Two longs, one short, one long. That’s the drawn-out melancholy whistle you hear twice almost every night if you live near one of the eighteen places in town where the Ann Arbor Railroad crosses a city street. The whistle...
Read MoreThe moon was full and brilliant on the night I first attended a home funeral. It was in the home of my friend Laura, whose mother Sharon had died of cancer. Laura and her sister Beth cared for their mother at home with the help...
Read MoreFor years, my family had Christmas Eve dinner in the Japanese steakhouse side of the old Champion House at Liberty and Fourth Avenue. My kids loved the whole show, with its flaming food and flashing knives. But the last few...
Read MoreCompared to most of Michigan, Ann Arbor rode out the recession fairly comfortably. But even here, many people lost their jobs due to circumstances beyond their control–and needed grit, smarts, and luck to get back to...
Read More“It costs $9,500 for the season, and all you have to do is go to the grocery store,” says Mark Hodesh. And get a food truck. Still, a patch of concrete behind Downtown Home & Garden is probably the cheapest way...
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Ann Arbor’s parks hold many trails that literally run “off the beaten path,” which came as an unpleasant surprise to two new homeowners who found unsanctioned trails in their backyard adjacent to...
Read More“I’ve just been out touching the cars,” explains Rob Tabet, sales manager of both the new Suburban Fiat dealership and the old Suburban Chrysler Jeep across the street. It’s a blustery February day, and...
Read MoreThough banks come in all sizes, there’s a considerable distinction between the multinational heavy hitters and small community banks. The big names–Bank of America, Wells Fargo, WaMu–and nonbank financial...
Read MoreMy eighty-year-old dad was hospitalized on November 30, one of the unlucky souls whose back and hip were injected with potentially fungus-contaminated steroids. We’d been watching the news, thinking, “Phew, at least...
Read MoreAre Ann Arborites spending more time in bed (perhaps watching TV)? Van Winkle Mattress is opening a second store on Jackson Road. Owner Ken Fil says he’ll mainly use the “abandoned truck terminal” as a...
Read MoreClark Professional Pharmacy is moving into a bigger space, in Arlington Square at Washtenaw and Huron Parkway. It’s one of a handful of local pharmacies offering an alternative to the cookie-cutter products of the big...
Read MoreA Burns Park couple wakes to a whooshing sound.He turns on the light. She screams. A bat is flying about their bedroom.It is winter, but local bats appear whenever the weather warms. One day last spring, the Whittaker Road...
Read MoreYou get the feeling that if Mike Tawil could sell mattresses out of the trunk of his car, he would. But mattresses don’t fit into car trunks, so he went looking for Ann Arbor’s cheapest space to rent, which he found...
Read MorePublic libraries are often centers for local history research, but the Ann Arbor District Library is going a step further. In 2010, the AADL took custody of the archives of the defunct Ann Arbor News–a vast collection of...
Read MoreToppers Pizza recently opened on William on what was already the most pizza-dense stretch of Ann Arbor. Within a one-block radius of William and Maynard are three pizza parlors, each with a unique claim to fame: NYPD (New York...
Read MoreThe Wafel Shop opened on February 4, selling not only the cooked-to-order Belgian (here more specifically designated “Brussels”) waffle we’re all familiar with, but another kind called the “Liege”...
Read MoreA war correspondent has taken root at the U-M art school.In his career as a photojournalist, David Turnley traveled to seventy-five countries, met Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, and the Dalai Lama, and covered the falls of...
Read MoreWhile fast-sprouting housing towers transform the downtown skyline, a pair of stylish new-model grocery-delis have emerged to serve cosmopolitan downtown residents. In contrast to the late White Market on William–a...
Read MoreQ: I have a question about the yield sign at the entrance to Arborland. I never can tell who the sign is for … the people entering from the Ypsi side, or the people entering from the A2 side. Can you get an answer from the...
Read MoreTwenty years ago, Turner Geriatric Center social worker Ruth Campbell helped a client, Holocaust survivor Miriam Garvil, begin writing her autobiography. This winter, I Have to Survive: Miriam’s Story, was finally...
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