Monday, June 4, 2001-- The Michigan Daily - 5
When a dream places you in A2
T here is a peculiar accumulation dream so real that I woke with a start.
of material culture above I saw plaster walls and a high-barreled
Wazoo Records on State Street. wooden ceiling. I knew that someday
It's like a piece of living history, I was going to live in a place like
something of a dream. For nearly 115 that." A decade passed or so passed in
years, the loft space there has been which Rich got his doctorate in
used for everything from a dance hall Europe and trav-
to a third floor miniature golf course. eled the world. By
At one time it was a corset factory, the time he got
then an inventor's laboratory. In the back to the states
'20s there was gambling-and gam- 12 years later, he
bling can't operate without alcohol, so r had largely
the loft became a make-shift brushed off the
speakeasy for a time. Since the early dream. That was
sixties, it has been known as Arborvi- when he rediscov-
tae. For the past 39 years, its only con- ered Ann Arbor.
stant has been Rich Ahern, a man as He needed to
interesting as the loft he inhabits. JOSH find "office space
Picture a man in his early '70s WICKERHAM suitable for an
with the intensity of a teenager. He's SC-UL OF THIE apartment" to
well-traveled and been around the CITY begin his architec-
block more than a few times, but is tural work. In
filled with incomparable zest. "I never 1962, real estate agent B. Nichols
stopped rocking and rolling; that's my Hall showed him a vacated dental
secret," Rich says with a gleam in his office in what is now Wazoo Records.
eye. He never stopped reading either. This wouldn't do. It was too expen-
Arborvitae is filled with thousands of sive and there weren't enough win-
books and articles on politics, global- dows. So Hall opened a door to the
ization, democracy and the environ- loft above "with a big set of keys that
ment. Ralph Nader's presidential looked like something out of a grade
campaign for Michigan was largely B movie" and the two walked up the
run out of this space and now itsis an stairs. Under their feet, the staircase
enclave of Green party members. crunched with the sound of dead bats
I wanted to know how he found underneath. But the dark staircase
Arborvitae. opened up to a magnificent loft with
"The story of Arborvitae begins 12 thick-beamed ceilings.
years before I moved here," Rich says. "Fabulous!" Rich recalls shouting.
"I was a senior at MIT and had a "I think we can work something
out,' said the agent.
Here was the space Rich had been
looking for. Rich then realized what
he saw before him. "Here was the
dream I had 12 years before."
The first winter, he had no heat
and no bathroom. He had a little space
heater under his desk and had to go to
the old Pancake House to use the
bathroom. In the spring, draftsmen
moved in to work for him. Soon they
became interested in living there as
well and it evolved into the 6-person
loft it is today.
Now the bathroom is outfitted
with a hand-made cement bathtub-
quite possibly the only one of its kind
in the city. Next to the bathroom is
the ninth hole of the old miniature
golf course that was there when Rich
moved in. Upstairs is Rich's living
space, where a library is being com-
piled with the goal of ending war. It's
quite possibly the most idealistic
vision in the most idiosyncratic home
I've ever encountered. There are rem-
nants of 40 years of cyclical living
patterns in Arborvitae. People have
left things behind after they move
out. Flags, lamps, furniture, art and
propaganda. Each little piece of the
material is a reminder of the imper-
manent-those fleeting lives that
cross our own.
-Josh Wckerham'a column runs every
other week. He can be reached via
e-mail atjwickerh@umich.edu.
Everyone loves the
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z
a y, J
E z d
#
Do you have friends you can
rely on? Pals to travel with
you down the road and back
again? Do you have friends who
you can share a home with, let
alone your sorrows and joys?
I don't, so I rely on television to
provide these friends for me. I'm
thinking of NBC's wonders, the
Golden Girls. For those of you
unfamiliar with the hit comedy
series, "The Golden Girls" aired
from 1985 to 1992 and starred
Beatrice Arthur as Dorothy, Estelle
Getty as Sophia, Rue McClanahan
as Blanche and Betty White as
Rose.
