Diaryland’s interface is annoying, the site kept going down, I don’t really like “annarborsux”, which I picked only because Diaryland allows only 12 characters, Movable Type is awesome - there are so many reasons!
Regarding “…blue-collar roots growing up in Ann Arbor?”, does living in a condo in the former Eaton building count as blue collar? With the perennial campus construction, I’m sure there is a strong contingent of blue collar folks living in and around A^2. Never a shortage of alums/friends of the ‘U’ building monuments to themselves. Now that Taubman is out of the pokey, can we expect another library?
I’m having fits with my hosting provider (phpwebhosting.com). I’m going to have to move the Seat and Bunker to a server that crashes less. The weasley whores! The Revolution needs uptime! How is the propaganda machine supposed to churn with these technical hiccups!?
Cherry: I’ve had great luck w/ PHPWebhosting; if you’re having trouble with them, you probably want to ask them move your account to a different server before you change hosts altogether. I hope to god you’re not on fuzzy. Contact me privately if you want more details.
Thanks for the script. As for the search - now, do you think that’s really going to change when I import those entries? (Or maybe that was your point!)
Supposedly his “song”, “Main St.” was about AA’s 4th street, when it was Treetown’s red light district.
A red light district in AA?! Now it makes sense that Ypsi is heir to AA’s punk / rock throne with it’s grittier feel…which I am assured did exist at one time in AA.
If the revolution would like to support local webhosting companies, I’m always happy to promote nexcess.net. Owned and staffed by my ex-officemates; owner lives in Southfield. I suppose Indianapolis isn’t all that non-local…
Check out either Banfields location any night of the week, there’s plenty of blue collar’s there. After all who do you think picks up your trash or fix’s your car ? Not a student, not an academic, not a soccer mom. Just some hard working local that maybe you never see from your “student ghetto”.
Yes, Ann Arbor used to have a large blue-collar population, most of which were forced out (or bought out) when housing costs soared.
4th Avenue (not Street, that’s somewhere else) in what’s now Kerrytown used to be the black business district, with black-owned bars, black barbershops, black dentists, etc. When it the area was in decline in the 1960s, it also became the site of the prostitution Seger sings about.
(But Seger’s comment remindes me of another fellow who claimed Ann Arbor blue collar roots. It turned out he grew up in that big house at 815 S. University. His dad was president of the university.)
For what it’s worth, East Lansing had a similar experience of blue-collar flight. For example, there was a neighborhood on the east side called Avondale (south of Burcham, west of Hagadorn) — little houses on 33 foot lots, home to factory workers and janitors and so on. It was outside the city limits until 1959. Today, blue-collar Avondale is gone, the little houses replaced with flimsy 12-bedroom duplexes full of MSU undergrads. Other “downscale” enclaves in East Lansing had similar fates. So this is hardly just an Ann Arbor phenomenon.
Well, Dan, that’s the point of a lot of this blog - that the people who do those things often can’t afford to live in Ann Arbor. The existence of actual blue-collar areas of Ann Arbor doesn’t make the phrase I quoted any less incongruous-sounding, sort of like “blue-collar background growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut.”
All I was saying is that the blue-collar aspect used to be more important in Ann Arbor than it is now. When someone now AARP-age was growing up here, decades ago, there was no incongruity.
Oh, yeah, I didn’t think it was weird that Seger would claim to be blue-collar growing up in Ann Arbor, just that it showed how much the A2 has changed.
I used to live on 4th Aveneue, too, and I had no idea about its history. Interesting.
As a current Ann Arbor blue-collar worker, I can tell you that nearly all of my co-workers commute from Ypsilanti, Milan, Chelsea, Howell, Livonia, and elsewhere. My supervisor and our student part-timers are the only other folks who I explicitly know live here in town. I can get by (although with little left at the end of the month admittedly), but for people with kids, living in Ann Arbor even with University unionized pay and benefits is nearly impossible as a laborer.
Although, to be fair, I don’t know how many of my coworkers want to live in Ann Arbor– most of them were raised in the surrounding communities they still live in and seem to have strong connections to their towns.
why that change of web location?
posted by just a voice on November 23rd, 2003 at 4:38 pmDiaryland’s interface is annoying, the site kept going down, I don’t really like “annarborsux”, which I picked only because Diaryland allows only 12 characters, Movable Type is awesome - there are so many reasons!
posted by ann arbor is overrated on November 23rd, 2003 at 5:41 pmLike the new site; MT is way better than dairyland, blogger and the others.
posted by kid on November 23rd, 2003 at 7:08 pmnice. =) so, what happened to the meet up?
posted by __earth on November 23rd, 2003 at 9:03 pmRegarding “…blue-collar roots growing up in Ann Arbor?”, does living in a condo in the former Eaton building count as blue collar? With the perennial campus construction, I’m sure there is a strong contingent of blue collar folks living in and around A^2. Never a shortage of alums/friends of the ‘U’ building monuments to themselves. Now that Taubman is out of the pokey, can we expect another library?
posted by Jon on November 23rd, 2003 at 10:06 pmI’m having fits with my hosting provider (phpwebhosting.com). I’m going to have to move the Seat and Bunker to a server that crashes less. The weasley whores! The Revolution needs uptime! How is the propaganda machine supposed to churn with these technical hiccups!?
posted by Steven B. Cherry on November 23rd, 2003 at 11:38 pmNice to see another MT site; can’t have too many of those. Search could use some help though — import those entries. Or maybe not.
