Sprucing up the city for Art Fair

Yesterday, there was the Townie Fest -- the annual gathering-and-making-merry of the townies (and some gownies) of Ann Arbor (and UMich) -- in preparation and celebration of the Art Fair, which is starting tomorrow.

As per usual, the signs on all the bike parking areas came out, informing people that their bike locks would be cut and their bikes confiscated if they happened to be left there through date MM/DD/YY. In addition, the streets were gated off, with people allowing only for parked cars to exit from their berths. And some trees got "pruned".

There used to be two trees in front of Ambrosia, but the one closer to the parking structure was in quite a bad state, suffering from a lack of light, high tunnel winds, and not enough water. Its upper branches were broken from the wind, the leaves clustered near the trunk for the lack of water and light, and it looked like a pretty sorry thing.

Still, I was surprised that it was reduced to a stump. I wonder if it will be replaced with another tree, or if the city will just realize that placing a tree in that position is not a good idea (for the reasons enumerated above).

I suppose that we shall see, for any action will have to be a post-Art-Fair action.