"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." Toni Morrison
For many years the city of Ann Arbor has been discussing proposals for a new development on a key site in the downtown next to the city’s library. The current proposal is for a massive mixed-use structure with a plaza in front. Ilene and I wrote a letter to City Council expressing our concerns with the current design. We have attached the letter here as a pdf.
It was interesting and exciting to see our book, Historic Preservation: An Introduction to Its History, Principles and Practices, translated into Korean. The illustrations are familiar, but the narrative is incomprehensible, so we are not sure how good the translation might be, but hope it is representative of the English version. In any case, we are pleased to see it being used in another culture.
It has been a full agenda, beginning with a visit to Detroit for lunch at Hopcat, a curator-led tour of The Architectural Imagination exhibit at MOCAD, and an introduction to the ArcPrep program for high school students. After a respite back in Ann Arbor, several of us were honored to judge student projects on display at the architecture school. Now it’s time for our full day at the school…details to be shared later.
Ray Detter has been a community activist in Ann Arbor for decades. As our next door neighbor, we have worked with Ray on many of his projects. This fall we joined a small group of “conspirators” to plan a surprise recognition dinner for Ray. Over one hundred people came to an elegant dinner, with a few speeches by his old friends.
One outcome of that effort was that we raised funds to support the Ray Detter Community Service Award, to be given to a student(s) in an Ann Arbor high school who have been involved with a history project in the community. Ilene and Norm now head this Award Committee, which is enabled to give up to $1,000 each year.
During the winter Norm likes to spend time in his basement “man cave” working on his model railroad. Technically it is a 2-rail, o-scale layout–the size of a Lionel, but a more realistic two rails. The engines are running and he is adding models to complete a townscape. It is certainly a multi-year project, but is a nice warm room to escape to on cold evenings.