Cherry: I’ve had great luck w/ PHPWebhosting; if you’re having trouble with them, you probably want to ask them move your account to a different server before you change hosts altogether. I hope to god you’re not on fuzzy. Contact me privately if you want more details.
posted by Brian on November 23rd, 2003 at 11:55 pmIs there actually a good way of getting things from Diaryland to Movable Type (besides writing a script myself)?
posted by ann arbor is overrated on November 23rd, 2003 at 11:56 pmI don’t know Diaryland from the wind, but I do know of a Diaryland export script, which will (allegedly) do the trick.
posted by Brian on November 24th, 2003 at 12:07 amThanks for the script. As for the search - now, do you think that’s really going to change when I import those entries? (Or maybe that was your point!)
There will be a meetup…soon.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on November 24th, 2003 at 12:09 amWelcome to the new location!
posted by srah on November 24th, 2003 at 8:11 amFor such a godawful music spewer, Seger is a pretty decent interview.
My OG AA townie fiends assure me Ann Arbor was at one time as cool as Ypsi / but “blue collar” ? I guess that’s a prerequisite for cool.
posted by Anonymous on November 24th, 2003 at 8:32 amSupposedly his “song”, “Main St.” was about AA’s 4th street, when it was Treetown’s red light district.
A red light district in AA?! Now it makes sense that Ypsi is heir to AA’s punk / rock throne with it’s grittier feel…which I am assured did exist at one time in AA.
posted by Leighton on November 24th, 2003 at 10:53 amSteven,
If the revolution would like to support local webhosting companies, I’m always happy to promote nexcess.net. Owned and staffed by my ex-officemates; owner lives in Southfield. I suppose Indianapolis isn’t all that non-local…
posted by Murph on November 24th, 2003 at 11:03 amNexcess.net looks pretty freaking expensive. Metered bandwidth & stingy server access too.
posted by Brian on November 24th, 2003 at 12:02 pmCheck out either Banfields location any night of the week, there’s plenty of blue collar’s there. After all who do you think picks up your trash or fix’s your car ? Not a student, not an academic, not a soccer mom. Just some hard working local that maybe you never see from your “student ghetto”.
posted by Dan on November 24th, 2003 at 1:48 pmYes, Ann Arbor used to have a large blue-collar population, most of which were forced out (or bought out) when housing costs soared.
4th Avenue (not Street, that’s somewhere else) in what’s now Kerrytown used to be the black business district, with black-owned bars, black barbershops, black dentists, etc. When it the area was in decline in the 1960s, it also became the site of the prostitution Seger sings about.
(But Seger’s comment remindes me of another fellow who claimed Ann Arbor blue collar roots. It turned out he grew up in that big house at 815 S. University. His dad was president of the university.)
For what it’s worth, East Lansing had a similar experience of blue-collar flight. For example, there was a neighborhood on the east side called Avondale (south of Burcham, west of Hagadorn) — little houses on 33 foot lots, home to factory workers and janitors and so on. It was outside the city limits until 1959. Today, blue-collar Avondale is gone, the little houses replaced with flimsy 12-bedroom duplexes full of MSU undergrads. Other “downscale” enclaves in East Lansing had similar fates. So this is hardly just an Ann Arbor phenomenon.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on November 24th, 2003 at 1:49 pmWell, Dan, that’s the point of a lot of this blog - that the people who do those things often can’t afford to live in Ann Arbor. The existence of actual blue-collar areas of Ann Arbor doesn’t make the phrase I quoted any less incongruous-sounding, sort of like “blue-collar background growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut.”
posted by ann arbor is overrated on November 24th, 2003 at 2:22 pmAll I was saying is that the blue-collar aspect used to be more important in Ann Arbor than it is now. When someone now AARP-age was growing up here, decades ago, there was no incongruity.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on November 24th, 2003 at 3:19 pmOh, yeah, I didn’t think it was weird that Seger would claim to be blue-collar growing up in Ann Arbor, just that it showed how much the A2 has changed.
I used to live on 4th Aveneue, too, and I had no idea about its history. Interesting.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on November 24th, 2003 at 3:26 pmAs a current Ann Arbor blue-collar worker, I can tell you that nearly all of my co-workers commute from Ypsilanti, Milan, Chelsea, Howell, Livonia, and elsewhere. My supervisor and our student part-timers are the only other folks who I explicitly know live here in town. I can get by (although with little left at the end of the month admittedly), but for people with kids, living in Ann Arbor even with University unionized pay and benefits is nearly impossible as a laborer.
posted by Brandon on November 25th, 2003 at 7:59 pmAlthough, to be fair, I don’t know how many of my coworkers want to live in Ann Arbor– most of them were raised in the surrounding communities they still live in and seem to have strong connections to their towns.
posted by Brandon on November 25th, 2003 at 8:01 pm