4HE
Summer Daily
Vol. LXXXI I, No. 27-S Ann Arbor, Michigan-Friday, June 15, 1973 Ten Cents Twelve Pages
Downtown Ann Arbor
to get splash of green
By DAN BIDDLE
In a few weeks, the ugly vacant lot at the corner of Main
and Huron will be magically transformed into a park.
With real trees, and green grass, and a sandbox for the
little ones. Right in the middle of downtown Ann Arbor.
IT WILL BE a long time before you can say "beautiful
downtown Ann Arbor" without provoking laughter. But with
a little help from their friends, the people at the Ecology
Center plan to put-together a small space of beauty amid the
bars and the office buildings.
Ann Arbor's newest park will fill the space on Huron St.
once occupied by the old courthouse building, which burned
last December.
The park does have a drawback: it isn't permanent.
"INSTANT PARK," as some of the center's staffers have
dubbed it, will stand on property that is still for sale. The
contract says John Dames, the property's owner, can terminate
the park on 24-hour notice, but according to Dames, there's
virtually no chance of that happening for 18 months or more.
So the Ecology Center people have gone to work with
transferability in mind. The park's trees will be 12 to 15 feet
tall with roots wrapped in burlap to facilitate transport if and
when Dames gives the 75-by-145 foot patch of green its eviction
notice.
A row of high shrubs will block off the site from the
adjacent bus terminal; several 3/-4% foot earth mounds, re-
plete with grass, trees, benches, and shrubs, will rise from what
is now lifeless rubble.
SEVERAL GARDEN clubs will provide the creative impetus
for flower patches.
The Ecology Center, working in cooperation with the Com-
munity Development Center (CDC), received approval for the
project from City Council in early spring and signed a con-
tract on March 1 with Dames for use of the site at a nominal
fee of $1 per year.
The Center's appeal for financial and physical help with
the park plan brought some nice results. City Planning Director
Mike Prochaska teamed up with several other architects and
ironed' out a design which would be both pleasing and environ-
mentally sound.
THE DOWNTOWN Kiwanis chapter kicked in $500; Jack
Nielsen, a co-owner of the Briarwood shopping center develop-
ment, donated several tons of topsoil from the Briarwood site
and Calvert Bros. agreed to ship the dirt at cost.
But Ecology Center staffer Paul Schrodt says a large part
of the effort depends on volunteer manpower. He hopes to kick
off construction of the park Saturday with a full day of work.
"We could complete this thing in a week or two, but that's
tentative until we find out how many people want to help us
with the actual digging and planting," he adds.
The vacant lot as it looks
today.
40
Magruder:
Mitchell Od
bugging plans
THE PLAN FOR ANN ARBOR'S NEWEST PARK is care-
fully outlined by the delicate touch of Paul Schrodt, a staffer
at the Ecology Center. The Center, with a little help from
its friends, plans to turn the vacant lot at Huron and Main
into a haven for hassled downtowners.
IIC
Connally
unhappy as.
Nixon aide?
Story on Page 3
WASHINGTON (N) - Jeb Stuart Magruder
testified yesterday that John Mitchell and other
former officials participated with him in plan-
ning the Watergate wiretapping, then joined in
the cover-up attempt fearing disclosure would
cost President Nixon the 1972 election.
And, Magruder said, although he assumed H.
R. (Bob) Haldeman knew who was involved,
the former White House chief of staff told him
last January that was not so.
HOWEVER, an informed source reported yesterday
that Haldeman's former aide, Gordon Strachan, has
sent word to the Senate Watergate Committee that he
will testify, if granted immunity, that his boss knew of
the Watergate cover-up "from the beginning."
All through his testimony to the Senate Watergate
committee, Magruder insisted he had no knowledge the
President knew of what he called "our errors in this
matter.'
He said that when he told Mitchell of his decision to
tell the truth, the former attorney general "indicated
to me that he would not go that way, that he would
go the other way. He indicated he understood my posi-
tion. He wished me luck, and I wished him luck."
MITCHELL, who ran the re-election campaign until
two weeks after the Democratic headquarters break-
in, has said bugging plans were discussed in his pre-
sence, but that he disapproved them. The former at-
torney general is under indictment in New York in a
case related to a campaign contribution.
Magruder, Mitchell's chief deputy in the campaign,
said the Jutne 17 break-in was first discussed at two
meetings with Mitchell and White House counsel John
Dean III in Mitchell's Justice Department office. The
final approval by Mitchell came March 30 of last year
at Key Biscayne where Mitchell was vacationing, he
testified.
Magruder said:
1 The espionage program was presented by Gordon
Liddy, who received authorization to spend $250,000
after more grandiose plans costing $1 million and in-
volving kidnappings and prostitutes had been rejected.
" He told the whole story to Haldeman in January,
while Liddy andJames McCord Jr.were on trial, and
that Haldeman thus knew that perjury would be com-
mitted at the trial. He added Haldeman didn't know
until after the trial that it had been.
* All discussions about the espionage plans and
documents went to Gordon Strachan, Haldeman's chief
assistant. But Magruder said he did not know whether
these went to Haldeman later.
* He did not ask treasurer Hugh Sloan to perjure
himself about $199,000 that Sloan said had been given
See MAGRUDER, Page 10