I wanted to see which of the
girls people around here like best,
so I enlisted a little help. My friend
Japiya Burns agreed to help me
petition passersby to sign off on
their favorite Golden Girl. But
since there were only two of us,
Japiya and I had to make some
tough choices. I decided to throw
my weight behind Rue McClanahan
because I feel that her portrayal of
the sensual, outspoken Blanche has
gone long unappreciated. Japiya
opted to support Betty White
(Rose), paragon of all things cute,
cuddly and dumb.
Before we hit the Diag, Japiya
and I made some signs and decorat-
ed pictures of "the girls." I made us
some petitions:
"WE, THE UNDERSIGNED,
FIRMLY AGREE THAT RUE
McCLANAHAN, 'THE FORGOT-
TEN GOLDEN GIRL,' IS THE
BEST! SHE RULES!"
"WE, THE UNDERSIGNED,
FIRMLY AGREE THAT BETTY
WHITE WAS THE BEST GOLD-
EN GIRL! SHE IS A TV LAND
LEGEND!"
We were ready. I got my first
signature in support of Rue before
we'd even left the computer lab. My
manager at work proudly signed her
name at the top
of the petition
and scrawled in
"Yea for the
em, slut!" That's
right! Rue got
her next vote
almost immedi-
ately when we
ran into Sean in
the hallway out-
KATIE side the comput-
MUICRONE er lab.
PRACTICALLY When Japiya
JOKING and I set up our
signs in the Diag,
I was already two votes ahead, so I
was pretty excited. We stood
together, proudly bearing our pic-
tures of the girls' faces, waiting to
be vindicated. Mostly, we were
mocked. One bookish guy gave us a
strange look and crossed out of our
path. Some high school kids
laughed at us. But then vindication
came in the form of the girl with
headphones.
She pushed her headphones off
her ears and listened thoughtfully to
our respective pitches. I explained
how Blanche embodies a special
sort of feminism and upsets the
stereotype of the aging Southern
belle. Then Japiya dealt the low
blow: Animal rights. Yeah, yeah,
Betty White loves puppies and kit-
ties. I lost the girl in the head-
phones to puppies and kitties. But
at least she didn't sneer at us like
the next five or six people who
walked by. The next man to sign
gushed about how much he loves
"The Golden Girls:" "It's on Life-
time every day, you know!" We
know. He seemed disappointed that
we weren't petitioning on behalf of
Estelle Getty, but then unhesitating-
ly signed for Rue.
Our next supporter insisted on
taking first Japiya's picture, then
mine. I think he thought we were
weirdos. Oh well. He signed for
Rue. Interesting note: All men (with
the exception of Japiya) voted for
Rue. After this we had a long dry
spell in which we tried to explain
exactly who the girls are to some
students from Yugoslavia, got
laughed at by some more high
school kids (different ones), and got
into a heated argument about who
the best-looking Golden Girl was.
More weird looks, people dodging
out of our path. We were both start-
ing to get cold.
Two people stopped to talk to us.
Japiya espoused his animal rights
bullshit once again, and once again
it worked. The girl signed for Betty.
The boy claimed ignorance of the
Golden Girls. Grr. By this time
Japiya and I were very cold. We
took long looks in each direction
and didn't see anyone who looked
like they would stop to talk, so we
decided to call it quits. The final
tally? Five signatures for forgotten
TV goddess Rue McClanahan and a
mere three for softie Betty White.
Like I said, everyone loves the slut!
-Katie Mulcrone 's column runs
every other week. She can be reached
via e-mail at kmulcron@umich.edu.
New apartment
building 'not for
students'
TO THE DAILY:
With the recent approval for
construction of an eight-story
apartment building on the former
site of Olga's Kitchen, I am
reminded that money is what rules
this town.
I favor construction of more res-
idential space downtown, but this
building is not for students, unless
you are willing to pay upwards of
$2000 per month for a small apart-
m.ntTERS TO THE Ecit
ment. The city requires at least one
apartment in any new development
downtown to be affordable for a
medium-income renter. Of the 42 in
this building, there is one that satis-
fies that requirement, and I'm
probably not first in line for it.
Developers do not build for stu-
dents anymore, especially those of
moderate means. We have to choose
between living in a dump or driving
from farther out.
Of course, I also favor turning
Liberty street into a pedestrian
mall.
MARK STOCK
Rackham