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Cell Phone Shopping? You May Be Allergic to Some »
"Nov. 9, 2012 -- If you're allergic to the metals nickel or cobalt, you may want to consider that when you pick a mobile phone.
In a new study, researchers tested new and used mobile phones for nickel and cobalt. Some people are allerg"...
Read the Cell Phone Shopping? You May Be Allergic to Some article »
(Generic versions may still be available.)
Astemizole is a long-acting, selective histamine H1-receptor antagonist. Receptor binding studies in animals demonstrated that at pharmacological doses, Hismanal (astemizole (withdrawn from us market)) occupies peripheral H1-receptors but does not reach H1-receptors in the brain. Whole body autoradiographic studies in rats, radiolabel tissue distribution studies in dogs and radioligand binding studies of guinea pig brain H1-receptors have shown that Astemizole does not readily cross the blood-brain barrier. Screening studies in rats at effective antihistaminic doses showed no anticholinergic effects. Studies in humans using the recommended dosage regimens have not been performed to determine whether Astemizole is associated with a different frequency of anticholinergic effects than therapeutic doses of other antihistamines.
The absorption of AstemizoleAstemizole is reduced by 60% when taken with meals. In single oral dose studies, Astemizole was rapidly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract; peak plasma concentrations of unchanged Astemizole were reached within one hour. Due to extensive first pass metabolism and significant tissue distribution, plasma concentrations of unchanged drug were low. Elimination of unchanged Astemizole occurred with a half-life of approximately one day. Elimination of Astemizole plus hydroxylated metabolites, considered together to represent the pharmacologically active fraction in plasma, was biphasic with half-lives of 20 hours for the distribution phase and 7-11 days for the elimination phase. The pharmacokinetics of Astemizole plus hydroxylated metabolites are dose proportional following single doses of 10 to 30 mg.
Following chronic administration, steady state plasma concentrations of Astemizole plus hydroxylated metabolites (mainly desmethylastemizole) were reached within four to eight weeks; concentrations of the metabolites are substantially higher than those of unchanged Astemizole. Astemizole plus hydroxylated metabolites decayed biphasically with an initial half-life of 7-9 days, with plasma concentrations being reduced by 75% within this phase, and with a terminal half-life of about 19 days. The initial phase (t1/2= 7-9 days) appears to determine the time to reach steady state plasma concentrations of Astemizole plus hydroxylated metabolites. Steady state plasma concentrations of unchanged Astemizole were reached by 6 days (with a range of 6-9 days); unchanged Astemizole was eliminated from plasma with a half-life of approximately 2 days (with a range of 1-2.5 days).
Excretion and metabolism studies with 14C-labeled Astemizole in volunteers demonstrated that the drug is almost completely metabolized in the liver and primarily excreted in the feces.
Interpatient variability in pharmacokinetic parameters may be greater in patients with liver disease as compared to normal subjects. Systemic evaluation of the pharmacokinetics in patients with hepatic or renal dysfunction has not been performed.
The in vitro plasma protein binding of unchanged Astemizole (100 ng/ml) was 96.7% with 2.3% being found as free drug in the plasma water. In human blood with an astemizole concentration of 100 ng/ml, 61.5% of astemizole was bound to the plasma proteins, with 36.2% being distributed to the blood cell fraction. The concentration of astemizole found in the blood was the same as that found in the plasma fraction of the blood. Binding studies for the astemizole metabolite(s) which achieve much higher concentrations than astemizole under chronic dosing conditions have not been conducted.
Last reviewed on RxList: 12/8/2004
This monograph has been modified to include the generic and brand name in many instances.
Hismanal FDA Prescribing Information
Additional Hismanal Information
Report Problems to the Food and Drug Administration
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit the FDA MedWatch website or call 1-800-FDA-1088.
Allergies & Asthma
Improve treatments & prevent attacks.


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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Larry Bird is calling it quits with the Indiana Pacers.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - Arizona doesn't plan on being a one-year wonder even though the catalysts for the Wildcats' first national championship since 1986 probably are heading off to professional baseball in the next few weeks.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Kansas City is doing to the Tampa Bay Rays precisely what the St. Louis Cardinals did to the Royals over the weekend.
WASHINGTON (AP) - College football will finally have a playoff. Come 2014, the BCS is dead.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The Harlem Globetrotters have drafted James Justice of Martin Methodist College in Pulaski, Tenn.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Luke Hochevar was taken aback when he walked into the manager's office one day and manager Ned Yost and the Royals coaches started trying to convince him to make a change.
DALLAS (AP) - A former Baylor basketball player is facing a federal extortion charge for allegedly threatening to release "derogatory information" about Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III unless he was paid.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Kevin Youkilis sat in the White Sox dugout before his first game with his new team, looking relaxed, sounding confident and flashing a toothy smile through his trademark bushy goatee.
NEW YORK (AP) - Outfielder Marlon Byrd was suspended 50 games by Major League Baseball on Monday after testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance.
MIAMI (AP) - The NBA championship trophy was center stage, bathed in white light and sitting on a pedestal. And each Miami Heat player offered it a different greeting.
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - Meter by meter, Ashton Eaton kept swallowing up real estate on a track that has always felt like home.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Lance Armstrong filed a scathing response Friday to the latest doping allegations against him, accusing the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency of violating its own rules and possibly breaking federal law during its investigation.
BALTIMORE (AP) - The Baltimore Orioles released 49-year-old Jamie Moyer on Saturday, parting ways with the crafty left-hander at his request.
MIAMI (AP) - Dwyane Wade played with knee pain throughout the playoffs. He'll soon know exactly what was causing that problem, and if it could keep him out of the London Olympics.
Things to watch in Week 12 of the Big 12 Conference season, when league co-leaders Baylor and Kansas State are among the four teams not playing:
Oregon jumped undefeated Florida State and moved into second in the College Football Playoff rankings while TCU took over the fourth spot Tuesday night.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - The Chiefs have promoted running back Charcandrick West from the practice squad and signed tight end Phillip Supernaw after losing Cyrus Gray and Demetrius Harris to season-ending injuries.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - After getting trounced by Tennessee in their season opener, the Kansas City Chiefs returned to their practice facility the following day and went through the game film in all its gory detail.
Two weeks ago, West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen starting preparing for a Baylor team that was coming off a wild comeback win over TCU.


text: No recent wiki edits to this page. Echoing current events, this issue puts us in the boots of John Hatfield, a poor kid who enlists in the army for college tuition. It's the only option for kids where he's from, to have anything that even resembles a future. But when war breaks out and he's shipped overseas, his natural talent to never miss his target becomes his curse... because Johnny just doesn't want to shoot anyone. Torn between doing his duty, and killing, and living with his conscience, or to be court-martialed and lose his best chance to provide for himself and his family, John's story isn't over when you come to the last page.


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Computer Application to Business PPT
Presentation Summary : Computer Application in Business Lecture 2 Computer Application in Business For M.Com (University of Sargodha & BZU) IT Series Publications - Publisher Authors ...
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Computer Application for Business CS 170 - Computing Services ... PPT
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Computer Application in Business - Welcome to Central Colleges PPT
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COMPUTERS AND BUSINESS - Tripod.com PPT
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Management Information Systems - CSUS PPT
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Business Applications - UC Berkeley School of Information PPT
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Computer Industry Analysis - CSUS PPT
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Chapter 4: Computer Software - College of Business PPT
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Computer Software - University of Baltimore PPT
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Record-keeping for a Small Business PPT
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Presentation Summary : Application Software
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Source : http://www.cse.yorku.ca/~mack/1010/1010-Chapter4.ppt


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Before you judge me, let me try to explain why I deign to make such a statement and then maybe you can forgive me, understand why I write this or at the very least throw a little bit of sympathy my way. I am a 44 year old woman who suffers from a rare, very progressive and very painful illness called Dercum's disease. For those of you who know what that is you either have been listening to me and I do thank you with all my heart or you are one of the few that agonize along side of me and, therefore, you hold a special place in my heart.
Now for those of you who have no clue what Dercum's is, I will try to explain it the best I can. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have any other questions or think you may have Dercum's disease. I am including my email information and some resources at the end of this piece. I promise I will do everything I can to steer you in the right direction and I honestly wish I could do a lot more.
Dercum's disease (DD), known medically as adiposis dolorosa (which literally translates to painful fat) was first recognized by Dr. Francis Xavier Dercum in 1888. Though Dercum's disease is its most recognizable name it is really a syndrome (a collection of symptoms that indicate a disease) and sadly, it being one of the rarer of the orphan diseases, there are not many medical professionals that even know it by any name let alone how to diagnose or treat it.
Dercum's is known to effect the vascular and lymphatic systems. There are many symptoms that can present but the main indication of Dercum's is painful growths in the subcutaneous fat. These fatty growths are called lipomas and can happen all though out the body and because they are so insidious having them surgically removed is not always recommended and possibly can make the lipomas or symptoms worse. Once the fat tissue is formed into a lipoma, exercise or diet will not get rid of it. That fat is there to stay until it is surgically removed. The progressive onset of Dercum's usually starts sometime in the mid-thirties but a lot of patients have claimed they noticed symptoms as far back as adolescence.
