Diverse Encounters of the Fourth Kind
The Old West Side Association newsletter praises the block of Fourth Street between William and Jefferson as an example of “accommodating diversity” at its best:
This short block is subject to a zoning nightmare: part multi-family, part public lands, part limited industrial. Yet, instead of an ugly hodge-podge, these structures blend into a unified town center, totally unlike the fakey “Towne Centre” under construction a half-mile away.
Other than a lack of puke-hued tiles festooning every available surface, what does this town center have going for it? It boasts a church, an elementary school and gardens “tended in the style originated by the early owners.” But what about retail, you ask? Well, if you walk towards Liberty, there’s the “luscious memory of the cinnamon buns that were available at Lunsford Bakery.” So not only can passersby look at gardens; they can also remember cinnamon buns. Now that’s some real diversity.
The memory of food is very significant, or at least it is if you are Marcel Proust. Perhaps the former cinnamon buns will inspire an Ann Arbor version of Remembrance of Things Past. Thousands and thousands of pages on the glories of Ann Arbor. Just think how much blogging material you’ll have when some sensitive soul writes this.
posted by Stacy on June 7th, 2007 at 12:52 pm eHmm, did the Jefferson Market close, or have I repressed my memories of A2 so effectively that I’m thinking of the wrong part of town?
Could the A2 version of Proust be called “Remembrance of Things Bland”? Or, “a la Recherche du Temps Fade”?
posted by Nick on June 7th, 2007 at 2:03 pm eThe Association gets it wrong.
I always liked the last block of Fourth, between Packard and Madison. The apartment buildings and industrial sheds built into a big ass hill give it a San Francisco feel. Plus, I seem to remember some nifty colors of house paint.
posted by Jeff Dean on June 7th, 2007 at 2:17 pm eThe Market is still there, but it’s on Jefferson, not Fourth, I think.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on June 7th, 2007 at 3:01 pm eJeff Dean gets it wrong. Jeff’s talking about Fourth Ave, not Fourth St. West of Main it’s streets (3rd St, 4th St, 5th St, etc). East of Main it’s avenues (4th Ave, 5th Ave). AAIO gets it right. Jefferson Market is on Jefferson, not Fourth St.
posted by Olwesi on June 7th, 2007 at 4:18 pm eJefferson Market looks to be something entirely different now. I was by there last night and it looked like, I dunno, an art supply store or something. Of course, I was driving by and didn’t get a real good look, but it doesn’t appear the way I remember it.
posted by Dave on June 7th, 2007 at 5:12 pm eNope, all of them were originally Streets. Yes, those sly 19th century developers created 4th Street and 4th Street just a few blocks apart. The numbering started with First, and incremented in BOTH directions. Ashley was Second Street, what’s now Main was Third Street, and Division was 6th.
What happened was that the numbered streets east of 1st got changed to non-number names — except for 4th and 5th. Technically 4th and 5th are distinguished from the western versions by being Avenues, but this is not Manhattan where people are well trained to understand a sharp differentiation between, say, 7th Avenue and 7th Street.
Having parallel streets with the same name only a few blocks apart creates all kinds of confusion. We have two corners of 4th and Liberty, two corners of 5th and Liberty, two corners of 5th and Jefferson, two corners of 4th and Madison, and so forth. Hardly any Ann Arborite would ever bother to say “Fourth AVENUE and Liberty”.
A place like Ann Arbor always has lots of newcomers and visitors. Maintaining these two out-of-place numbered streets is like throwing stumbling blocks in the path of a blind person. Since the house numbers on the parallel streets are in the same range, the duplication also creates the risk of delaying response in an emergency.
