Ypsilanti Citizen Community Sidetrack

Volunteers prepare for Ypsi PRIDE Day
By Mark Tower
May. 13, 2010   ·   7:09 a.m.

Volunteers and W.H. Canon employees plant flowers in Depot Town while Ypsilanti resident Mike Labadie repairs the planter's brick work on Ypsi PRIDE Day last year.

Each year, residents in and around the city of Ypsilanti carry on a tradition started by a group of community members enrolled in a city leadership program, a sort...read more

Bicycles zoom as flowers bloom
By Citizen staff
Apr. 30, 2010   ·   2:11 p.m.

Riders from last year's spring ride come in after a long trip. Bike Ypsi’s 2010 Spring Ride and Festival is from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Sunday at Recreation Park (1015 Congress Street).

The weather has turned, the trees are budding and the flowers are popping out of the ground; time for a cruise through town. But don’t be so quick to hop in the...read more

Sheriff Clayton visits Ypsilanti Township
By Mark Tower
Apr. 29, 2010   ·   12:59 p.m.

Ypsilanti Township resident Kathleen Hanadel takes notes as her and other residents attempt to asses WCSO services Tuesday evening at a community forum held at the township's community center.

About 50 Ypsilanti Township residents gave the Washtenaw County Sheriff Office their input about law enforcement in the community Tuesday evening.

The information...read more

Local photographer raising funds for Ypsi Project exhibit
By Adrienne Ziegler
Apr. 20, 2010   ·   2:20 a.m.

Ypsilanti resident Nicholas Beltsos his grandson Demetrios were photographed by Project Ypsi photographer Erica Hampton during a bike ride she took Monday. A former EMU economics professor, Beltsos and his family moved to Ypsi from Dearborn in 1967.

Ypsilanti has many faces, and Erica Hampton wants to share a few of them with you.

Over the past year, Hampton created the The Ypsi Project, a series of portraits...read more

Savoy taking shape as live music venue
By Dan DuChene
Apr. 17, 2010   ·   2:38 p.m.

Local funk band Third Coast Kings play in Ypsilanti's newest live music venue, Savoy, Friday night.

Ypsilanti's newest concert venue is preparing for its grand opening weekend April 23, more than a month after its soft opening March 13.

Formerly Club Divine,...read more

Residents come together for neighborhood park

Residents and community members help the Luna Lake Native Plants Restoration Project in Prospect Park Saturday. A project to spread mulch in the park's playground is set for tomorrow. Photo by Dan DuChene

Residents and community members help the Luna Lake Native Plants Restoration Project in Prospect Park Saturday. A project to spread mulch in the park's playground is set for tomorrow.
Ypsilanti Farmers Market

Prospect Park neighborhoods pitching in to help

By Dan DuChene
Jun. 19, 2009    ·    5:56 a.m.


Ypsilanti residents have been coming together to beautify Prospect Park.

Last weekend residents from several surrounding neighborhood associations helped work on the park’s Luna Lake Native Plants Restoration Project.

Tomorrow residents will be spreading 400 yards of mulch around the park’s playground.

City Councilmember Peter Murdock, D-Ward 3, was at Prospect Park during the community project Saturday, called the Luna Lake Hoedown. He attributed the cooperation to help the park to a meeting held this spring, called the Prospect Park Summit.

Murdock said the meeting set up a framework for the surrounding neighborhoods to share in regular park litter pick-up and cleaning, new signage for the park as well as these work projects. He said several dead trees were removed from the park as well.

The Miles, Prospect Park, East Prospect Park and Historic East Side neighborhood associations have been splitting weekends to regularly pick up trash and perform small maintenance to the park, Murdock said. He said the work is being done under the city’s new adopt-a-park program.

There were more than 20 residents out Saturday, planting native plants and spreading mulch in what was once a high-maintenance, man-made pond on the southern edge of the park. Area resident and landscape architect Rachel Blistein is spearheading the Luna Lake project.

“She’s been doing a great job,” Murdock said.

Blistein said the pond was created several decades ago, and contained a pump and fountain. She said the city wasn’t able to maintain the pond and it eventually became neglecting, nonfunctioning and overgrown.

“People were using it as a big giant trash can,” she said.
In its place, there is now a quazi-rain garden lined with mulch and compost, and filled with native plants able to withstand the flooding that comes from the pond’s clay bottom.

“It fills up with water, but it’s normally dry by mid June,” Blistein said.

She said the area’s neighborhoods had been collecting money for several years to rehab the pond. By the time she became involved two years ago, the group had collected $2,000. Last year the group cleared all the leaves and weeds from the pond, spread 50 yards of compost and mulch and planted several plants.

Last weekend the group spread more compost, replaced some plants and added new vegetation.

“It really is a multi-neighborhood collaboration,” Blistein said.

She said people brought their own tools to help and were treated to lunch from Sidetrack and live entertainment from local musicians. Murdock said he hopes for a good turnout tomorrow, and tools will be needed, especially a “Bob Cat.”

“We’re hoping (maintaining the park) gets more contagious,” Murdock said. “Already, the city can tell a difference.”



]]>
SESI Motors
The Rocket


© 2010 The Mojo News Group - Ypsilanti Citizen Home - About Ypsilanti Citizen - Contact Us - Advertising - Calendar - Archives - Terms of Use Citrus Stand Media Group Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional