De Stijl
There’s a new no-left-turn sign at Main and Summit, Talk About Town takes five paragraphs to explain. The “colorful” sign, lit up only when the turn is illegal, replaces a standard, non-lit sign that TAT describes as “1950’s style.” We had always thought of the crossed-out arrow as more Art Deco, or maybe de Stijl, but we’ll defer to their traffic sign expertise here. This is only one of two such signs in A2, the other one being at First and Liberty.
Reminder: the Ann Arbor is Overrated meetup is today! 10 p.m., Leopold Brothers.
Never underestimate the power of proper way-finding and traffic-flow signage in a big place like Annarbour, my friend. Never underestimate.
posted by Anna on December 10th, 2003 at 1:13 pmGuru? I’d like the guru to hang out near the VA Hospital and watch everyone circumvent his well-laid plans by driving 40 in the right turn lane then cutting off slow commuters in the correct lane.
I will be vindicated when one of the fuckers ends up in the trees.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on December 10th, 2003 at 1:35 pmThe style of our traffic signs, and in fact international sign design in general, actually comes from the Munich Olympics, from 1972. There were, obviously, street signs before then, but the style of “modern” street symbol design was drawn from the need to make the Munich metropolitan area navigable by people from all over the world.
posted by js on December 10th, 2003 at 3:20 pmjs
The Revolution is for well marked signs in Ann Arbor. It will keep gyuppies from turning up in Ypsi lost.
Speaking of signs. I miss the bob dobbes stencil that was on the stop sign in ypsi where washtenaw makes a right turn toward Mich Ave.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on December 10th, 2003 at 4:11 pmwow, i was wondering when i was living in munich why it was so second nature to get around.
it’s too bad, as a teacher, i have such early mornings, especially this week. i’ll have to hold an aaio bbq at some point, the guy whom i’m buying a condo from left his grill…and huge couch. party!
posted by Beth on December 10th, 2003 at 4:50 pmAll that is important is that ann arborites stay in ann arbor.
posted by skins on December 10th, 2003 at 5:28 pmIt is safe for you people there.
Whatever you do, don’t come into the surrounding country, you have already ruined enough state areas in Pinckney. Don’t go into pinckney again, or I wil have to kill you.
“Stay out of Pinckney”? No problem there. I didn’t realize the Michigan militia had access to Web TV. Good for them.
posted by Boris on December 10th, 2003 at 5:39 pmCan’t get to Pinckney on the bus, anyway.
posted by Anna on December 10th, 2003 at 5:45 pmI’m doing my part in staying out of Pinckney. (Boris - heh!)
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 10th, 2003 at 5:50 pmDon’t they have an art fair in Pinckney? Could this be the root cause of the angst? The guy needs a butterfly on a stick.
posted by Jon on December 10th, 2003 at 7:20 pmHere’s a somewhat off topic (to the post at least) question for the author of this blog. I’m just curious what you base Ann Abor being “over-rated” on? As in, why where your expectations apparently so high before you got here?
posted by Dan on December 10th, 2003 at 7:26 pmI’m assuming you were checking out schools and must have read or heard something about Ann Arbor that didn’t come to fruition. I’ll just point out the fact that most college’s trying to recruit bright students such as yourself probably embelish the appeal of there town somewhat. So if you could elaborate on what your initial impression of Ann Arbor was before you got here, and where that came from I’d be most interested. Please feel free to make this an entry of it’s own as I’m sure others would be curious to read this. Finally I’m sorry I can’t make it to Leopolds tonight, I really wanted to meet the person behind this blog. I honestly think if you made some friends outside of your presumably academic circle of friends and got to know some of the more interesting townies (not the yuppies or soccer moms) you might have a different opinion after awhile.