Back in December 2003, I proposed two renamings: that Fourth Avenue be become Wheeler Avenue (what better way to highlight the neglected Wheeler Park?), and Fifth Avenue become Wallenberg Avenue. But whatever names are selected, getting rid of duplicative and confusing names would be good.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on June 7th, 2007 at 5:22 pm eCan’t you just append east or west to the street numbers to designate which side of Main they are on? Adding the appropriate quadrant (NW, SW, SE, NE) could make it even easier to find an address (assuming that the N/S and E/W divider streets were known).
posted by JCP2 on June 7th, 2007 at 9:47 pm eIt isnt just the numbered streets. Think about all of the streets around here named “Huron” and what that must do to newcomers. Just “Huron River Drive” alone will do it. I mean, imagine looking for Barton Dam and finding yourself at the intersection of Huron River Drive and Huron Parkway. If you ask for directions, someone will give you a knowing smile as they say “Barton Dam? Oh no, that’s the *other* Huron River Drive”
posted by lynne on June 7th, 2007 at 11:51 pm eI’ve had various roommates not familar to the town lament the occurances of Huron and the seemingly non-sensical name changes for roads, like Washtenaw-Stadium-Maple. To the 20-year resident, it doesn’t bat an eye, but to the unfamiliar, much confusion.
Larry, did they differentiate between the sets of streets with cardinal directions, like Cleveland does? Even that is of little help, as West 9th St. and East 9th St. are two different areas of that city.
posted by HNG on June 8th, 2007 at 11:49 am eAren’t there several Abbey Roads in London?
posted by Olwesi on June 8th, 2007 at 12:50 pm eif i could change one thing about the roads in ann arbor, i would make state and stadium intersect in 2D, instead of merely crossing in 3D.
posted by peter honeyman on June 8th, 2007 at 1:02 pm eI prefer the State/Stadium underpass to what would otherwise be a huge, busy intersection with phased traffic lights and multiple turn lanes, like Main/Stadium or State/Eisenhower. As it is, traffic passes through that crossing, either north-south or east-west, without unnecessary delays.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on June 8th, 2007 at 1:13 pm ePlus, the train would have to cross Stadium if it was all flattened down.
posted by Chris on June 8th, 2007 at 1:25 pm ei work at a hotel and have to give directions to tourists alot. one of my favorites is the n/s/e university area. confuses the heck out of them. i think they should rename state street west U, from North U to SOuth U, just to make it a little more interesting, and symetrical.
posted by TD on June 8th, 2007 at 7:28 pm eGetting around town with a car isn’t that terrible.. roads tend to go north/south or east/west. With a few exceptions (Packard, Washtenaw, random post-war neighborhood streets), that is.
Back in Pittsburgh, all directions incorporate the phrase “where X used to be”, and there’s this bizarre Belt system that I’ve never really understood. No one wants to cross a bridge (and there are many) because you never know where you’ll end up when you cross a bridge.
Hate to compare Ann Arbor to a real city, but, uh, yeah.
posted by Pants Rule on June 8th, 2007 at 10:06 pm eLooks like Stadium’s been a bridge over Liberty as long as it’s been around (it’s a bridge in a 1949 aerial photo, when there’s basically nothing to the south of Stadium). My guess is that it was built as something of a bypass around A2’s south end, and was built bridging the railway to avoid waits for freight trains. Probably nobody cared at the time that it didn’t connect with State, because there just wasn’t much traffic on State street - nowhere to go.
I remember when I figured out how the Plymouth -> Fifth/Division -> Packard route hooked into the rest of the street network. A whole new era of happy Ann Arbor motoring was opened up to me. (It took me a while, though; for the first five years I lived in Ann Arbor, I didn’t have a car, so didn’t need to figure out these things.)
posted by Murph on June 9th, 2007 at 10:38 am eI live on one of the numbered streets that has a counterpart avenue. There is a student rental house on the avenue that has the same address as mine.
Once or twice a week, I see someone with a very puzzled expression, driving down the street, looking for a nonexistent house number.
We get pizzas, mail, and chinese food deliveries for the other house. A lot of the mail is clearly junk mail, which I throw away. Usually I write a note on it, forwarding it to the other house. One time, an important-looking envelope came in the mail, and I opened it, to find a job offer for someone in the other house who had just graduated law school. 130 K + a 15K signing bonus, if I recall. Needless to say, I took it to the other house.
The funniest occurrence was the time I came home hot sweaty from a long bike ride. As I started to put my bike away, a young man bounded up our steps with a bunch of flowers and rang the doorbell; he was clearly there to pick up a date. I told him the only females in the house were my 40-something wife and pre-teen daughter, so he should probably try his luck at the avenue….
posted by SayHey on June 9th, 2007 at 8:53 pm e