2014 June

Birth of the Cube Farm

Driving by the deserted, dilapidated one-story building at 2285 S. State, no one would ever guess it was the birthplace of the office cubicle, an invention that radically changed the American workplace. The much-maligned...

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Breakthrough

The tumors were gone. A month earlier, scientists at the Pfizer laboratories on Plymouth Road had begun dosing mice bearing human tumors with a new kind of cancer drug. Now technicians examining the mice could feel nothing...

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The Reinhart Legacy

From the mid-1980s through 2012 the horse race to watch in Ann Arbor real estate was between the Charles Reinhart Company and the Edward Surovell Company. “Every January, the numbers would come out,” laughs Steve...

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Potholed!

In early March, Joe O’Neal turned his Subaru Legacy off S. Main St. onto Hoover, hit a bad pothole, and blew out two tires. The tow cost him $72, and because he had all-wheel drive, he had to replace all four tires. That...

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Just Imagine Turns the Corner

Next door to Chelsea Bakery, William Harris–owner of Just Imagine, a book, toy, and music store–is strumming a guitar while he chats with a customer. At the end of March he moved his business, which he opened four...

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Shaun Manning

Nostalgia, as one of the characters in Shaun Manning’s new graphic novel, Interesting Drug, points out, can be addictive. But the “what if” of this science fiction book takes that idea further. What if there...

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The Coleman Era

A “Farewell Mary Sue” party in mid-March pulled out all the stops. Jeff Daniels introduced President Coleman to the crowd at the Michigan Union–faculty, staff, regents, and a lot of students. Regent Andrea...

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Reasons for Hope

“By law we have to pass a balanced budget by our last meeting in June,” says Ann Arbor school board trustee Glenn Nelson. “This year that’s June 25.”To get there, the board will have to close a...

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GCO is now The Floor Trader

GCO became The Floor Trader when its parent company acquired Stone Mountain Carpet Mills, merged the two, and neither company wanted to take the other’s name. “I like the new name,” says Matt Merkel, who opened...

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Dome Home

Q. From Plymouth Rd., you can see a building above Arbor Springs that looks like it has an observatory. What’s the story there? A. That is not an observatory, but the “dome home” of architect Sahba Laal....

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Sculpture on Campus

On the road to Mandalay,Where the flyin’-fishes play,An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ‘crost the Bay!These lines from Kipling’s poem “Mandalay” came immediately to mind when we...

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Downtown Doughnuts

In May, Dexter residents Kim and Saing Yam opened the Chelsea Bakery in the former Glee Cake & Pastry space on Main Street–and Kim says the community response has been “overwhelming.” The husband-and-wife...

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Together Again

The breakup was tumultuous, but the reunion has been sweet. Ten years after the Saline Fiddlers Philharmonic split in two, the high school ensembles will reassemble as a single private nonprofit August 1. Soon-to-be co-directors...

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Seva at Westgate

Change is not always about better or worse–and sometimes it’s not even that different. Take Seva, the vegetarian restaurant that had been downtown on Liberty since, like, the hippie days (1973). For many, it was...

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AASO on the air

The Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra’s final concert of last season, an all-Brahms program in April, was heard by far more people than can fit into the Michigan Theater. Michigan State’s public radio station, WKAR,...

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Custom Decks at Flophouse

Flophouse Skateboards, underneath Taco King, started when another basement business, Eco Sign Solutions, began spilling over into Taco King’s storage space. After some polite nagging, Taco King owner Saber Naghmouchi...

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May Erlewine

When May Erlewine returns to the Ark on June 20, she’ll be bringing along her two latest, and arguably finest, creations. However she may showcase only one of them on stage. For sure she’ll be featuring songs from...

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Small-town Heroin

Three or four years ago, Saline mayor Brian Marl recalls, then police chief Paul Bunten told him that Washtenaw County officials were alarmed that “heroin is becoming more prevalent” in the county. Until then, Marl,...

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Survivor: Real Estate

Bogdasarian, forty-three, is the president of the Promanas Group, an Ann Arbor real estate investment firm, and he feels fortunate to have made it through the Great Recession. “In the end of 2007 and pretty much all of...

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Spanish Harlem Orchestra

Note: Since going to press this event has been canceled.By the time the Spanish Harlem Orchestra lands in Ann Arbor on Friday June 20, a portion of the Power Center will have been temporarily modified to accommodate dancers in...

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