Category Archives: city

change of heart.

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A 9-year-old girl’s plea to save a sidewalk slab with a heart-shaped cavity has tugged at the heartstrings of Ann Arbor officials, who have agreed to let it stay. The inspector also spray-painted an X over the R that previously marked the slab for replacement, while writing “Save!” and giving the heart a fresh touch of color.
Where Dahlia left a note along the sidewalk last week making the case for keeping the slab, the city’s inspector on Monday left a response letter complete with the city seal on it. “Thank you for your wonderful letter, and for bringing this to our attention!” it reads. “Your note is very well written, and after further considerations, we feel this sidewalk slab can be saved. We’re so glad you let us know, and that we can save your ‘heart.’”
Seventh Street heart sidewalk

“Thank you for being so passionate and proactive about your community!” the response letter states. “When you’re old enough, you should consider working for the city to continue making it a great place to live. Sincerely, City Sidewalk Repair Program.”

Dahlia, the daughter of Kelly and Matt,  said in her note to the ‘Sidewalk People” last week that she was devastated when she saw the slab was marked for replacement.

“You see, the heart is not just a heart,” she wrote. “Ever since I was little, I said hi to the heart. Don’t you see how much it means to me? Every time I pass the heart, I say hi and it brings me joy.”

Anyone else who wants to say hi to the heart now can find it along the east side of Seventh Street across from Waterworks Park between Murray Court and Washington Street.

“kind words do not cost much, yet they accomplish much.”

-blaise pascal

 

 

 

source credit: ryan stanton, mlive, ann arbor news

have a heart.

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“Dear Sidewalk People.”

That’s how 9-year-old Dahlia started her handwritten note placed under a rock along a city sidewalk hoping to get the attention of Ann Arbor’s crews slated to replace the slab she holds dear due to a distinctive feature.

This sidewalk has a heart.

“There is a heart in this block, and as me and my mom were walking home from school, we saw that there was an ‘R’ on the block that the heart is on,” reads the girl’s note, placed next to where she made a heart-shaped chalk outline around a small cavity in the slab the city has marked with an R to replace.

“You see, the heart is not just a heart,” wrote Dahlia, “Ever since I was little, I said hi to the heart. Don’t you see how much it means to me? Every time I pass the heart, I say hi and it brings me joy.”

Her father confirmed his daughter indeed says “hi, heart” every time she passes it. When she heard the city was going to replace the slab with the heart, Dahlia said she was devastated and cried.

“So can you please leave it or at least cut around the heart, for me to pick up on my way to school,” she wrote, ending her note by thanking the city’s repair crews for their work to keep sidewalks safe and encouraging them to give her note an extra read so it makes sense.

A spokesperson for the city’s public services unit did not have an immediate response on whether the sidewalk slab could be saved or whether the heart-shaped part could be salvaged for Dahlia to take.

While Dahlia really wanted to keep the heart sidewalk, her father said the family understands the need to fix it so people don’t trip and has talked with her about it.

“We compared it to the Halloween pumpkin she really loved and wanted to keep,” he said. “We told her we could keep it, but we could watch how when a pumpkin dies it helps nature by becoming part of something new.”

In that case, they put the pumpkin in their garden and Dahlia visited it every day and watched it decay, and in the spring she watched as flowers sprung up. She got to see her pumpkin again in the form of flowers.

As for her well-crafted sidewalk note, her father said while only 9, Dahlia is an amazing writer and gives him and his wife daily gems of wisdom worthy of the wisest, aged writers.

“sometimes the people who walk softly make the deepest impressions…” 

-nitya prakash

 

source credit: ryan stanton, mlive, ann arbor

ypsilanti?

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the city of ypsilanti, only 7 miles from ann arbor

home of eastern michigan university

 was named for greek patriot, general demetrus ypsilanti,

a heroic figure in the battle the Greeks were fighting against Turkish tyranny

– a struggle for freedom that many Americans likened to our own.

but there has been another long-fought struggle at work here-

as people have endlessly tried to spell the city’s name correctly

the post office has worked tirelessly to decipher and deliver mail in the city

 i’ll bet even the general has had his name misspelled more than a few times over the years

 

“my spelling is wobbly. It’s good spelling but it wobbles,

and the letters get in the wrong places.”

s.s. milne

 

source: washtenaw literacy, the daily times archives, 1904

dress up.

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walking around downtown on saturday
amidst a whirl of fashion statements
people dressed in support of the university of michigan national championship football game
with the maize and blue proudly displayed (we won)
people dressed in support of team u.s.a. in the world cup make or break soccer game
with flags in red, white, and blue proudly displayed (we lost)
and
people dressed in winter holiday funwear
even more proudly displayed
(we are all winners in this game)
everyone busily strolling
all mixing
all happy
under one december sun
and not a spot of snow to show for it.
“anyone can get dressed up and glamorous,
but it is how people dress in their days off that is most intriguing.”
-alexander wang
image credit: getty images

middle of the road.

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road plan haiku

this plan gives me pause

some things better on paper

may not go as planned.

 

 

“the middle of the road is where the white line is – and that’s the worst place to drive.”

-robert frost

detroit’s made another trip around the sun.

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detroit looks pretty good for being 320 years old

happy birthday.

 

“there are cities that get by on their good looks, offer climate and scenery, views of mountains or oceans, rockbound or with palm trees. and there are cities like detroit that have to work for a living.”

-*elmore leonard

 

*note – (elmore was a prolific american author/screenwriter who lived in the detroit area, where i grew up.

my father resembled elmore in his later years, was frequently mistaken for him,

and signed autographs upon request)

 

 

photo image: detroit river conservancy, detroit riverfront, michigan, usa

open society.

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 powerful messages found everywhere

 

“in an open society, no idea can be above scrutiny, just as no people should be beneath dignity.”

-maajid nawaz

 

grand trunk pub, detroit, michigan, usa -2020