Besides lipomas, the symptoms people have can vary from patient to patient but most commonly include rapid weight gain or loss, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, anxiety, depression, muscle spasms, cognitive issues, headaches, swelling and sleeping disorders. To put some perspective on the disease, look at the symptoms of fibromyalgia, MS, Lupus and other autoimmune diseases and add painful fat on top of the mix and you basically got Dercum's. Also because it is a syndrome, many other health issues can show up like diabetes, hypertension, thyroid disease, asthma or other chronic lung disease, IBS, migraines, endometriosis and kidney disease, just to name a few.
OK, so with that explained now I will get into the reasons why I would rather have cancer instead of Dercum's:
Cancer Has Recognition Power
I was at the pharmacy getting my prescriptions and was asked, "Do you want to donate to Stand Up to Cancer?"
First thought, yes. Second thought, those bastards get all the money. Third thought, Janet you are going to Hell for thinking that. My response, "Yes, I will definitely give $3 to Stand Up to Cancer. What do I look like some sort of unfeeling monster?" Maybe I didn't really say those words but that is what I said in my head as I hit the button on the credit card swiper for a donation of $3.
First thought, yes. Second thought, those bastards get all the money. Third thought, Janet you are going to Hell for thinking that. My response, "Yes, I will definitely give $3 to Stand Up to Cancer. What do I look like some sort of unfeeling monster?" Maybe I didn't really say those words but that is what I said in my head as I hit the button on the credit card swiper for a donation of $3.
Then there was a great campaign over the last year for a disease that was not cancer related. The Ice Bucket Challenge was a wonderful feat of awareness and fundraising for ALS. I marvel at the simple brilliance of using social media in the way they did and I am so happy that it was so successful. Now let me tell you all a secret. All of us suffering from other really rare and lessor known diseases had a thought or two go through our heads through the entire summer of watching video after video of friends, family and famous people drench themselves in ice cold water, "Where is our awareness? Where are our funds for research coming from? What about us?"
When you have a rare disease there is no money coming in from the pharmaceuticals or grants from the governments for research. You don't get rock bands throwing concerts for you or celebrities writing checks for thousands of dollars. If you are lucky enough to have a doctor or team doing research all the funds are raised by the people with the disease and their friends and family. The same people are hit up time and time again to give money and sometimes it just seems like a losing battle.
So, yeah, give that $3 to help cancer but consider giving the same amount to some other lessor known fundraiser. It could be for a sole person doing a GoFundMe online trying to get to see the one doctor in the entire country doing research on the disease they suffer from or one of the many walks, golf tournaments, 5Ks, bike rides, dinners, pancake breakfasts, poker runs, craft shows, dances, etc. running weekly in your area. We do appreciate and rely on every dollar we can get.
That brings me to my second reason which is covered a little bit under this one but deserved its own section as well.
Rare Diseases are Not Sexy Enough for Research
You got that right. I said sexy and not that there is anything sexy about cancer but there are plenty of draws for pharmaceutical companies and the government to put money into research for diseases that touch people's lives every day. If you do not know anyone personally with cancer there are plenty of celebrities who have fought or are fighting their battle now. There is always a new face for cancer that a disease like Dercum's may never have.
However, because I brought up sexy, the one thing DD and certain cancer patients can agree on, there is nothing sexy about painful lumps!
Doctors Hate Treating Us
It's not that they hate us though at times we feel they must. What they hate is trying to treat someone they cannot actual treat. Their hands are tied. Most facilities they work out of or insurance companies will not allow them to do experimental treatments on patients and since Dercum's is a rare disease almost everything suggested to treat it is considered experimental.
Before your panties get into a bunch, I am not saying that all treatments for cancer are easily obtained by the patients and families. However, because it is cancer there is a better chance that the insurance company can be overturned. At least the first part of the appeal process is done just in the fact that they know what cancer is.
There are a lot of similarities between Dercum's and other diseases. One disease it has a lot in common with is lymphatic cancer, but without having the malignant cells most doctors cannot justify to an insurance company that we would benefit from radiation. In all reality, we don't even know if we would benefit anyhow because there is just not enough of us to do trials on.
I'm Tired of Talking and Not Being Heard
OK, I'll admit, I love to talk. I love to write. I love to explain. In fact I have been told that I am a chronic over-explainer but some days I am just too tired of explaining just what is going on with me. One day I may be up and fine and another day I am out for the count.
For some reason I feel that if someone tells you they have cancer there is just that understanding and no explanation is needed. Since I love to explain so much, let me try to make this clear: If someone has a sickness that is going to be with them until the day they die, whether it is that sickness that is the cause of their death or something else, it remains a burden every day. Some days are better than others but it is still there insinuating itself in our bodies and waiting to strike again. Oh and usually it strikes with a vengeance if we mere sickly mortals think we have overcome it even for one single sunny afternoon.
We, my fellow sufferers and I, all know this and need you to understand that fact. We will crash but we refuse to be out for the count. Let us have our day in the sun and help us get through the next few as best you can. We are still people and do enjoy things once in a while.
There is No End in Sight
Now I will get a little morose. Sorry, it has to happen and in no way do I want a pity party. If I see a bunch of pitying comments I will feel I did not get my point across, so please try to refrain.
I am writing these things for you, the reader, so that you will understand. They may make you upset but this is reality. I cried as I wrote this. I cried as I read this out loud and I am crying as I am editing this. The point though is not to make you cry because crying clouds your eyes. The point is to make you see with your eyes open. So if I ask one thing, I ask you to reread the following if at first there are clouds in your eyes. Then keep rereading until you understand what I am saying. Thank you.
I suffer from a painful, progressive disorder that will not get better and I'll have for the rest of my life. I have had to accept the fact that I will always have to account for this horrible thing in everything I do from now until I take my last breath which could be 40 years from now.
At 44, I am still relatively young but there are days I cannot get out of bed. I feel useless and unreliable. With the progression of this illness I have slowly lost so many things in my life I am in a constant cycle of grieving for something and yet I smile. I tell you I am fine. I put on a mask and I try to make you feel more comfortable around me. I hate scaring people with the truth. I hate thinking of the truth. I hate that my body is rebelling against me which is pretty ironic because I loved to rebel when I was younger.
I wish I had cancer because I don't get the relief of coming to grips that I only have months to live because I have many, many years ahead of me of being in pain and it getting worse. I don't get to ever say I beat this because there are no treatments or cures approved for me to take that will make that so. I don't get the recognition and sympathy with just saying one word when people ask what is wrong. Instead I need to explain myself at every turn.
I don't wish I had cancer because I want to die or in any way I think it is a cake walk compared to what I have. I just wish I had something that you all would understand and hopefully you are a step closer to doing so.
– Janet L. Mullen
If you want to reach me, email me at email@example.com
Besides this blog, Living With Dercum's Disease, Janet also writes content for Cure Dercum's and co-administrates on-line support groups including Dercum's Research and SPASMS - Support for Pain, Agony, Sickness and Mental Suffering both which can be found on Facebook.
To donate money towards research for Dercum's:
Rhode Island Dercum's Research Fund, Inc. (US 501c3 charity)
All proceeds donated go to Dr. Karen Herbst's research for Dercum's and other adipose tissue disorders. Dr. Herbst a board certified Endocrinologist for more info on her and her research, please visit www.lipomadoc.org


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Author: Grace Shackman
Even Frank Lloyd Wright approved
Most church groups that need to relocate either buy a church building abandoned by another
congregation or build a new church. But in 1946, when the Ann Arbor Unitarian Universalists left
their handsome stone church at the corner of State and Huron, they moved to a house on
The stately and prestigious Women's City Club started as a simple farmhouse.
Its huge Huron Street factory is now a haven for low-budget arts groups.
Dotted around the city, they were the headquarters of seven self-reliant
These days, Ann Arbor's five political wards are transitory entities. Wards are redrawn every ten
years to insure that they represent as equal populations as possible, and boundaries are freely
adjusted by the party in power to create the maximum number of winnable seats.
Once the object of neighbors' wrath, Lustron homes have emerged as winsome modernist
Lustron homes were one of the most innovative solutions to the post-World War II housing
shortage. Nine of them can still be found in Ann Arbor, in close to their original condition despite
dire predictions at the time of their construction (1948-1950) that they would soon be a pile of
Except for the cement slab they rest on, Lustron homes are made entirely of steel. The outside
walls consist of two-foot square, porcelain-finished steel panels in either yellow or tan. The roofs
are made of interlocking steel tiles. The inside walls are also of steel, as are the doors,
ceilings, and the built-in furniture. A clever room layout of halls, sliding doors, and large
windows makes maximum use of the space, and the 1,025-square-foot, two-bedroom houses feel much
roomier than they are. Jane Barnard, owner of the Lustron at 3060 Lakeview, says, "The use of space
is perfect. There is nothing I would change."
Lustron homes were the brainchild of Carl Strandlund, an industrial engineer who worked for a
Chicago company that manufactured porcelainized steel panels for gas station exteriors. Strandlund's
great inspiration was to use essentially the same material for housing.
For start-up money, Strandlund got a $15.5 million loan from the federal Reconstruction Finance
Corporation, followed by several other loans. He used the money to take over a huge,
twenty-three-acre factory in Columbus, Ohio. There he set up his sheet-metal presses, high-speed
welding rigs, enamel sprayers, and drying ovens. His house kits, designed to be set up like giant
Erector sets, began coming off the line in 1948. Each kit consisted of 3,300 individual parts and
weighed 10 tons. The original price was $7,000.
