwards Brothers-Malloy merger created one of the country’s largest book printers. Now it just has to survive wary publishers, canny libraries, and the rise of e-books.The two time-honored book printers have been...
Read More2012 June
Nobody Flunks Out
In most ways Central Academy is like any other Ann Arbor school: pictures of the Statue of Liberty on the walls, and a copy of the Little House on the Prairie Cook Book in the library. And in most ways its students are like any...
Read MoreFrom Palestine to Ann Arbor
When Jordan attacked Israel in 1967, it began an extraordinary chain of events. During the Six-Day War, Israel occupied the West Bank, and afterward, a third of the 900,000 Palestinians living there left. Among them were Marwan...
Read MoreConnecting the County
Inside the AATA’s ambitious plan to spread mass transit beyond Ann ArborWell, it wasn’t the library. That was my best guess as the site of the “u196” meeting I was looking for. I had decided at the last...
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The False Spring
In March, garlands of white and yellow blossoms festooned the hundreds of apple trees that have been carefully planted over the past eighty years at the Lutz family’s orchard, located about five miles southwest of Saline....
Read MoreAmish Tables Moves to Plymouth
Torie Wyant, marketing coordinator for Amish Tables, says the company showroom planned to move from Scio Township to downtown Plymouth in mid-May. Though the company ships its handsome maple, cherry, and oak tables all over the...
Read MoreMonroe move
Garden Connections, says real estate broker Oleg Michajlenko of A2A Realty Advisors, closed its shop on Jackson Rd. in December and moved to Monroe. Garden Connections was the hydroponic store on the north side of Jackson, next...
Read MoreStorm Chasers
Like many residents of the Huron Farms subdivision, Scott Kraft was grateful for all the help that arrived after the March 15 tornado. Right behind the police, firefighters, and ambulances, volunteers showed up offering water...
Read MoreBranching Out
The Wild Side Smoke Shop has opened a branch on East Liberty–the original store in the Courtyard Shops opened about three years ago. Sean, the courteous and well-spoken young man who works there full time (though he claims...
Read MoreWafel Shop
There was supposed to be a waffle shop on Fourth Ave., but you can’t serve waffles without juice. Noah Goldsmith signed a lease for a Fourth Ave. space to start the Wafel Shop, a coffee shop serving two kinds of Belgian...
Read MoreFrack? No!
There’s oil under Manchester and Saline townships. How they get it out is the question.Hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking, blasts chemical-laced water and sand deep into the earth to splinter rock formations and release...
Read MoreHoward Cooper
Back in the early 1960s, young Howard Cooper wanted to buy a Chevy dealership. From a car family–his dad had a Dodge dealership in Kalamazoo–he knew how to sell cars. But he also knew that with the limited capital he...
Read MoreThe Rebirth of Mill Creek
Dexter village’s astounding 74 percent population increase in the last census–from 2,338 in 2000 to 4,067 in 2010–made it the fastest-growing community in the state. Yet even as new subdivisions sprouted in...
Read MorePoetic postage
“Robert Hayden,” Fran Wright announced jubilantly, bending down to clear grass cuttings off a grave marker at Fairview Cemetery. “Success!””Robert Hayden 1913-1980 / Poet,” the marker read....
Read MoreOrpheum Bell 2012
Orpheum Bell has been kicking around Ann Arbor since 2005, playing its distinctly Eastern European folk, yet genre-challenging, sound. Founded by Aaron Klein and Serge van der Voo, the only remaining members of the original...
Read MoreTheater Romance
“Historic theaters are kind of intrinsically romantic,” says Russ Collins, executive director of the Michigan Theater. Maybe that’s why eight to ten couples a year get married there.The tab can range from $750...
Read MoreChoose Your Poison
The atmosphere at Sylvan Township Board meetings these days is different from what it was a year ago. The audience, which once barely outnumbered the five-member board, has become more numerous and more engaged.”There has...
Read MorePiatto di Pasta
It’s hard to find anyone to speak on record about what happened to Piatto di Pasta in Stone Plaza. Nearby business owners are reluctant to pile on Michael DeCola, who had high hopes for his take-out pasta shop, and...
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