Umm..Dan, AAIO is organizing a meetup this very night. He’s meeting interesting townies as we speak. As for why A2 is overrated, merely pore through the AAIO archives for your answer(s). Signs: there’s one more new light-up sign in A2, bringing the grand total to 3: the “No *Right* Turn” sign at Huron Parkway and Huron River Dr., right by the golf course there.
posted by Laura on December 10th, 2003 at 7:36 pmthanks for the reply Laura, have a safe ride back to ypsi after the meet-up. The post was directed to our blogger. I don’t think said blogger is meeting anybody but a2 bashers and ypsi residents.
posted by Dan on December 10th, 2003 at 7:58 pmWell, I have to admit that my initial impression was that it didn’t matter where I lived as a grad student, and that at least I’d have cheap rent, being in a small Midwestern town. But I’d heard such great things about the town - not from the university, but from everyone I knew who knew someone who’d been there - that I assumed it would be a great place to live.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 10th, 2003 at 8:35 pmI get up at 5:30 every day, so unfortunately I’m opting out of the meetup. I doubt AAIO is meeting only a2 bashers and ypsi folks tonight–the posters here seem pretty diverse to me, and an interesting bunch all round. Would be more productive for you to attend and meet them for yourself and get the facts instead of just tossing out generalizations. Helpful hint: it’s usually productive to talk with people who have well-grounded opinions that are the total opposite of your own opinions, in my experience–at best, both people learn something. Or at least start to think.
posted by Laura on December 10th, 2003 at 8:38 pmoops, AAIO snuck in a post–my reply was directed to Dan.
posted by Laura on December 10th, 2003 at 8:40 pmDan, I live in A2, am not an A2-basher, and would be at the meetup tonight, were I not out of town. I’ll definitely be at the next one. Look also to Larry K., who has been in A2 for over a decade–one would assume he’d find a way to leave if he hated it. Larry said he’d be there. Todd Leopold: Ann Arborite, not a grad student, not an A2-hater. He’ll be there (he’s hosting it). Where exactly are you getting the impression that the only people at the meetup will be A2-haters? Or, even, the impression that the only people who comment here will be A2-haters?
Personally, though I like Ann Arbor, I’ll agree that it’s overrated. People like Boris are a little over-the-top in their hatred (one wonders what shining wonders of the world they lived in before coming to Michigan), and I suspect even our semi-anonymous host and the Ypsi people to be hamming it up a bit, but there are lots of people in A2 who consider it to be a shining wonder of the world itself; clearly, overrating it.
At any rate, seems like you’re taking the Ann Arbor bashing a little too personally. It’s a joke. Laugh.
posted by Murph on December 10th, 2003 at 9:00 pmwell i would be most interested to be at Leopolds, but I’m at work until midnight. I’ve lived here since 1988 myself, sure we’ve seen better times around here and the gentrification sucks. But in reality it’s not just Ann Arbor, the whole country seems to be turning into a giant strip mall run by a few corporations. As far as Michigan goes I think this is about as good as it will get for me, I was born and raised in Detroit and have no interest in going back there. And no i’m not taking this to seriously, I’m just trying to to offer an opposite opinion to many of those expressed here.
posted by Dan on December 10th, 2003 at 9:18 pmAnd you are, and that’s cool. I myself have mixed feelings about Ann Arbor. As you say it has seen better times and of course the gentrification sucks. But Laurie Anderson doesn’t stop off in Ypsi–I saw her last concert in A2, where I also caught a free show of Cambodian dance that was incredibly beautiful and interesting. The School of Music churns out scads of free concerts that I go to once in a while. There are lots of very good cultural events in A2, as Larry K noted in a recent post somewhere or other. That’s primarily what I value @ Ann Arbor, since the whole country is indeed turning into a vast strip mall as you note–that makes these oases of offbeat, heretofore unknown, new cultural experiences all the more valuable.
posted by Laura on December 10th, 2003 at 9:28 pmTo Dan: The problem is not that AA is such a terrible place to live. It’s just that people sometimes leave places where they’re happy, as well as friends and family, when they come to graduate school, and they hope to end up somewhere in which they feel at least somewhat at home. I left family and plenty of friends, as well as a good job and a town I loved, to come over 2500 mi. to school here. And I was told by many, many people beforehand that AA was a progressive, exciting place with a very strong sense of community - in other words, exactly the sort of place you’d want to be upon moving so far. And I’ve been extremely disappointed by how far my experience of AA diverges from what I was told about it. I’ve found it generally to be a cold, cliquish, closed-minded place - a lot like those “other” bland, sterile suburbs that people are so fond of deriding. I certainly hope that impression changes over time, since with my program I’ll be here awhile. But the point is that it’s not that AA is so bad - it’s just that (in my case anyway) the things I was led to believe I’d really like about it are exactly what isn’t here.