Lustrons came to Ann Arbor through the efforts of visionary businessman Neil Staebler, who heard
about them while working in Washington for the Federal Housing Administration in the years just
after the war. He recalls, "I thought they were a swell idea. Lustron promised to be a durable
material, which it has proved to be." When he returned to Ann Arbor to live, he applied for the
local Lustron franchise.
In all, Staebler was able to arrange for nine Lustron homes to be built: at 605 Linda Vista; 3060
Lakewood; 1121,1125, and 1129 Bydding; 1711 Chandler; 800 Starwick; 1910 Longshore; and 1200 S.
Seventh. All but one were put up by Clarence Kollewehr, a carpenter who went on to become the
business manager of Local 512 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. Kollewehr and his
crew, which consisted of two other carpenters and two laborers, had some trouble erecting the first
few Lustrons, but soon became so adept that they hardly had to refer to the building manual. If
there were no snags, they could erect a Lustron home in less than a week.
Kollewehr has fond memories of the Lustrons, which he describes as "an engineering monument when
you consider how they were built." The only problem he remembers is that the outside panels would
sometimes get chipped while being pounded in. But the kit was so well designed that it even included
enamel paint in the color of the model, so that the crew could do quick touch-ups at the end of the
The Lustrons' practical, progressive aura appealed especially to people at the U-M. But probably
the best-known Lustron buyers were Ray and Olive Dolph, builders of the Dolph mansion in the
Lakewood subdivision off Jackson Road. When they decided to move to a smaller house, leaving the
mansion for their son, Charles, and his family, the Dolphs chose a Lustron, appreciating its nice
house plan and new materials. Says Charles's ex-wife, Marge Reade, "We were liberal about those
Few people, it turned out, were as liberal as the Dolphs. "The city didn't care much for
[Lustrons], or the neighbors either," recalls Clarence Kollewehr. "There were comments wherever we
worked. The neighbors were not tickled." After selling nine Lustrons, Staebler decided to switch to
more conventional prefabs, finding the opposition to Lustrons "a hornet's nest." Lustron was going
out of business anyway. Although the houses were well designed, the company never became financially
stable and went bankrupt in 1950.
During the Lustron bankruptcy hearings, it was revealed that Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, one
of Carl Strandlund's staunchest supporters in his loan requests, had been paid $10,000 by Lustron to
write a 36-page article explaining how veterans could get housing loans. Although a direct
connection between payment for the article and McCarthy's support for the Lustron loans was never
proved, many found it curious that McCarthy earned more per word than Winston Churchill, whose war
memoirs then held the record.
In spite of the scandal and the warnings of early death by rust, ihe local Lustrons and others
around the country have held up remarkably well. Ron Hin-terman, a former owner of the Lustron on
Seventh, says, "It looks the same now as it ever did." Of the Lakewood Lustron, Marge Reade says,
"It looks as good as it first did. It will be recorded by history as quite a little card."
Some Lustron owners have had to endure quite a bit of teasing. Rachel Massey, who recently moved
from the Lustron on Chandler, says her friends dubbed it "the little Fleetwood." Richard Sears, who
lives on Bydding, says his friends compare his home to a refrigerator, asking him if a light comes
on when he opens the front door.
When Bob Preston moved into the Lustron on Linda Vista, his friends threw a housewarming party.
Most of the gifts were magnets, plus a can opener that came with a note: "In case you forget your
house key."
Owners find Lustron maintenance relatively easy once they get used to it. The outside is easily
cleaned with a garden hose, while the inside walls respond nicely to soap and water. Rust is a
problem only when the walls chip, and then it can be treated with a car-body product such as
Rustoleum or Bondo. Over the years, owners have also taken highly divergent approaches to interior
decorating. Massey had fun with Art Deco. Claire and Paul Tinkerhouse, the current owners of the
Lustron on Linda Vista, have painted the walls with textured paint and decorated with antiques to
downplay the shiny steel look. Jane Barnard keeps her decor clean and open so as not to let the
lines dividing the steel panels make the house seem too fussy.
Jazz musician Ron Brooks, owner of one of the Bydding Lustrons, moved one of the walls to enlarge
his living room and added dry wall. (Brooks was intrigued to hear of the Staebler connection, since
his jazz club, the Bird of Paradise, is located in the garage that was part of Staebler and Sons car
dealership, a business begun by Neil Staebler's father.) The only current owner not to sing the
praises of his Lustron is artist Richard Sears. "It's not terribly efficient, hard to insulate,"
says Sears. "If I could afford it, I'd tear it down and donate it to the landfill." Sears has also
made the most dramatic interior changes of any Lustron owner: he's removed all but the bathroom
walls so he has room to stand back and view his paintings.
[Photo caption from original print edition]: The innovative all-steel Lustron kit house made the
cover of Architectural Forum in June 1947. When production started in 1948, the ten-ton, 3,300-piece
prefab houses sold for just $7,000.
[Photo caption from original print edition]: Lustrons' diverse room layout made the small homes
feel surprisingly roomy. "The use of space is perfect," says owner Jane Barnard. Barnard's Lustron
in the Lakewood subdivision was built as a retirement home by Ray and Olive Dolph; they moved into
it from the nearby Dolph mansion.
Author: Grace Shackman and Mary Hunt
In the nineteenth century, when industry was on a much smaller, more local scale, a good-sized
county seat like Ann Arbor could be expected to have at least one carriage factory, probably more.
Ann Arbor had several. The biggest was Walker and Company's Ann Arbor Carriage Works, whose legacy
is the handsome red brick building on West Liberty now occupied by the Ann Arbor Art
Walker and Company catered to the high-class end of the carriage trade. U-M regent and publisher
Junius Beal would have nothing but a Walker carriage, and Ann Arbor Mayor Samuel Beakes, eager
Design for Living
Thanks to Frank Lloyd Wright, Bill and Mary Palmer raised their family in a work of art.
On a Saturday morning a little over a year ago, a group that included prominent local architect
Larry Brink; Doug Kelbaugh, dean of the U-M's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning;
builder Bruce Niethammer; and George Colone, a heating specialist from Hutzel Plumbing &
Heating, met to discuss a failing radiant heat system beneath the concrete floor of a fifty-year-old
house. If it had been just any house, the solution would have been obvious: jackhammer the concrete
and replace the pipes. But on hearing that suggestion, owner Mary Palmer recalls, "I nearly
fainted. It wasn't acceptable." The reason so many people shared her concern was that the floor
in question was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
The group worked out a solution that would preserve the part of the radiant system that still
worked, about a third of the total. Hutzel would install a new boiler and radiators to heat the rest
of the house--but would hide all the new components behind couches, inside cabinets, and under
Inspired by a teenage trip to Japan, the Dow Chemical heir spurned the family business to
devote his life to architecture. From city hall to the U-M's administration building, he put a
quirky modernist stamp on the city.
Judy Dow Rumelhart was walking down Fifth Avenue one day recently when it started to rain.
Looking around for shelter, she spotted the Ann Arbor District Library, a building originally
designed by her uncle, Alden Dow. "And I thought how lovely it is," Rumelhart says. "The
library is one of my favorites."
"The library and city hall are two of the ugliest buildings in Ann Arbor, and ISR [the U-M
Institute for Social Research] is right up there," says library board member Ed Surovell,
expressing a dissenting opinion on the library and two other Dow designs. "They do not have the
kind of imposing presence of a public building that creates civic pride."
Alden Dow (1904–1983) is an unlikely figure to provoke such controversy. Though Frank Lloyd
Wright once called him his "spiritual son," Dow had none of the older architect's egotism or
self-promotion. Shy and studious, Dow had to be encouraged to take on major public commissions by
his devoted wife, Vada. He got much of his work through family connections; his father, Herbert, was
the founder of Dow Chemical.
Alden Dow's entree to Ann Arbor was through his sister Margaret and her husband, U-M physician
Harry Towsley. His first residential commission, in 1932, was the Towsley home in Ann Arbor Hills.
Over the next thirty-six years, Dow designed seventeen more Ann Arbor buildings; in the 1960s, his
work was so highly regarded that both the city of Ann Arbor and the U-M hired him to design their
administrative centers: the Larcom Municipal Building (1961) and the Fleming Administration Building
Like Frank Lloyd Wright, with whom he studied, Dow sought to integrate his buildings into their
environment. His motto was, "Gardens never begin, and houses never end." Especially in his
residential projects, he was capable of blending building and landscape brilliantly.
The going was tougher when the commission was a civic building downtown. He sometimes attempted
to domesticate these urban settings by specifying massive upper-story planters, but in Ann Arbor,
most of these have long since been abandoned as impractical.
Despite the common elements he sometimes used, Dow was no assembly-line architect. His Ann Arbor
buildings have evoked comparisons as diverse as "a Mondrian painting" (the Fleming Building) and
a "bureau of drawers" (city hall). But especially in recent years, those characterizations have
not always been flattering.
Last year, shortly after taking office, U-M president Lee Bollinger announced that he wanted to
move his office out of the Fleming Building, which he called "fortresslike." (Its slit windows,
arched entryway, and looming overhangs do give the Fleming Building a defensive look, but the
popular belief that Dow designed it to shut out student protesters is unfounded—the plans were
completed well before the campus demonstrations of the 1960s turned violent.)
