Bach (pronounced “Baw”) is home to some of Ann Arbor’s oldest neighborhoods, including thirteen historic districts and numerous historic properties. Nearly every house has a porch, sidewalks are well traveled, and downtown is within a ten-minute walk.
The north end of downtown, historically an economically and racially diverse area including the Old Fourth Ward Historic District, is now increasingly gentrified. Professionals seeking downtown cachet are fueling bidding battles for single-family homes, and new condominiums are going up to feed the demand. The quaint old homes, many of which have won historic preservation awards, are just a few minutes’ walk from the Farmers’ Market, the People’s Food Co-op, Zingerman’s, and Kerrytown Market & Shops. In the spring the ratty couches, gouged desks, and other discards sitting on curbs along streets east of Kerrytown are telltale signs of student renters.
Northwest of downtown, north of Miller, houses are set close to the sidewalk on narrow lots. The result is a warm street life, with porch sitters, bike riders, and kids playing on the sidewalk. Always racially mixed, this neighborhood, too, has become more gentrified as low-key young professionals have bought in. Rentals are common.
The Bach area is dominated by one of the city’s best-known parks, West Park, established in 1910. Its band shell draws crowds to concerts throughout the summer. The surrounding area has a blend of families and older residents, thanks in part to the presence of Miller Manor, the city-owned apartment building for senior and disabled citizens that towers over the northern edge of West Park, and the Lurie Terrace senior apartment complex on its south side. Along and near Main Street, developers have responded to increasing interest in downtown living with a spate of luxury condominium and townhouse construction. Since the 1980s, rehabbers have been rescuing long-vacant upstairs apartments in many downtown commercial buildings. City leaders, merchants, and residents are engaged in a vigorous continuing discussion about the merits of adding more downtown housing, and whether to do so with taller buildings.
The Old West Side—a neighborhood west of downtown between Huron and Pauline—is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its claim to fame is not the grandeur but the simplicity of its architecture: most homes are small Victorians originally occupied by nineteenth-century German workmen. Many have been painstakingly restored, and their owners proudly show them off in an annual home tour. In exchange for some of the highest prices per square foot in the city, buyers get shady streets, neighbors on porches, houses with character, and a fabulous location. On summer evenings a line wraps around the corner outside the Washtenaw Dairy on Madison, which serves up some of the biggest ice cream cones in town. A small student presence is concentrated around First Street in small apartment buildings. The 207-unit Nob Hill apartment complex is unobtrusively integrated into the neighborhood’s southern edge.
In contrast to the historic homes of the Old West Side, two projects under construction in summer 2006—Liberty Lofts (at First and William) and Ashley Terrace (at Ashley and Huron)—will add a couple hundred new condominiums to the market. The hope is that such denser housing will create a more vibrant urban atmosphere, but some neighbors see these and other proposed projects differently—as threats to their peace and quiet and their property values.
South of Pauline, single-family bungalows, small ranches, and a few story-and-a-halfs (some dating back to the 1920s and 1930s, most built after World War II) thread outward from Allmendinger Park, a center of activity with its softball diamonds, playground, tennis and basketball courts, and picnic facilities. A lilac grove frames its perimeter. Bach kids end up at Pioneer High, and most get there via Slauson Middle School (however, those living north of a line that runs along Arborview, Miller, Brooks, and West Summit go to Forsythe). One outlying area is also served by Bach School—the newer subdivisions of townhouses and densely packed homes bounded by South Main, Ann Arbor–Saline Road, and Eisenhower Parkway (see Southwest map); children in this area go on to Tappan Middle School. Once the new high school is built, all Bach kids who live north of Huron will attend it, while the rest of the neighborhood will continue to go to Pioneer.
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