posted by Nick on December 10th, 2003 at 9:58 pmNick, that was well-said.
posted by RD on December 11th, 2003 at 12:32 amDan, I actually didn’t expect much from this “Berkeley of the Midwest.” For me it’s more about what could be done better. I’m used to excellent public transport, relatively young, dense cities designed for walking/biking, decent (if not always affordable) housing, and intellectual diversity … all resting on a vague respect for property and people that I wasn’t even aware of till I noticed its absence in AA. When you toss in the pseudo liberalism, the general dinginess, and the fact this is the only place I’ve actually felt (and been) unsafe walking around at night, it’s difficult to love AA. That’s why *I* find AA’s rabid defenders so laughable.
However, I’ll admit that when I say I hate AA, what I usually mean is that I’m cold and homesick and I don’t care about football.
Murph, I think we’re both on the same page here. I don’t espose “over-the-top hatred” so much as I advocate a clear recognition of the fact that the emperor that is Annarbour has no clothes. And as for the “shining wonders of the world” I lived in prior to Annarbour — count New York, Boston, and Moscow. Granted, none of them (to my humble knowledge) has a Bill Knapps, but they are all more or less recognized as metropolises outranking our beloved Annarbour.
posted by Boris on December 11th, 2003 at 2:29 amBoris: see, I like to consider myself the sane moderate. I can say “beloved Ann Arbor” with no sense of sarcasm, but I love Ann Arbor for what it is–A small city in the (cold) northern midwest that is dominated by a large stuck-up college. Reasonable comparisons, I’m told (by people who have lived in these other places, then moved to Ann Arbor), can be made to Boulder, CO, and Austin, TX. But definitely not NYC, Boston, or Moscow. And if you catch people trying to make the latter comparison, please, flame away.
I don’t want those people around either. I think Ann Arbor/Annarbour usage is a good litmus test–the latter are the folks trying to inflate the place to something it’s not.
Nick’s/RD’s point is also well-taken; it’s much easier to love the places you call home. When I get cold and homesick (and I’ve never cared about football), Ann Arbor is the place I want to go.
posted by Murph on December 11th, 2003 at 8:42 amYes, I agree that Ann Arbor is overrated, but, while I find this blog amusing, I cannot help but compare your experiences to a place that really sucks — East Lansing. Imagine a place where people not only have nothing to do besides get drunk and watch sports, but where they are happy, and cannot imagine why anybody would want to do anything besides get drunk and watch sports. Mind you, I am not speaking just of undergraduates, but of the entire friggin town. Part of the reason why tuition at U-M, and at the rest of the Michigan colleges, is so high is because Michigan Agrikultural College forced the state legislature to accept a second Big Ten university, and because it hangs there like an Albotross around the neck of the state’s higher ed budget. If it weren’t for MSU, we might be more like Ohio, with a flagship Big Ten school, and a number of respectable MAC schools. Instead we have a number of MAC schools with no resources, a scandalously overpriced, if academically prestigous Big Ten University, and a huge party school for rioting bufoons.
posted by Art on December 11th, 2003 at 9:57 amI’m a regular reader of this blog, have lived in A2 since I started as an undergrad in ‘97 (I’m graduated and now work here) and am fairly fond of Ann Arbor. What this blog does a good job of capturing are the outrageous aspects and attitudes of Ann Arbor and the University. You don’t have to hate A2 to like this blog. However, if you’re the type who thinks students don’t deserve the right to drive a car or if you’re the type that likes to take 5 hours making homemade vegan smores, then you probably won’t enjoy this blog.
posted by James on December 11th, 2003 at 10:26 amMurph, IMHO, Ann Arbor is somewhere between Urbana-Champaign (hideous!) and Austin (very cool!). And UM is downright humble and unpretentious compared to its bretheren in the Ancient Eight….
posted by Anna on December 11th, 2003 at 11:05 amwell, its thursday morning, so I guess I missed the meet-up. Hopefully next time.
