Shades of 1973
Recently I was given a copy of the official program of the 1973 Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival. I worked the event for John Sinclair’s Rainbow People’s Party.As I was leafing through the program, something jumped...
Read MoreRecently I was given a copy of the official program of the 1973 Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival. I worked the event for John Sinclair’s Rainbow People’s Party.As I was leafing through the program, something jumped...
Read MoreKirk Westphal was puzzled. In October 2013, he got a mass email from Chuck Gelman inviting people to “attend the democratic [party] meeting and support jane lumm or the candidate of your choice. this [meeting] is an...
Read MoreSep 28, 2014 | Dine, Marketplace, Restaurant Reviews |
“Arborland was a ghost town,” recalls Mike Roddy. Thirty years ago, when he and wife, Bridget Roddy (nee Sperrazza), went looking for restaurant locations, the shopping center anchoring the Washtenaw strip was...
Read MoreSep 27, 2014 | Marketplace |
In addition to the ten (!) new eating places around central campus, there’s an update on the clothing front: the Duerksens closed their All About Blue U-M indicia store on State Street. Their daughter Kate has opened...
Read MoreSep 27, 2014 | Marketplace |
Michelle Kulcsar moved the Dancer’s Boutique from the Lamp Post Plaza to Zeeb Road’s Scio Town Center in the space recently vacated by the Little Seedling. The Little Seedling moved into Boulevard Plaza on West...
Read MoreSep 26, 2014 | Community |
Q. I noticed what seems to be a temporary scaffold built under the upper dome of the Ypsilanti water tower. What is its purpose, and how was it installed? If one could access the outside of the round windows installed in the...
Read MoreSep 26, 2014 | Community |
“I used to wonder if I was crazy, because occasionally a seat would seem too snug,” says Karen Epstein, a volunteer usher at the Michigan Theater. “And I’d think, ‘That’s weird! I was just...
Read MoreSep 25, 2014 | Dine, Marketplace, Restaurant Reviews |
Greater Ann Arbor has happily emerged from decades of near-drought on the barbecue front. The latest of a half-dozen recent arrivals, Ohio-based Old Carolina Barbecue Company, splashed into town in spring with mobile stands (at...
Read MoreSep 24, 2014 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Lolita Hernandez, who worked on the line and with the UAW for thirty-three years before becoming an instructor at the U-M Residential College, has written wonderfully about the people she knew at General Motors. Her earlier...
Read MoreSep 23, 2014 | Marketplace |
The Tinkerhesses aren’t the only shopkeepers to have discovered that everyone wears clothes. Last year, we noted Busy Hands, the Main St. knitting store, was devoting a significant amount of space to clothing, and it still...
Read MoreSep 23, 2014 | Marketplace |
Fourth Ave Birkenstock now sells clothing–organic, natural, breathable cotton shirts, skirts, dresses, and pants, largely focused on two brands: Maggie’s (based in Ypsi) and Earth Creations. “I like things with...
Read MoreSep 22, 2014 | Community |
Early one morning, when the backyard was bright-lit, I set off on a gardening mission aimed at death and destruction. The weeds were getting overly aggressive; the shrubs and bushes were expanding beyond their allotted...
Read MoreSep 21, 2014 | Marketplace |
Asked if it isn’t a little unusual for a gas station to be selling expensive toys and used vacuums, Zeke Kaji, who owns the Marathon station at the “V” where Maple and W. Stadium come together, counters:...
Read MoreSep 21, 2014 | Marketplace |
From Briarwood to Main St. isn’t the usual trajectory for a gift shop. Nicki Wilson, an interior designer who worked as a lighting designer at Gross Electric for seventeen years, opened iT Boutique in the Von Maur wing of...
Read MoreSep 20, 2014 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
If you’re new to the community, and this time of year so many are–welcome!–the Old West Side Homes Tour is a good way to inhale the aroma of one of Ann Arbor’s most iconic neighborhoods. For a lot of...
Read MoreSep 19, 2014 | Community |
“We keep running into people with a couple of compost buckets and knee-high leaves,” says landscaper Cory Benoit. “That’s not going to work.”The city stopped sending out trucks to collect piles of...
Read MoreIf the words polar vortex still strike fear in your heart, just think what they do to Holly Balansag. Balansag is the winemaker at Sandhill Crane Vineyards, about twenty minutes west of Chelsea. As we approach the harvest season...
Read MoreSep 18, 2014 | Marketplace |
Nick Stanko and Ian Forsyth, who opened Ann Arbor Running Company, look like runners. Strung together from bone and muscle, as if nature just forgot to add the fat, they both say they try to run about seventy miles a week....
Read MoreSep 18, 2014 | Marketplace |
Chris Hutton closed his Quiznos franchise on Plymouth Rd. “Business was slow. Quiznos didn’t weather the recession very well,” he says. “I think everyone knows that.” The formerly ubiquituous...
Read MoreSep 17, 2014 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Editor’s note: This event has been canceled.I read The Art of Fielding because it was a new baseball novel. I found out it was about a lot more than baseball.In Chad Harbach’s debut novel, published in 2011, the...
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