Others have since risen to the building's defense, including Robert Venturi and Denise Scott
Brown, the celebrated "postmodern" architects whom Bollinger retained to develop a new master
plan for the university. But Bollinger's comments are a sure sign of Dow's declining stature in
the city he did so much to shape.
Alden Dow was born in Midland in 1904, the fifth of Grace and Herbert Dow's seven children. His
parents had assumed that he would go into the family business, but they also encouraged his
creativity by exposing him to art, historic buildings, and gardens. When he was a teenager, the
whole family took a trip to Japan. "They went in a big ship and stayed for three or four
months," relates his niece Judy Dow Rumelhart. The trip exposed Dow to two of his greatest
influences as an architect: the exacting simplicity of Japanese design and the striking modernism of
Frank Lloyd Wright, whose newly completed Imperial Hotel the family admired.
Dow spent three years at the U-M studying mechanical engineering, but then begged his parents to
let him switch careers. He transferred to Columbia's School of Architecture and in 1930, while
still a student, his father got him his first commission: a clubhouse for the Midland Country Club.
Upon graduation, Dow joined a Saginaw firm and married Vada Bennet, his childhood sweetheart, in
1931. His sister and brother-in-law, Margaret and Harry Towsley, promptly hired him to design their
As originally designed, the Towsley house was basically a three-bedroom ranch, although much more
elegant than those that would become ubiquitous after World War II. Its features included clerestory
windows, a copper roof, and raised planter boxes designed to blend house and landscape.
Dow designed the interior of his houses in minute detail and even dictated the color schemes.
"He loved strong colors, primary colors, and jewel tones," recalls Rumelhart—"cherry red,
cerise, emerald green, purple amethyst, ruby topaz."
Considering Dow's great interest in gardens, it's ironic that his most influential innovation
at the Towsley house was the way he designed the driveway: he specified an attached garage facing
the street, believed to be the first in the country. "We thought the house looked like a gas
station," recalls family friend Jack Dobson.
Asked whether it was strange to grow up in such an unusual house, Rumelhart replies, "I loved
the house. . . . and had a sense of pride of being in it. I thought all architecture should look
like that."
During construction, Dow fought repeatedly with city building inspectors, who he saw as trampling
on his artistic license. For instance, he wanted to give the house unusually low ceilings, 7'6"
instead of the required 8'. Denied, he recorded his losing battles in a series of four bas-reliefs
in the front hall; one shows an architect being stomped by an authoritarian foot while another
depicts him strangled in red tape.
Although the house had been planned as a starter home, the Towsleys lived there all of their
lives. They just kept asking Dow to design additions, which he did in 1934, 1938, and again in 1960.
Dow put his latest ideas into each revision such as a landscaped backyard viewed through a big
dining room window and so many built-ins that there was little need for furniture: he provided a
built-in safe, walk-in refrigerator, clothes drawers that opened on both the bedroom and dressing
room sides, and even metal drawers especially designed to store Margaret Towsley's extensive
collection of linen tablecloths. The original color scheme was vividly patriotic in the main living
areas: cherry-red rug and turquoise walls.
In 1933, Alden and Vada Dow spent six months at Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's studio-home
complex in western Wisconsin. While Alden studied architecture, Vada completed her own fellowship in
painting, weaving, and pottery.
Dow and Wright maintained a friendship for years after the Dows' time at Taliesin. The two
architects visited each other in their homes and Dow even named one of his daughters "Lloyd."
They had a serious falling out, however, in 1949, when Wright lost a commission to design the
Phoenix Civic Center because his fee was too high--and Dow agreed to take the job in his place.
According to Craig McDonald, director of the Alden Dow Home and Studio in Midland, it was Vada Dow
and Olgivanna Wright who finally persuaded their husbands to make peace.
After Taliesin, Dow set up his own firm in Midland. Despite the Depression, Dow Chemical was
booming, and he designed homes for an ever-increasing circle of clients. As his reputation grew, he
received commissions from as far away as North Carolina (a residence for the president of Duke
University) and Texas (an entire company town, Lake Jackson, for Dow Chemical during World War II).
But Midland always remained his base: of the 138 buildings he designed in his career, 104 are in his
Ann Arbor is second only to Midland, with eighteen Dow buildings. Surprisingly, very few are
private homes; he built only two more residences here, both for doctors who knew Harry Towsley: the
Sibley Hoobler house (228 Belmont Road) in 1949, and the Joe Morris house (7 Regent Drive) in 1962.
Hoobler has since died, but Joe and Julia Morris still live in their Dow house and vividly remember
the design process.
In the early 1960s, Joe Morris asked Harry Towsley whether he thought Dow would design him a
house. Towsley suggested that he write and ask, and Dow responded by inviting Morris to Midland for
lunch. During lunch, Morris recalls, the architect "talked about sailboats, about housing--he had
an idea about housing for Third World countries by making plastic modular units and dropping them in
by helicopter. When we returned, I told his secretary we hadn't talked about my house. She said,
'Wonderful. He needs to get his mind off his work.' "
The Morrises waited two years before Dow had time to work on their house. When they finally sat
down to review the plans, they found that Dow had definite ideas about what he wanted. For instance,
Joe recalls, Dow's original plan did not include room to eat in the kitchen--"He said we would
never eat in the kitchen."
"We insisted we would," Morris continues. "So he relented and designed a [built-in] kitchen
table." The furniture that Dow didn't build in, he selected, including daybeds, dining room
table and chairs, and the chairs and sofa in the living room. All of the built-ins and carefully
coordinated furniture result in a very clean look. Morris calls it "magnificent simplicity."
Joe Morris was one of many clients invited to visit Dow's combined home and studio in Midland.
A beautiful and unusual building, it was a good advertisement for his artistry.
Like the Towsley house, Dow's evolved in a series of additions. It began in 1933 as a long
train car–like studio. In 1935, he added its most striking feature, a room half-submerged in a
pond. Officially called the "floating conference room," but known informally as the "submarine
room," its ingenious use of water invites comparisons to Wright's more famous Falling Water.
In Midland, Dow was able to build the low ceilings he was denied in Ann Arbor. "I got a kick
out of his studio," recalls Fred Mayer, U-M's director of university planning. "He was about
5'6", so the studio was designed for him. I'm 5'8", so it was okay with me."
The low ceilings and small proportions in Dow's house reminded Morris of "Beatrice Potter
homes in Peter Rabbit. There was the same childhood comfort in his home." Bill Reish, who visited
Midland in the seventies to discuss an addition to Greenhills School, recalls the "sunken room at
duck-eye level, with ducks floating by." Former library director Gene Wilson missed that
view--"The pond was leaking the day I was there, so he had it drained."
People remember Dow's appearance as slightly eccentric. "He was wearing different-colored
shoes, I think yellow," Wilson recalls. Adds Rumelhart, "He wore his hair longer than the
conventional doctors I was used to."
Craig McDonald, who was Vada's assistant in the last years of her life, recalls Alden as
"quiet and understated. He was somewhat shy, but expressed himself through design." The late Guy
Larcom, who oversaw construction of Ann Arbor's city hall, remembered him as "a small man,
undistinguished--but impressive when he talked about architecture."
"He could be very intense if he got excited about something," Rumelhart says. "He could
pick a flower and be overwhelmed. He had a creative intensity.
"I loved Alden," Rumelhart continues. "He said it was okay to be a singer. The medical
world was terrified of the arts, but he told my parents, 'She's talented. She should be doing
what she is doing.' "
Dow's peak period in Ann Arbor came during the 1950s and 1960s when he built six university and
three civic buildings. The U-M's Margaret Bell Pool (1952) was his first college commission; it
opened doors, and he eventually worked on nine other campuses in Michigan.
Before it was built, the U-M had two pools reserved primarily for men, while women had only the
"Barbour bathtub" in the basement of Barbour gym. Margaret Bell, head of women's physical
education, had long wanted to redress this injustice. According to Sheryl Szady, who has researched
the history of U-M women's athletics, "She said, 'Before I leave, I'm getting a pool.' "
Bell organized bridge parties, sold tiles, and organized benefit parties to raise the necessary
funds. Margaret Towsley, a friend of P.E. professor Marie Hartwig and a generous patron of
progressive causes, probably contributed to the project.
The new pool was state of the art. Designed for synchronized swimming and for Michifish shows
(elaborate performances with costumes, lighting, and staging), it had an air flow system that sent
cool air over the spectators in the bleachers and warm air over the pool. Underwater speakers
allowed the synchronized swimmers to hear the music.
According to Szady, the day before the pool opened, Bell, Hartwig, and another woman "hopped in
and played around." At first, men were allowed to swim at the pool only on Friday nights. The pool
became coed in 1976 when the building was enlarged to become the Central Campus Recreational
Building. Last year the kinesiology department put on another addition, but Dow's original
building is still discernible, especially the second-story planters, the only ones in Ann Arbor that
are still maintained.
In 1964, Dow designing two large buildings just a half a block apart on Thompson Street: ISR, the
first new building in the country dedicated solely to social research, and the administration
building, later named in honor of Robben Fleming, the university's tenth president.