OK- Art- wow, good point! Never thought of it that way, very interesting, but I do think UM is a flagship Big Ten School, the most popular by far, and If i’m wrong on that, its at least in the top 2 or 3 of all Big Ten schools in most catagories (dont pull out individual programs that UM sucks at, look gestalt). I think its the mac level schools that loose out.
Murph, the best comparison to A2, from my understanding has always been Madison, Bloomington, Colombus, etc, other mid-west college towns of reasonable size. There is no way Tree-town can be compared to NY, Boston, etc, thats just Stupid! And all the people who claim to be from those cities, are you really from north jersey, newton or some other suburb? A2 does very well for a city of 150,000, yes its overated by some, under by others, BUT there is no place else in the mid-west I would be willing to live. Boris, no one thinks to compare A2 to such cities as NY, Boston, Moscow, at least not in thier right mind!
RD - cmon man, lets start with a quotes
” fact this is the only place I’ve actually felt (and been) unsafe walking around at night” - Ok now either you’ve not been around much, A2 is the big city to you and you grew up on a farm in rural somewhere, or your full of it! AA is pretty safe, go to a real city like Boris likes so much and see what crime really is.
Public Transport, hmm AATA is recognised as a very good public transport, used to use it myself, worked great! Dont’ knock it unless you’ve tried it. Have you? or do you have a car and drive everywhre? just want to know if your throwing stones in a glass house or not
ann arbors “the general dinginess”? Please explain! look i know ann arbors not fucking toronoto, but we do ok, if anything, I know lots of punks who feel ann arbor is too ‘clean’
Ann Arbors not good for walking/biking? I’m sorry but WHAT? I grew up in A2 since 13, I’ve walked this town inside out, including from downtown to ypsilanti; I’ve biked almost every street in the town! I’ve diven the place too. There is no problem getting around town however you choose.
OK RD, you do come to the truth, not just about you, but about many of the transients who pass through town. You cold and homesick, I’m sorry to hear, beg your friends to come visit, tell them about what a great town it is and they must come visit (snicker). This is my advice for you transients, get involved!! Ann Arbor has many differnt diverse scenes going on, so join up. If your really hip, there is almost always at least one underground club somewhere, untill recently it was 555, there are tons of rec sports from frisbee golf to indoor soccer, etc, etc. Make some friends, yes I know in a sense this board is that, but get out there in real life too.
If your dumb enough to goto a bar to look for socialization you’ll get what you should; a person who’s only similar interest is drinking in a place designed to have loud noise so you can barely hear what they’re saying.
I’ll shut up now,
posted by just a voice on December 11th, 2003 at 11:10 amGee you people still let me come to your next meetup?
555’s still around, it’s just in Ypsi.
posted by js on December 11th, 2003 at 12:02 pmjs
Easy there, Voice! Dan asked where we’re all coming from, & I answered. I really am pleased that you love AA … and since you live here and I’m leaving, seems like we’re both in good shape.
posted by RD on December 11th, 2003 at 12:42 pmA few points in my defense and then I’ll stop taking up space here: feel free to email if you want to continue this.
Actually I did come to AA from a rural town (Davis, CA) but I have lived in San Francisco, DC, and London. It’s no shock I wasn’t assaulted on Dupont Circle, but it is upsetting (maybe just to me) that I can get my breasts mauled outside the Union during the day, be surrounded and shoved by a group of guys near the law school, or have some dude follow me for a half hour around Liberty St. at midnight. I’ve lived in college towns all over England and the US, and it wasn’t until I came here that I found it’s “normal college behavior” for undergrad guys to throw slurs, drinks, and rocks at women passing their front porches.
I could probably escape most of that by living outside of town, but I don’t have a car – haven’t owned one since high school. I use the bus system here (the public one, as the University bus doesn’t go anywhere I need to) but it doesn’t compare to systems like SF’s Muni and Davis’s Unitrans: the former runs all the time, the latter will take you through three cities for free, and both services run express lines to popular destinations.
