The City

Ann Arbor is a great city.  But it loves that the school is here. Even the city buses are tagged with the school's colors. Looking around it is impossible to forget that the school is here, there are 4 or 5 different stores selling school merchandise all on the same block.

The city has a population of slightly over 100 thousand with 32% of the population made up of the students attending the university. The city was founded in 1824 and the University moved from Detroit to Ann Arbor in 1837. The university and the city has a reputation as an important political center, and served as such during the civil-rights and anti-Vietnam war movements. 

A lot of the buildings in downtown have beautiful architecture and seem to have aged well with time. There are two theaters in town, and you can tell just from the signs, that they have been around for quite some time.  The image to the left shows an interesting indoor pathway that cuts between two of the main roads in downtown. It reminds me of an alleyway but businesses exist within the walkway, and the roof makes for a place to be saved from the elements.

There exist many different alleys in the town, even in the downtown area. I took some images from one alley that is full of all sorts of graffiti.  You can tell that in the past it was painted nicely with lots of murals and that a lot of attention went into creating a work of art. Over time the artwork has been covered with some tagging, but you can still see much of the underlying murals.  I will upload an album to facebook showing more of the images, and highlighting the wall of gum that exists as well.