On another note, I would wish that the AAPAC would try to get the two Marshall Fredericks reliefs back from Siberia (i.e. the Bentley courtyard) and restored to their rightful place on the LS@A building. They should never have been removed! Shades of the thought police at work.

When the News opened its new printing facility in 2001, there was much discussion about what do to with the old presses. As I recall, to remove them you’d have to literally tear a hole in the wall. And given their age, it’s unlikely any other publication would want to buy them. There was talk of selling them for scrap (wah!), but again, the cost of extracting them wouldn’t have made financial sense.

And so they sit: hulking, ink-stained steel beauties. Just before a major remodeling of the downtown building, I lobbied unsuccessfully to turn the old pressroom into an employee cafe, leaving the presses in tact, and putting in tables and chairs in the surrounding area. It could be a very cool space, loaded with character and haunted with history.

A few years ago, there were rumors that McKinley was interested in creating a bar there, with a separate entrance for the public off of the Division Street side. I think the name floating around was The Pressroom. In addition to the presses, there’s a ton of unused space where massive rolls of newsprint used to be stored. I assume security for the rest of the building was a concern, if part of it were open to the public like that, but I wasn’t privy to any discussions about that, assuming they even occurred.

I’m guessing this is totally unlikely and probably unfeasible, but I’d love to see that side of the building opened up – huge windows on the Division side (on the part of the building that was added on to the original Albert Kahn structure) letting people peer inside to see the presses, and some kind of public venue, whether a bar or coffee house or art gallery or bowling alley (!) that would ratchet up the activity in that slice of town.

And yes, given my clear affection for the presses, it’s a bit of a hoot to me that The Chronicle is an online-only publication. Much as I love what we’re doing, I doubt I’ll ever wax nostalgic about my MacBook Pro.

Roger Pothus, proprietor of Renaissance clothing store, mentioned during the public hearing on the underground parking garage that there were developers who were very interested in the Ann Arbor News building press room. The presses in that room were rendered dormant by the new printing facility built south of Ellsworth road on State Street a few years back.

Pothus’ perspective was that of a new neighbor to the Ann Arbor News building on Division — Renaissance recently moved from its Main & William location to the same complex that houses Google’s offices. Pothus was optimistic about the future of the central corridor.

I think that anything that converted the door on Division back to an actual entry that had people going in and out would be a dramatic improvement for the block. The space might work as a coffee shop of some kind with a name like “The Coffee Press.”

Building adornment seems to have become a thing of the past. While I’m not saying we should revisit Louis Sullivan, most of the buildings today lack those those adornments that provide us with the joy of discovery. Craftsmanship and uniqueness has given way to concrete slabs and rows of brick with little or no character of their own.

My mother worked as a telephone operator at the phone company around the corner in a building which I am sure many Ann Arbor residents don’t even know exists.

The cell phone, tv and internet have slowly displaced the bricks and mortar in this block with bits and bytes that like the straw scare crow in the field will slowly blow away one piece of straw at a time.