Stories indexed with the term ‘Main Street Area Association’

Discussion of the role of the Downtown Development Authority morphed into venting about panhandlers at Thursday morning’s meeting of the Main Street Area Association. Saying that customers are complaining, several merchants are concerned about panhandlers becoming more aggressive since the city pulled its beat cops from the street earlier this week.

The topic came up after a presentation by DDA executive director Susan Pollay, who was filling in for Rene Greff, a DDA board member and co-owner of Arbor Brewing Company and Corner Brewery. Greff had been scheduled to give the same talk she gave at a DDA retreat in May, outlining the organization’s history, how it works and what it has accomplished. 

So how did panhandling usurp parking as the most-discussed topic related to the DDA? Why aren’t beat cops patrolling downtown? What do merchants think about “Arthur,” one of the regulars who asks passers-by for change along Main Street? It all comes down to money. [Full Story]

Men wielding chainsaws plunging them into big blocks of ice, sending a spray of frozen mist skyward – that’ll make The Chronicle stop and watch … for longer than a Stopped.Watched. item. Out in front of Bella Ciao on Liberty Street just east of Ashley, Andrew Hoeffner and Andrew Dickinson were enjoying a minor difference of opinion about how to proceed with the carving, which the restaurant had commissioned. But the chainsaw slice had been made and there was pretty much no turning back.

Hoeffner, who’s a sophomore at the University of Michigan, and in his second year of carving for the Michigan Ice Carving Team, said that they’d already adjusted the planned design somewhat: They’d started with the idea of making the letters of “Bella Ciao” raised relief, but switched to carving the outlines into the ice. [Full Story]