Meat Cute
“Is MAHA (Michigan Association for Harvesting Animals) a response to the restructuring of the federal food regulations? If so, doubly clever!”
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Ann Arbor
Richard Elden Weber, MD
Richard’s kindness, selflessness, exceptional sense of humor, and abiding love will be greatly missed.
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Simone Mola
Simone Mola, age 96, of Saline, Michigan, passed away peacefully on July 31, 2025. Simone was born in Mola di Bari, Italy.
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Onward, Robots
Since 2008, Liberty St. has been home to what may be Ann Arbor’s ultimate “if you know, you know” secret: Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair.
Read MoreJuly 2025 Ann Arbor Home Sales
For roughly a decade last century, the neighborhoods around Packard and Platt were their own city. East Ann Arbor separated from Pittsfield Twp. in 1947, only to accept annexation to Ann Arbor in 1956 in exchange for completing a water and sewage system. Ever since, its modest neighborhoods have provided much of the city’s most affordable housing—but as this month’s map shows, even “affordable” is now more than $300,000.
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Follow the Oil
In the alleys behind Ann Arbor restaurants, workers dump the used oil into large metal containers. Most belong to three collection companies: Evergreen Grease, G.A. Wintzer & Son Co., and Buffalo Biodiesel. They sign restaurants to lengthy contracts that create a near-territorial system.
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Screens vs. School
Pioneer High at 3:01 p.m. has the feel of a busy commuter airport. Students pour out of classrooms shouldering backpacks, swinging musical instrument cases, laughing and chatting. Many are holding cell phones.
Those phones are a point of contention at all levels of the education system: from individual classrooms to the school district, and all the way up to the Michigan legislature.
The Meaning of the $3,100 Campus Studio
As move-in began this August, Vic Village South’s website advertised, “Leasing Now Open for 2025–26!” Social media ads announced, “We have 1, 2, 3, and 4-Bedroom apartments available!”
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Julie Kobylarz
Kobylarz, thirty-six, has loved rodents since childhood. Chipmunks ate from her hand at her family’s cabin up north in Gaylord. At home in Westland, her parents gave her gerbils as a gift. In college at Central Michigan she bought “feeder mice,” which pet stores sell as food for reptiles, to keep as pets
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Work and Play at Recess Cafe
Thressa Nichols, a people operations professional who works remotely, decided to open the business she wanted to patronize. She and her husband, Zac Hodgkin, are launching Recess Cafe, where young children can play while their adults work or socialize while enjoying coffee, elevated snacks, and even wine and beer.
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“We Should Be Playing Golf!”
For many years, when I go back to my roots in Ann Arbor, I have been invited to play with a great group of golf enthusiasts. If the weather is good, they are trying to make it to the golf course.
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Thomas Walter Mast
Tom Mast, second-generation owner of Mast Shoes, an Ann Arbor business that he helped shape into a local institution, passed away in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, July 15, 2025.
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A Paletería in Scio
The latest scoop from Scio Township: the ambitious Arreola brothers have added a Mexican paletería within Dos Hermanos Express.
Read MoreYour Media Exchange Takes Diggers’ Spot
Your Media Exchange is returning to Ann Arbor to make a longer-term home in the basement of Kerrytown Market & Shops, replacing its sister business, Diggers, which opened last year.
Read MoreA Convenience Store at Briarwood Mall?
The Marketplace Changes beat includes periodic walks through Briarwood Mall, getting in steps while tracking stores’ comings and goings.
Read MoreVintage media, flowers, and immigrant crafts at Lobby Shops
Sixty-three small-scale enterprises, intrigued by the prospect of affordable overhead downtown, vied for three retail spaces at the Ann Arbor District Library’s new “Lobby Shops.”
Read MoreSamba Bowls and Buff City Are Gone
Rave reviews for their Brazilian açaí bowls and exotic smoothies weren’t enough to keep Samba Bowls afloat. The eatery closed Aug. 17, just three days after announcing it and fourteen months after unveiling a cheery remake of the former Vogel’s Lock & Safe on W. Washington.
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Talk About Inflation!
An old photo shows my mother, Geraldine, in the middle, at age fifteen, and Irv, age thirteen, on the left and Rolly, age eleven, on the right. The cost to park that close to the stadium was a whopping 25 cents.
Read More“A Massive Chasm”
“This is a massive chasm, massive,” says Downtown Home & Garden owner Kelly Vore. “It’s heavy, on every level.” A decade after buying the iconic Ashley St. emporium from longtime proprietor Mark Hodesh, who retains its historic real estate, Vore announced that financial conditions will prompt its closure on Christmas Eve.
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Flower Ladies
Flower Therapy at Mott Hospital, the oldest activity of the Ann Arbor Farm & Garden Association, started in the 1950s. The program has always been entirely staffed by volunteers, with flowers donated by local grocery stores, florists, and a flower farm.
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