OT: Is Ann Arbor Becoming Lame?

Submitted by Thrillhouse on
It started when School Kids Records closed it's location on Liberty and was forced to move to the basement of Bivouac. I think it was replaced by some kind of Ice Cream Shop. Next, Dave's Books, which I always thought was an Ann Arbor landmark, moved from Liberty and State to a lame location under Maynard House apartments. It was replaced by Potbelly's. Maybe the fact that the owner was paying heroin addicts to steal books from Borders had something to do with that one, I don't know. Kaleidoscope, which was a great book store/poster store/1960s burnout memorabilia store next to Urban Outfitters was recently forced to move to Kerrytown.

There was another great record store on the corner of Liberty and State whose name escapes me - it's one that Iggy Pop supposedly worked at - I think it got bought by Sam Goody or something when I was a freshman, and now it's gone too. The year before I came to school, Tower Records closed. Those were chain stores, but decent places none the less.

Slowly, NYPD is taking over a four mile stretch on East Williams. Pizza House I think is now a sports bar. I think I even heard a rumor that they were going to stop allowing people to free base crack in the bathrooms at the Fleetwood.

How much longer until Wazoo, Encore, and Underground Sounds are gone for good? It seems every time I come back to town, I'm greeted with the fact that places I once loved are on the fritz or entirely gone and the only development involves luxury condos and chains that only belong in the burbs like BW3s.
MGoBoard

Blue Durham

October 8th, 2008 at 10:15 PM ^

but they used to have $1 Labatts and all you could eat wings on Monday nights. Used to go there regularly with a good friend for Monday night football in the early '90's. The Labatts used to have a coat of ice about 1/16 inch thick over the entire bottle. Damn it was good and cold!

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 6082

Yinka Double Dare

October 9th, 2008 at 8:58 PM ^

Yeah, the bar my wife and I go to most often in Chicago is a similar "expensive beer bar" we tend to get shitcanned for about 35 bucks combined with a nice tip.  Of course I think the bartenders there forget to put some of our stuff on our tab, but even when we're paying full price it might run us 45-50 total with a nice tip, and we are quite drunk when we leave. 

Usually ran into the same thing at Ashleys -- if you knew what you were drinking it wasn't terribly expensive.  Yeah, it isn't "$2 pitchers at Rick's" cheap, but it's sure a whole lot nicer if you actually want to talk to the people you're with.

One thing we found funny -- a friend of mine used to order fries that weren't on the menu, he'd have them put cheddar and bacon and some other stuff on there, they usually knew what he was going to order right away because he'd have them do it almost every time.  Our last semester there those fries actually showed up on the menu.  They should have named them after him.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 9777

TorontoBlue

October 6th, 2008 at 11:55 PM ^

my old man played for M in the 40's,  i was a 6-month gestation fetus for my first M game at the  OSU/UM Snow Bowl in '50. 

AA morphs and adjusts with the generations, and the current students set the agenda for all of us.  Dats the be beauty of it - and that's what keeps us all coming back after our time is gone even though we're Michigan Men for life.  AA will never be lame - just different than in our own time - but always good.  Just ask Les Miles. . . . .and Rich Rod.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 956

hat

October 9th, 2008 at 6:20 PM ^

Brian - the problem is that the new housing is almost invariably pricier than average.  (This is partly a function of the stupid green belt law that was passed a couple years ago, which restricts development on the edges of the city and forces developers to try to cash in where they can.)  These new housing units are attracting a lot of non-students.  The students - the people who actually make the town what it is - are priced out of a lot of these, while some of the traditional student housing stock south of campus is getting torn down, too. 

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 15