The two buildings have striking exteriors, but both have been criticized as being designed from
the outside in, sacrificing interior utility to achieve an exterior effect. For instance, as
originally designed, the massive white aggregate panels that face ISR would have left the offices
behind them with no exterior windows. According to retired psychology professor Bob Kahn, one of
ISR's founders, Dow had to be persuaded to move the panels out slightly so that small slit windows
could be added.
Dow planned ISR's interior in detail. The space was divided into modules, each with a large
open area facing a window wall, with two offices on either side of the open area and two slightly
bigger offices in the corners. "The offices would be almost all one of two sizes to minimize
status," recalls Kahn. Dow was proud of the egalitarian effect, noting in his 1970 book,
Reflections, "All occupants have a similar relationship, through glassed area, with the
But research projects did not always divide neatly into the modules Dow prescribed. And despite
his egalitarian goals in designing the faculty offices, the ISR layout also perpetuated what, in
hindsight, looks like a far greater inequity: while the researchers had private offices, the female
support staff was assigned to desks that sat in the middle of the central area, without a shred of
private space. Room dividers were eventually added--but these in turn blocked out light to the side
Maintenance on the windows also presented a problem. They were locked with special keys and
pivoted open to wash. People would open the windows to let in air, then not secure them because they
didn't have the key. Once, "a person on the fifth floor was leaning against the window when it
pivoted," recalls retired ISR administrator Jim Wessell. "He almost fell out. Luckily he was
caught by someone nearby."
The windows on the Fleming Administration Building opened the same way but were arranged very
differently: in geometric patterns reminiscent of a Mondrian painting. While intriguing from the
outside, the design created some very curious interior spaces, with long, thin windows in
unpredictable locations.
Dow's most unusual campus building, the Fleming Building, is also the most controversial. Ed
Surovell calls it "a cube in space" and says of the entrance, "you have to hunt for it like a
medieval castle." People who work in the building complain of the "mazelike" layout.
The Regents' Room on the first floor is designed with an arched ceiling, which, according to
Craig McDonald, was used "to give a feeling of being in a larger space." Two similar arches take
up the rest of the first floor: the middle arch is a corridor connecting the east and west
entrances, and the other serves as offices. The cavernous look has caused people to compare the
space to a beer vault or a wine cellar, and audiences at regents' meetings often decry the absence
of windows and call it "the cave."
Rumelhart defends the design, saying, "Alden took the assignment and created a painting. He was
a great fan of Mondrian and he fulfilled that feeling." Also siding with Rumelhart is architect
Denise Scott Brown. Asked about the Fleming Building, she calls it "honorable architecture" and
says it is "nicely proportioned." "Taste cycles," adds Brown's husband, Robert Venturi.
"There was a time when Victorian architecture was thought ugly and torn down. We have to be
tolerant of the immediate past."
Changing taste is one problem with the building, but of the more utilitarian problems, many are
not Dow's fault but are the result of growth. "It was never intended to have as many people as
it does now. When there was a big lobby on every floor, it was more aesthetically pleasing," says
Dick Kennedy, retired vice-president for government relations.
"You'd get off the elevator and see a bank of windows onto the plaza," recalls Kay Beattie,
who worked in the building in its early days. "You had the feeling no one worked there." Beattie
also remembers that, in vintage Dow fashion, each floor had its own vivid color theme--longtime
employees describe them with names like "Howard Johnson orange" and "football field
As controversial as the Fleming Building is, it could have been even more eye-popping. According
to Fred Mayer, university architect Howard Hacken vetoed Dow's original plans to finish the
exterior in white stucco with blue windows and gold trim. "Very rah-rah," Mayer laughs.
Dow left a strong mark on the U-M campus, but it was nothing compared to his impact across
Division Street. In the library and city hall, he defined the two most important buildings in Ann
Arbor's public life.
The library was built first, in 1956. "After the war there was no established library
architecture," recalls Gene Wilson, then a library staff member, later director. "Dow had built
the Midland library, and we thought it was grand."
His Ann Arbor design had all of the Dow hallmarks. Even today, after two additions, one can still
recognize his hand in the elevated planter faced with turquoise enamel paneling and the lovely
little garden on the south side.
"I always liked it," Wilson says of the library. "It was state of the art for its time."
But, he admits, there were problems. "Dow was more concerned with visual impact--he wanted it to
be noticed, he didn't let function get in the way. There was a circulation desk but no reference
desk, and there was no clear delineation between public and private areas. We had to scramble around
to make [the layout] work."
Like many other clients, the library also found that Dow's elevated gardens were difficult to
maintain. Wilson doesn't recall exactly when the library stopped tending the second-story
planters, but says, "it would have been very early. There never was a way to get to them except by
a long ladder put up by the sidewalk--any maintenance was done by the janitor climbing the ladder.
One day the ladder slipped and the janitor fell and broke his leg. After that we lost
Dow's other great downtown project, the Ann Arbor city hall, has been a conversation piece ever
since it opened in 1961; in addition to a chest of drawers, it's been compared to "an inverted
wedding cake" and "an upside-down carport." It's also been called "a poor man's
Guggenheim," an allusion to Frank Lloyd Wright's famous upward-spiraling museum in New York
The building is an inverted stepped pyramid, with the floors growing wider as they go up. The
second floor is a large promenade that Dow thought might be used for public meetings or for city
council members to step outside to caucus. (Rumelhart has always thought it would be a good place to
perform plays.)
Inside, Dow put elevators, stairs, conference rooms, and department head's offices near the
building's core. The space around the periphery of the building was kept open. "The idea was
that there were to be no prestige offices, no best windows," recalled Guy Larcom in an interview
before his death last winter. "It was all open to public view."
Kathy Frisinger, then the city's assistant director of central services, oversaw the move into
the new building. She remembers that although employees were glad to be together after being
scattered at seven different locations, many didn't like the open floor plan. "You could see
from one end to the other," she explains. "If you talked to someone, everyone could see you
talking, see which office you went into."
The promenade never got much use, and there were serious problems with roof leaks. Switchboard
operator Mary Schlecht recalls that when it rained, the police department downstairs had buckets all
over the place. The planters Dow specified on the second and third floors also leaked. "The plants
grew well on the north side, but it got too hot on the south and you had to water almost every
day," a former employee recalls. City hall's maintenance people, like their counterparts at the
library, eventually gave up on the planters; they're now filled with rocks.
Dow ordered the building's furnishings with his characteristic eye for vivid color. "I'll
never forget that day when seven Steelcase trucks came. Big semi trucks drove up with turquoise and
orange furniture," laughs Frisinger, who supervised the unloading. "I saw mine were to be orange
and I said, 'I don't think so,' and did a quick switch." Nonetheless, she says, "I
basically enjoyed the building. I liked the big offices, the open spacious feel in the building. Dow
was ahead of his time."
As city hall has become more crowded, its once open spaces have given way to a warren of
cubbyholes. Furniture and curtains have been placed in front of most of the big windows in the inner
offices to give more privacy. The top floor, recently remodeled after the district court moved to
the county courthouse, today comes the closest to the spacious feeling Dow originally intended.
Dow worked up to his death in 1983, but the debate continues on his rightful place in
architectural history. The question of whether or not his buildings look good comes down to personal
taste, and there can be no global or permanent answer. Setting that aside, a study of his Ann Arbor
work shows that while many have serious practical problems, there were always reasons for what Dow
Near the top of the list of problems would have to be his flat roofs, a distinction he shared
with his mentor, Frank Lloyd Wright. "Talk with any person about an Alden Dow building and they
will sing its praises and then remember the trouble they had with the roof," says Greenhills'
Bill Reish. Dow's elevated planters were another recurring source of trouble. The only one still
in use in Ann Arbor, at the U-M's kinesiology building, supports a few scraggly plants. Ann Arbor
has apparently tended its Dow buildings less carefully than his hometown. Craig McDonald reports
that numerous examples of Dow's elevated plantings are still flourishing in Midland.
Lighting could be listed among Dow's greatest failures but also among his greatest successes.
It was obviously a lifelong obsession and when it worked, it worked gloriously, as in the big
windows that both let in light and created splendid views in his private homes. When his plans went
astray, however, people worked in dark caverns such as those in the Fleming Building and ISR.
It could be argued that these failures were not so much design errors as a misreading of human
nature, especially the need for privacy. "Human nature will confound you if you fight it too much,
even with a good idea," comments Fred Mayer.
Dow seems to have been the most successful in his smaller projects, particularly the private
residences where he could think out the use of every inch of space. In the larger buildings, he was
most successful in the ones built for a specific use, particularly those associated with family
members such as Greenhills or the medical education building.
Some of Dow's critics complain that he received the Ann Arbor jobs only because of his
connections with the Towsley family. Certainly some of his work came directly through his sister and
her husband, or as a result of friendships or community contacts made through them. Fred Mayer
defends Dow on this score. "Having connections will give you a chance," he says, "but if you
don't do something good, it won't save you."
Most of the serious criticism of Dow is aimed at his multistory buildings. Architects don't
like to speak ill of other architects, even dead ones, but off the record, several express doubts
about Dow's "bulky, boring" multistory designs.
"Nothing is related to human scale in ISR. It's just a big white space," says one
architect--who goes on to describe the Fleming building as "weird." But Mayer again comes to
Dow's defense. "He was a talented architect," he says. "I don't know if he will make it in
the ranks of the great, but talent and creativity are evident in his best buildings."
