The Rainbow of Colors at Anderson Paints
“That’s the moon over the rainbow of colors at Anderson Paints,” writes Joshua Rabinowitz. “2386 W. Stadium Blvd.,” adds Pamela Kittel. Founded downtown in the 1950s, the Anderson Paint Company...
Read MoreAnn Arbor
Temple Kulam
Jul 4, 2014 | Community, Marketplace |
Over the years, the Fake Ad Czar has been called many things. Devious. Unfair. Lanky. And his favorite, clever. Until this month, however, he’d never been called a theological scholar.That changed with Marty...
Read MoreDeparting: outdoor gear, futons, hot dogs, and pepperoni rolls
Jul 3, 2014 | Marketplace |
John Davis’s Colton Bay Outfitters slid out of the world just as another high-end outfitter of trout fishing equipment slid into it. Lauren Kingsley, one of the owners of the newly opened Bailiwicks Outdoors in Dexter,...
Read MoreAnn Arborite Hiawatha Bailey
At the Blind Pig, Hiawatha Bailey says, “they know how to treat a rocker right.” When he’s not crooning behind the mic or listening to other acts in the bar’s main room, you may find him downstairs in the...
Read MoreObit for the O Team
On my bike rides this spring, I pedaled past Mitchell Field and Riverside Park. At Mitchell, four of the six softball fields I played on for years with the Observer’s O Team have been plowed under. At Riverside, where I...
Read MoreThe Artist
Jul 1, 2014 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Retro is all the rage these days. Quite a few bands now play some sort of Americana and use old-timey instruments. Even literary efforts harken back to old days. Instead of reading an e-book on an e-reader this summer, I’m...
Read MoreBirth of the Cube Farm
Jun 30, 2014 | Featured, Marketplace |
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...
Read MoreBreakthrough
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...
Read MoreThe 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...
Read MoreShaun Manning
Jun 26, 2014 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
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...
Read MoreJust Imagine Turns the Corner
Jun 26, 2014 | Marketplace |
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...
Read MoreThe 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...
Read MoreReasons 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...
Read MoreGCO is now The Floor Trader
Jun 23, 2014 | Marketplace |
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...
Read MoreSculpture on Campus
Jun 22, 2014 | Community |
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...
Read MoreDowntown Doughnuts
Jun 22, 2014 | Marketplace |
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...
Read MoreSeva at Westgate
Jun 21, 2014 | Dine, Marketplace, Restaurant Reviews |
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...
Read MoreTogether Again
Jun 21, 2014 | Uncategorized |
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...
Read MoreUpcoming Events
- October 25, 2025 Group Runs: Ann Arbor Running Company (AARC) 7:00 am
- October 25, 2025 Used Book Sale: JLC Book Sale 9:00 am
- October 25, 2025 parkrun USA 9:00 am
- October 25, 2025 “Dexter/Chelsea Saturday Morning Breakfast Ride”: Ann Arbor Bicycle Touring Society 9:00 am
- October 25, 2025 Invasive Species Removal at Trinity Health Ann Arbor Natural Areas 10:00 am