Davis is also my model for bike trails and pedestrian-friendly layout – admittedly it’s in the middle of nowhere, but it has made an effort to cluster services near living areas, and to put in bike trails and bike lanes to keep cyclists safe. I don’t mind walking to, say, Briarwood every once in awhile when I need socks, but the nearest supermarket I’m aware of is that one across the tracks near the bowling alley, and that’s a long trek with groceries.
I don’t expect AA to have a vast subway system, and I’m glad it’s got more going on at night than Davis, CA. But I’ve lived in lots of AA-sized places that do their “thing” – whether that’s transport or art fairs or whatever – better and with less fanfare. That’s my only point.
Anyway, as I said, we’re getting a bit long for this forum: drop me an email if you still want to chat.
Yes, U of M is the best school in the Big Ten (although the people of Madison might beg to differ.) When I was referring to a huge party school for rioting buffoons, I was talking about MSU. Although U of M is crowded, the last time I checked, undergraduates still had the chance to do things like write term papers, etc. Michigan State might have made a good MAC school, perhaps along the lines of Michigan Tech. Even though MSU ought not to have been built, at the moment, the only solution that I can think of is to really focus on Michigan and Michigan state, and to let the MAC school continue their slow fade. T hen Michigan higher ed profiele will be more like Oregon and Washington.
posted by Art on December 11th, 2003 at 12:52 pmYes, U of M is the best school in the Big Ten (although the people of Madison might beg to differ.) When I was referring to a huge party school for rioting buffoons, I was talking about MSU. Although U of M is crowded, the last time I checked, undergraduates still had the chance to do things like write term papers, etc. Michigan State might have made a good MAC school, perhaps along the lines of Michigan Tech. Even though MSU ought not to have been built, at the moment, the only solution that I can think of is to really focus on Michigan and Michigan state, and to let the MAC school continue their slow fade. T hen Michigan higher ed profiele will be more like Oregon and Washington.
posted by Art on December 11th, 2003 at 12:52 pmJoV: Are you arguing that A2 is safe for women to walk around alone at night? Or are you arguing it’s no less safe than any other city?
I did not grow up in the midwest, nor did I grow up on a farm — I grew up in close proximity to a major city and lived in the middle of another good-sized one (much bigger than A2). Right now I live in a small city with roughly double the year-round population of A2.
In the first two cities, there were places where one simply should not walk around alone at night, but there were also other places that had very heavy foot traffic almost any time of the day or night and where I felt (and was) very safe walking around alone at night (or taking the train, avoiding certain desolate stops) as long as I followed a few simple heuristics.
Since you’ve lived in A2 for a while, perhaps you remember the serial rapist? This was a person who grabbed people, many of them in “non-isolated” parts of town (one on Main Street, another right near Zingerman’s, another near Huron, 11-12 people in all, one killed in a small patch of woods during the day near the Veterinary practice on Huron) during the early morning and at night. Of course he was just one crazy, but it demonstrates how easy it was to find victims — even ones who weren’t doing something “silly” like walking alone in the Arb or on a side-street in the middle of the night.
Although the ability to walk affords A2’s residents a lot of benefits, those benefits are significantly less if you are a women: Ann Arbor doesn’t have the kind of consistent foot-traffic (even Main Street or State Street — check them on a cold winter night) or police patrols that make it a reasonably safe place for women to walk around alone. Do women do it nevertheless? Sure. But I would argue that it’s significantly less safe than in certain neighbhoods in some larger cities where there is more consistent foot traffic.
posted by Anna on December 11th, 2003 at 1:24 pmAnna, referencing the Ann Arbor serial rapist from 1996 to make the point that Ann Arbor is not safe for women now is a bit like citing the Boston Strangler to say that Beantown isn’t safe for women, or citing the recent lunatic who chopped his wife’s head off to say that marriage isn’t safe. It’s not a representative statistic.
posted by js on December 12th, 2003 at 12:48 pmjs
JS, as I said in my post, “Of course he was just one crazy, but it demonstrates how easy it was to find victims” — that was about how safe it is to *walk around* in Ann Arbor as compared with other places where there is better lighting, more people around and about, & etc.
Beside, much to my utter shock when looking at the crime stats yesterday, 11-12 really isn’t that many for Ann Arbor.
posted by Anna on December 12th, 2003 at 12:54 pm