Dan Jacobs, who's designed several additions to Greenhills, agrees. "I'm a great admirer of
Dow. I admire the simplicity of his structural system."
Despite the complaints, it should be noted that all of his Ann Arbor designs, except for one
razed gas station, are still being used for their original purpose. Even the Fleming building,
threatened during Bollinger's term with a changed use, is still the administration building.
Asked about Bollinger's dislike of her uncle's building, Judy Dow Rumelhart lets out a
good-humored laugh--but then admits that she has chided Bollinger for his criticism of the building.
"He can move out, but I hope he uses it for something else, maybe English classes," she says.
"Let it be used by someone to enjoy."
An Alden Dow Chronology:
Between 1932 and 1970, Dow designed eighteen Ann Arbor buildings. Details are given only for
buildings not described in the main story.
1932: Towsley home, 1000 Berkshire.
1949: Hoobler home, 228 Belmont.
1952: Margaret Bell Pool (U-M).
1956: Ann Arbor District Library, 343 S. Fifth Ave.
1958: Ann Arbor Community Center, 625 N. Main. Dow designed the building at the request of his
sister, Margaret Towsley. Towsley not only contributed most of the cost, she also paid for many of
the buildings furnishings--even dishes and towels.
1959–1965: Matthaei Botanical Gardens, (U-M). The gardens' offices and conservatory are
instantly recognizable as Dow's work thanks to the turquoise-faced second-story planters (long
since abandoned). Herb Wagner, professor emeritus of botany, remembers fighting to include a lobby
and meeting room in the plans; more than thirty years later, Wagner says, it remains "one of the
best university botanical gardens in the nation." Dow also designed the garden superintendent's
1960: Leonard gas station, 2020 W. Stadium. Possibly conceived as a prototype for Michigan-based
Leonard, this simple, well-landscaped gas station was Dow's first commercial work in Ann Arbor. It
is the only Ann Arbor Dow building no longer standing.
1961: Guy J. Larcom Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave.
1962: Morris home, 7 Regent.
1962: Conductron headquarters, 3475 Plymouth. Keeve "Kip" Seigel, founder of the high-flying
Conduction conglomerate, was a friend of the Towsleys. The low-slung brick building is currently the
headquarters of NSF International.
1963: University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb. Dow met University Microfilms founder Gene Power, a U-M
regent, through the Towsleys. To recycle water used in processing microfilm, he included a moat on
the south side of the building, creating what he called "a reflecting pool for office and
1964: Institute for Social Research (U-M).
1964: Fleming Administration Building (U-M).
1964: Michigan District Headquarters, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, 3773 Geddes. Dow built some
lovely churches in Midland, but this is his only church-related structure in Ann Arbor. Its four
wings are grouped in the shape of a Greek cross; the teepee-like dome on top symbolizes the
church's early Indian missions.
1966: Towsley Center for Continuing Medical Education (U-M). Dow's last major job for the
university was arguably his most successful. One of Harry Towsley's specialties was continuing
education, and the brothers-in-law collaborated closely on a simple, straightforward building marked
with Dow trademarks such as long corridors filled with windows and plants. "It's state of the
art, designed for traffic flow, with an auditorium and four break-out rooms, a huge lobby,"
facilities coordinator Robert Witte says. "If I was ever asked to design a medical education
building, I would design it off the Towsley Center."
1967: Greenhills School, 850 Greenhills. Judy Dow Rumelhart was a member of the original planning
committee for this private north-side school, and Margaret Towsley was on the first board. Dow laid
out the building as a series of clusters, each with classrooms around the edge and a court in the
middle. In the middle of each court is a common space called a "forum"; in the corners are areas
for quiet activity, called "alcoves."
Starting in 1968 with grades 9–12, Greenhills gradually expanded to accommodate grades 6–12. By
opening alcoves and linking them to new clusters, Dow designed additions that felt as if they were
part of the original. Over the years, the brown walls and curiously colored carpets Dow specified
have been toned down, and doors have been added to control noise. Still, Bill Reish says, "It
works wonderfully as a school."
1970: 2929 Plymouth. After Gene Power stepped down from University Microfilms, he commissioned Dow
to build this small office building just east of Huron Parkway. "I was glad I selected Alden,
because my site presented a difficult design problem," Power recalled in his autobiography,
Edition of One. "The zoning regulations stated that floor space could not exceed 40 percent of the
land area. There had to be one automobile parking space available for every 110 square feet of floor
space, and the structure could be no more than three stories high. Dow met these requirements by
raising the building on columns, with only a small entrance lobby and elevator area extending down
to the ground-floor level. Most of the area on that level formed a parking lot beneath the rest of
the building."
Power's son, U-M regent Phil Power, recalls the office as "a lovely place to work. It had a
beautiful view of North Campus. It had a fireplace, shelves with Eskimo art, orchids, a nice sitting
area, and was lined with bookshelves." The building—which always reminded Rumelhart of "a
giant toadstool"—is now rented to a number of small tenants.
[Photo caption from book]: Dow was proud of his egalitarian design for the faculty
offices at the ISR. But he also perpetuated what, in hindsight, looks like a far greater inequity:
while the researchers had private offices, the female support staff was assigned to desks in the
middle of the central area, without a shred of private space.
Eighty years later, they're back in the spotlight.
Ann Arbor's oldest surviving apartment houses, built between 1923 and 1930, were glamorous
affairs designed by the area's leading architects. Many included such amenities as doormen,
on-site maids, cafes, and beauty parlors. Even so, they drew mixed reactions: some Ann Arborites
welcomed them as elegant and cosmopolitan additions to the city, while others deplored their size
and their effect on existing neighborhoods.
Now they're back in the political spotlight. Since 1994 the city has been fighting to protect
the buildings, one of which was demolished by the U-M in 2003. Meanwhile, as city planners look for
ways to expand downtown housing, they're confronting many of the same issues raised by the
original apartment-building boom eighty years ago.
In the nineteenth century the U-M campus was surrounded by student rooming houses. Apartment
buildings as we know them today, where each unit has its own kitchen and bath, didn't arrive in
significant numbers until after World War I.
As the U-M's enrollment and employment swelled in the 1920s, multistory apartment buildings
were a good solution to the housing crunch. But the idea took some getting used to.
The 1906 Cutting, corner State and Monroe, was the first apartment building in Ann
The city hired the Olmsted Brothers, son and stepson-nephew of the famous landscape architect and
city planner Frederick Law Olmsted, to make recommendations for Ann Arbor's future development.
Besides encouraging street improvements, more parks and playgrounds, and scenic drives, the
Olmsteds' 1922 report urged the city to enact a zoning ordinance. Council responded by dividing
the city into four zoning categories: single residential, residential, local business, and
industrial. Apartment buildings were permitted only in the "residential" district near
That zone included one existing apartment building: the twenty-unit Cutting, built in 1906 on the
southeast corner of State and Monroe. "For its time the Cutting was a remarkable structure, one of
very few apartment buildings in the city, where rich people lived and where elegant old ladies sat
looking out on the world through lace-curtained plate-glass windows," recalled Milo Ryan in his
1985 memoir View of a Universe. "A carriage was usually to be seen waiting at one of the
three entrances."
Florence Mack, widow of department store owner Walter Mack, lived in the Cutting with her son
Christian. Broadcaster Ted Heusel, who as a boy lived nearby, recalls that Christian "was so
spoiled he used to take a cab home from the Blue Front, two blocks away." The Cutting was torn
down in 1962 for a parking lot. "People lived there forever," recalls veteran Ann Arbor real
estate agent Maynard Newton. "When it was to be torn down, they tried to sue, saying they had a
proprietary right because they'd been there so long."
The 1920s apartment houses followed the example of the Cutting: they were elegant buildings
designed in the latest styles, mainly Tudor and Spanish Revival. And, as in the Cutting, their
tenants made up a who's who of Ann Arbor.
The Anberay, built in 1923 at 619 East University, was the first of the postwar apartment
buildings. U-M architecture professor J. J. Albert Rousseau designed it in a U shape around a court.
The light brick, zigzag roof, and balconies on each of the three levels, often filled with flowers,
give it a Spanish flavor.
Early Anberay tenants included grocery heiress Elizabeth Dean, whose bequest to the city
continues to bankroll the tree-planting Dean Fund; Palmer Christian, U-M organist; and Francis
Kelsey, the archaeology professor whose finds from the Near East make up a large part of the Kelsey
Museum's fabulous holdings. This illustrious tenant mix continued into the 1960s, when then-tenant
Ray Detter recalls his neighbors included Herbert Youtie, an expert on the Dead Sea scrolls;
Renaissance scholar Palmer Throop; and Jacob Price, a U-M history professor who ran for city
Washtenaw Apartments, at 322 East William, dates from 1925. Although a simple red-brick building,
it has elegant touches, such as a decorated stone entrance and stone wreaths on top. Carl Wurster,
who grew up on Division Street around the corner, remembers his dad saying that the place was being
constructed from very shoddy materials and would never last--but almost eighty years later, it still
stands. When finished, the building didn't impinge very much on the lives of Carl and his sister,
Elizabeth. Carl delivered papers there, and tenants occasionally rented spaces in the Wursters'
garage. The only person Elizabeth and Carl knew in the building was their math teacher, a Miss
The 1926 Hildene Manor, at 2220 Washtenaw, looks from the outside like an English manor house
with classic Tudor details--dormers, half-timbering, nine-over-nine windowpanes, and heavy wooden
doors. Inside are eight six-room apartments, plus common areas and a three-room caretaker's flat.
