2014 December

Mark Koernke and Me

Mark and I never really hit it off.I first met Mark Koernke in the late ’80s. Gene Ward, a fellow FBI agent, had asked me to accompany him on an interview of Koernke. We met with Koernke in his basement office at Alice...

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Lurie Terrace at Fifty

Lurie Terrace, a residence for active seniors of moderate means, was a real groundbreaker when it was built fifty years ago. “There were none [like it] to the best of our knowledge” recalls Bob Chance, one of the...

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(Bionic) Eye on the Prize

Dressed in a teal sterile surgeon uniform, Thiran Jayasundera holds microscissors with latex gloves. Sitting, he leans in to stare through a microscope-like lens aimed straight down over a patient’s eye. Backaches. Bright...

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A Team of Their Own

Some glide on their skates and others wobble, but in early November members of the new Huron/Skyline women’s high school hockey team are finally on the ice for their first week of practice. As Huron sophomore Miah...

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Still crusading

Roger Rapoport, a 1968 U-M grad, wasn’t surprised this fall when angry and media-savvy undergrads helped to unseat athletic director Dave Brandon. As a Michigan Daily reporter, he himself helped unseat a regent, Eugene...

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Because, Beilein

Abysmal as Michigan football looks right now, in the early 2000s men’s basketball looked even worse. The Ed Martin scandal had wiped out the wins of the Fab Five era, and after years of losses two successive coaches, Brian...

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Heavenly Music

“What do you think the character of this piece should be?” asks Tom Strode, looking up from the piano in St. Paul Lutheran Church.Answers come quickly from the young boys gathered round him.”Bold!”...

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Weather Vanes

Next time you are taking a stroll downtown, look up at the top of the West Side Book Shop on Liberty, about half a block west of Main. At the pinnacle of the 1888 building is an ornate weather vane that features an elaborate...

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Over the Top

As the state’s carnival/amusement and ski area safety manager, Doman knows a thing or two about ski lifts. And he says that what Ann Arbor needs, instead of a light-rail “connector” through town, is an aerial...

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S. Division Traffic Lanes

Q. Are the traffic lanes of legal width on S. Division between William and Washington? Ever since the sidewalks were “improved” a number of years ago it has seemed impossible for three cars to be in their lanes when...

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Pouring It Out

“I have [employees] just sitting here, waiting for a load” to deliver, says Paul Gott of Gotts Transit Mix, a small Milan-based supplier of concrete to contractors in Ann Arbor and elsewhere. As we spoke, Gott was...

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Real Irish at Arbor Hills

“I’m Irish. It’s hard to be succinct,” says Stuart Marley, but he did an admirable job describing his Real Irish store opening at the end of November in the Arbor Hills space next to Zola Bistro....

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A Quarter of Closings

Sometime between Thanksgiving and the first week of December Tom Ungrodt says he’ll be closing the Crown House of Gifts in Traver Village. His father started the store over fifty years ago in Adrian, though its longest...

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Dinner and a Movie

Dinner and a movie: the classic night out. But what to do with the remains of that Knight’s cowboy steak if you want to walk across the street and see a movie at the Michigan Theater? For reasons ranging from sanitary to...

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Eata Pita

Main and William has a history of world cuisine in an unleaded milieu. A decade ago, Marnee Thai opened with picture windows affording diners a great view of cars refueling at the BP gas station next door. Now there’s a...

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Roger Monk’s

For endurance, not many area restaurants can beat the Dixboro spot currently known as Roger Monk’s. Opened in 1928 as the Country Cupboard, when Plymouth Rd. was a major thoroughfare, it served family-style meals to...

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Greek Street Food at Mezes

“Greek street food” is how Kirk Blohm describes Mezes Greek Grill in half of the former Sushi.com space on North University. Blohm says he’s the only one of the four owners who isn’t Greek, but “I...

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Menards Comes to Scio

Construction is well underway at Menards on Jackson Rd. Spaulding Clark, Scio’s township supervisor, says he doesn’t know when it will open. “They’re a closely held corporation; they’ve done this at...

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WCC upset

“I’m pretty stunned,” emails WCC student Christina Fleming. “I truly was not expecting this … I am currently a humble student who is now moving into an important position of...

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