Set back on a wide expanse of lawn, "it was the apartment in Ann Arbor--the most expensive and the
best," recalls Ted Heusel.
The Wil-Dean, 200 North State, and Duncan Manor, 322 North State, are perfect mirror images of
each other, except the first is faced with light brick and the second with red brick. Harold Zahn
and Dugald Duncanson hired recent U-M architecture grad Gardiner Vose to design the buildings, and
construction on both started in 1928. Zahn took ownership of the Wil-Dean, which he named after his
son Dean William; Duncanson claimed the other, naming it Duncan Manor. Asymmetrical, with balconies,
tile work, and casement windows, the buildings fit in with the best of the Tudor apartment
The 1929 Kingsley Post, at 809 East Kingsley, a Spanish/Moorish Revival design by R. S.
Gerganoff, is nothing like the architect's most famous Ann Arbor building, the Washtenaw County
Courthouse. With its elaborate ornamentation--tiles, rounded windows, wrought-iron decorative
balconies, arched entrance--the Kingsley Post stands in striking contrast to the comparatively drab
post–World War II apartment buildings flanking it.
In the early 1950s, when they were first married, Ted and Nancy Heusel lived in a third-floor
efficiency in the Kingsley Post. Jimmy Murnan, manager of the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater, lived on
the same floor but in a more luxurious apartment overlooking the river valley and the railroad
tracks. Murnan, a big circus fan, would invite the Heusels over to watch circus trains unload.
The Planada, because of its location on Ann Street, was an attractive place for people
employed at University Hospital to live. But its location worked against it when it was torn down to
provide parking for the Life Sciences complexes.
The Planada, at 1127 East Ann, opened in 1929. It catered to employees at the then new University
Hospital a block east--the 1931 city directory lists nurses, therapists, interns, and research
assistants among the residents. Like the Kingsley Post, it was a Spanish/Moorish Revival design, but
less symmetrical. The Observer's Eve Silberman, who lived in the Planada in the 1980s, recalls
that "the apartment definitely had more character than any I've rented before and after."
Silberman particularly liked the gargoyles in the lobby. She moved, however, because she did not
like sharing her apartment with a mouse.
Forest Plaza, 715 South Forest, was built the same year as the Planada. Although there had
already been a number of successful apartment projects and its site was in the "residential"
zone, the original plan for the building set off a storm of controversy. The older apartment
buildings were three and four stories high; Forest Plaza's developers wanted to go up nine
stories--a sketch that appeared in the Ann Arbor Daily News shows an elegant tower that
would have looked at home on New York's Park Avenue. The "Spanish Renaissance" design was
expected to cost $400,000, including the land.
Presaging future controversies, neighbors led the fight against the new building while real
estate agents and businessmen defended it. U-M professors Frederick G. Novy and Charles Cooley, who
lived in houses on either side of the site, argued that the new structure would block their light
and air and would increase congestion in the neighborhood.
After much discussion, a compromise was reached: Forest Plaza was scaled down to five stories and
set far back on the lot. The resulting building, while not as ornate as originally proposed, still
has many attractive details, including Spanish tiles, terra-cotta decorations, and rounded windows.
The increased setback actually adds to its elegance, making it reminiscent of glamorous apartments
on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C.
Like other apartment houses of the era, Forest Plaza provided homes for many upper-level
university people. A 1930 Michigan Alumnus photo essay mentions that Forest Plaza was the
home of Harry Kipke, football coach and later regent. Mark Hildebrandt recalls being taken there as
a child to visit his parents' friends Jan Vandenbroek, a U-M engineering professor, and his wife.
Hildebrandt remembers Vandenbroek's apartment as "classy but comfortable, with soft dark-red
carpeted floors, Spanish irregular plaster, wrought-iron sconces."
Forest Plaza's current manager, Chris Heaton, says long-term residents have told him that the
building used to have a doorman who would park cars for the few residents who owned them, and a maid
living on the first floor, who was available to do housework.
At the Wil-Dean, 200 North State Street, and its near twin, Duncan Manor, corner of State and
Lawrence, tenants still enjoy the elegant Tudor styling.
The debate over Forest Plaza led to new ground rules for apartment construction. Part of the
compromise allowing it to be built was an agreement that city council would revisit the zoning law,
which it did. At a public hearing, a speaker called for more limits on apartment buildings, citing
several instances in which "the homes next door to apartment houses have stood vacant since the
construction of the larger building, being of value neither for a single home nor for another
apartment house, as the one apartment is usually enough to care for the district."
On May 5, 1929, city council voted that future apartment buildings could be no more than three
stories or forty-five feet high. Clothier and theater owner J. Fred Wuerth dissented, protesting
that "the growth of the city would be held up by discouraging outside capital." Supporters
answered that the law would encourage developers to construct a larger number of smaller buildings,
and so would help preserve the city's residential character.
Neither side realized that the apartment boom was already essentially over. Only one more
apartment house, Observatory Lodge, was built before the Great Depression, followed by World War II,
virtually halted construction in the city.
If Observatory Lodge was the last apartment house of its generation, it at least was a
spectacular expression of the best of the age. Built in 1930 at 1402 Washington Heights, Observatory
Lodge, like the Planada, was just a few steps from the 1925 University Hospital. One admirer calls
its design "a feast of Tudor Revival details," including oriel windows, heavy Tudor-style doors,
half-timbering, and a quirky squirrel weathervane. Inside are stained-glass windows, beautiful tile
work, and a lobby fireplace. Residents in its thirty-four units also enjoyed the services of a
beauty parlor and barbershop. And it must have been approved before the 1929 height limit went into
effect: it's four stories high.
Apartment construction resumed in the 1950s and 1960s, when U-M enrollment more than doubled.
This time around, apartment developers created buildings catering to U-M students as well as
Maynard Newton recalls that when he came back from the Korean War in the mid-1950s, students
still rented rooms in boardinghouses--"big, comfortable houses, run by a landlady usually called
'Ma' something, such as Ma Guenther on Oakland or Ma Jeffries on Monroe. These ladies thought
the value was in the house," Newton recalls. "But savvy Realtors realized the land was what was
Developers began buying up old houses around campus and downtown, demolishing them, and building
modern-style apartments on the lots. A few, like the Nob Hill complex off South Main, were
thoughtfully designed and integrated into their neighborhoods. Most, however, were bare-bones cubes
derisively dubbed "cash boxes"--both because of their flat roofs (unlike the peaked roofs of the
surrounding older houses) and because they were built to squeeze as many rental units as possible
onto their lots.
In 1963 city council amended the zoning ordinance to limit apartments to bigger lots, and to
require that they be set farther back from their lot lines. These two provisions, followed by the
formation of historic districts in and around downtown, virtually eliminated teardowns of existing
structures to build apartments.
The 1963 zoning change also abolished the height restriction for apartment buildings, instead
setting limits on the "floor-to-area ratio" (FAR). Two high-rise apartment projects, the
eighteen-story University Towers on South University, finished in 1965, and the twenty-six-story
Tower Plaza, at William and Maynard, approved in 1965 and finished in 1969, were built under the new
regulations. Tower Plaza was particularly controversial.
The Tower Plaza debate echoed the one nearly forty years earlier over Forest Plaza. Proponents
saw the high-rise as an asset to the city, opponents as an affront to downtown's existing scale.
Eunice Burns, who was on council when Tower Plaza was approved, recalls that she and the other three
Democrats were called antidevelopment because they voted against it. (With the backing of
council's Republican majority, it passed anyway.)
In classic Ann Arbor fashion, council then appointed a study committee and hired a consultant.
The resulting report, Central City High-Rises and Parking, suggested a system of premiums,
allowing developers more height in their buildings if they added amenities such as public space in
front, parking, or landscaping. These changes, plus further increases in minimum apartment lot size
and setbacks, were enacted in 1967.
It would be impossible to build a high-rise like Tower Plaza under the current FAR limits. Still,
residents who have arrived since the 1960s take Tower Plaza for granted. Some even admire its clean
lines and appreciate that the landlord included a cutaway first story and shopping arcade, even
before the system of premiums was enacted.
Kingsley Post, 809 East Kingsley, was designed by R. S. Gerganoff in Spanish Moorish
The 1923–1930 apartments, also scoffed at by some when they were new, today look very elegant
next to the cash boxes abutting the Kingsley Post, or the monolithic Mary Markley dorm near
Observatory Lodge. "They are a good example of apartments of that era," says Heather Edwards,
Ann Arbor's historic preservation coordinator. "They gave people the chance of living in the
downtown vicinity in buildings pleasing to look at that also met all their needs."
Four are already in historic districts: the Wil-Dean, Duncan, and Kingsley Post are in the Old
Fourth Ward, and the Washtenaw is in the East William Street district. The historic district
commission has worked to preserve the other five, but the process has been slow. In 1994 city
council voted to designate 120 buildings as "individual historic properties" (IHPs), a
classification intended to protect historic buildings that are outside of historic districts.
Included in the list were the An¬beray and the Planada, both then owned by the Draprop
Draprop sued, claiming the city had no legal right to designate buildings as IHPs without the
owners' permission. The circuit court upheld the city's right to do so, but in 2001 the Michigan
Court of Appeals declared Ann Arbor's IHP district invalid. "They said it didn't meet the
definition of a historic district—that it didn't hold together geographically or
thematically," explains Louisa Pieper, historic preservation coordinator at the time.
At the recommendation of the state historic preservation office, the HDC divided the original IHP
list into thematic sublists—apartments, of course, but also churches, early homesteads, industrial
and commercial structures, landmark homes, schools, and transportation—and appointed study
committees to research each area and decide which properties were the most significant.
The apartment committee recommended protecting all five surviving early apartment buildings that
weren't already in historic districts—the Anberay, Forest Plaza, Hildene Manor, Observatory
Lodge, and the Planada. Any city restrictions would not apply to the last two, however, since the
university owned them.
The 1930 Observatory Lodge, 1402 Washington Heights, was the last apartment built before the
Depression put a stop to most construction.
Observatory Lodge, in need of repairs, was closed several years ago but is now being converted
into offices. A sadder fate awaited the Planada: when the university bought it, the report to the
regents warned that "the building will be demolished and the site integrated into the adjacent
campus." It was torn down in fall 2003, and the U-M plans to build a parking structure on its
While the legality of the IHP is being investigated, the issue of height of buildings is also
part of an on-going discussion. The eight-story Corner House Lofts on the corner of State and
Washington is the tallest new residential building in the city in more than thirty years. And like
its predecessors in the 1920s, it has been controversial. The city planning commission voted against
approving the project, only to be overruled by city council.
The passage of the greenbelt measure November 2003 gave even more impetus to the height debate. A
number of people--even some who had been no- or slow-growth advocates--began asking whether
preserving more green space around the city obliged Ann Arbor to accept greater population density
within its boundaries. Mayor John Hieftje enthusiastically supports the idea of more downtown
density, although he says he began thinking about it independently of the greenbelt.
Noting that only about 200 new residents moved into downtown Ann Arbor in the 1990s, Hieftje says
he'd like to see 1,000 more arrive in the next decade. He argues that an increased downtown
population would provide the economic base for the return of practical stores, such as food markets,
and would ease parking and congestion problems, especially if the new residents also worked
downtown. While this increased density would obviously require more multifamily dwellings, Hieftje
says they would probably be condominiums rather than apartments.
Does Hieftje mean Ann Arbor will see a new generation of high-rises? "Taller buildings would
upset the delicate pedestrian balance downtown," Hieftje replies. "I'm protective of Main
Street and a block or so off it, as well as State Street. But I can see them maybe on Thompson,
Maynard, or Huron." Eighty some years after Ann Arbor's first apartment-building boom, the town
is still debating how and where future generations of downtown residents will live.
Following brass bands around Basel turned Reuben Kempf's career from the ministry to
The Kempf House, at 312 South Division, a nationally recognized gem of Greek Revival
architecture, is now a city-owned center for local history. It is named for Pauline and Reuben
Kempf, the husband-and-wife music teachers who lived in it from 1890 until 1953. The Kempfs were
guiding lights in the local music community who often loaned the Steinway in their front
parlor—Ann Arbor's first grand piano—to the university. It was played in the May Festival, by
such luminaries as Victor Herbert and Ignace Paderewski.
The Kempf House was actually built in 1853 by Mary and Henry DeWitt Bennett. The Bennetts came
from Stephentown, New York (southeast of Albany), where they had doubtless seen numerous examples of
Greek Revival architecture. Henry Bennett, described by contemporaries as a genial and warm-hearted
man, served as postmaster and, later, as steward and secretary of the U-M. After Bennett retired,
they moved to California.
The house was sold in 1886 to a neighbor, who rented it out for a few years. Then in 1890,
Pauline and Reuben Kempf, married seven years and the parents of a daughter, Elsa (Paul was born six
years later), moved into the house. They lived there for the next sixty-three years.
Pauline and Rueben Kempf enjoy sitting on their porch with daughter Elsa, right, and a woman
thought to be a neighbor.
Both Pauline and Reuben were raised in Ann Arbor's large German community, and both showed early
musical promise. Pauline was the daughter of Karl Widenmann, the German consul for Michigan and
owner of a hardware store on the northeast corner of Main and Washington. The family lived in a big
house on Fourth Avenue until Pauline was fourteen, when her father was diagnosed as having a brain
tumor. He sold his business and moved his family to Whitmore Lake, where he died eight years later.
The family could not afford to send Pauline to music school to study singing, but two professors at
the university, impressed with her talent, arranged for her to give a recital in the Athens Theater
(later the Whitney) at Main and Ann. The proceeds were enough for one year at the Cincinnati
Conservatory of Music.
Reuben Kempf, born in 1859, a year before Pauline, grew up on a farm in the area now occupied by
Briarwood. According to his daughter-in-law, Edith Staebler Kempf, "he learned to play the organ at
the Bethlehem Church school, and by the time he was a teenager played the pipe organ quite well. But
this didn't impress his parents. They said 'You will study for the ministry.' In those days they
didn't ask you."
Reuben was sent to Basel, Switzerland, in 1877, to the same theological seminary that had
graduated Friedrich Schmid, the first German pastor in Michigan and a hero to the local German
community. But Reuben had been there only a few months when his parents received a letter from the
principal, recommending that they not force him to be a minister but let him follow his own wish to
be a musician. Evidently he had been following brass bands around Basel. Edith Kempf says it broke
his parents' hearts, but they allowed him to transfer to the Royal Conservatory of Music in
Stuttgart, where he studied organ and piano and was a classmate of Victor Herbert.
When Reuben returned to Ann Arbor, he opened a studio on the corner of Main and Liberty, on the
third floor above what is now Occasionally Gifts. He supplemented his income playing the organ at
St. Thomas Church. In 1883 he married Pauline Widenmann, their common music interests forming an
obvious bond. When they moved to Division Street from their first home on the corner of Main and
William, they set up a studio in the front parlor where they could both give lessons.
The Kempfs' house was conveniently located: children could walk to their lessons from all over
town. The front door was left unlocked so that students could walk in without knocking. If a lesson
was still in progress, they would wait their turn on the red sofa. Geraldine Seeback, who was a
student of both Kempfs, remembers them as warm and caring, but also very strict. Once, when she did
not have her piano lesson prepared, Reuben hit her on the knuckles.
Seeback was a musical prodigy who first sang publicly at age five, standing on three Bibles in
church. Her mother paid for her voice lessons by doing the Kempfs' laundry. Seeback still has the
metal-wheeled child's wagon, which originally belonged to Paul Kempf, that she used to carry the
laundry back and forth. When Seeback finished high school, Pauline Kempf helped arrange for her to
go to the Cincinnati Conservatory.
Rueben Kempf organized the Lyra Male Choir to bring town and gown together through the
universal language of music. Elsa Kempf served as the group's mascot.
Besides giving lessons in their studio, the Kempfs were very active musically in the community.
Pauline was the first choir director of the Congregational Church, and Reuben was the first organist
and choir director at St. Andrew's. He was also music director of the University Glee Club and the
Michigan Union Opera, and organist of the Ann Arbor Masonic groups. Because Reuben had connections
in both the town and university communities, U-M president James Angell asked him to form a singing
society in an attempt to bridge the gap between town and gown. Under Rueben's direction, the group,
first called the Beethoven Society and then Lyra Gesangverien (singing society), gave regular
concerts for the next thirty-five years.
The Kempfs often entertained, hosting diverse groups from students to dignitaries. A former maid
remembers being extra busy during May Festival buying food needed for the many guests. There was
always a live-in maid (the present office at Kempf House was the maid's room), and Pauline's mother,
the widowed Mrs. Widenmann, also helped with the cooking. She particularly excelled at baking and
noodle making. Edith Kempf remembers that "there was lots of good food, all made from
Reuben Kempf died in 1945 at age eighty-six. Pauline stayed on until her death in 1953, when the
house was sold to Mr. and Mrs. Earl V. Parker. When Earl Parker died in 1969, the newly created
Historic District Commission spearheaded a movement to convince the city to buy the house.
Today, thanks mainly to the efforts of Edith Kempf, the music studio has been almost entirely
re-created, complete with the famous grand piano (which has only eighty-five keys, three less than
the modern ones), the red couch, the two mirrors that Pauline's voice students used to check their
posture and their mouth formations, Reuben's desk, a music stand, and the Lyra flag. Even the prints
of Germany on the walls were there during the Kempfs' occupancy.
The sitting room, decorated to be contemporary with the studio, holds a horsehair couch from
Reuben Kempfs parents' farm (in perfect condition because only the minister was allowed to sit on
it) and an Ann Arbor Allmendinger organ.


text:
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Product Description
Our Captain Jack Sparrow Prestige Child Costume is a great item for those children who couldn't get enough of Jack Sparrow.The Captain Jack Sparrow Prestige Child Costume comes with a jacket, shirt, vest, across the chest belt with buckle, fabric sash, two belts, pants, boot covers, hat and bandanna.The Captain Jack Sparrow Prestige Child Costume is a one size fits most item and must be hand washed.
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- nice but order a bigger size Review by Yami
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(Posted on 12/18/11)
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