Published In:
Ann Arbor News, April 24, 1973
Caption:
From Our Pictorial Archives, Ann Arbor 1941 (published April 24, 1973): If you thought environmental concerns started in the 1960's you might be right about some places, but not Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor was fighting over preservation of trees at least as far back as 1951. Music School Dean Earl V. Moore (left) seems to be saying: "How could anyone want to cut down such a magnificent tree?" And Music School Secretary James B. Wallace (right) is in complete agreement. It was October 1951, and Music School officials were embroiled with city officials in one of the most dramatic Town and Gown confrontations in Ann Arbor history. The elm shaded the old Music School building on Maynard St., but its also narrowed the sidewalk and its roots kept growing into sewers along the street. The Board of Public Works ordered it destroyed, but Music School officials won a reprieve from the Parks Department with an "impassioned appeal." The City Council upheld the BPW in a 9-4 vote, and then Council President Cecil O. Creal, acting mayor in the absence of Mayor William E. Brown Jr., vetoed the council's action, saying that "in this day and age we're apt to be ruthless in our efforts to make progress." Later that fall the episode of the tree was dramatized in the half-time U-M band show at the Michigan-Northwestern game. Unfortunately the only tree on the east side of Maynard St. lived only a short time longer anyway, crowded as it was by concrete and utility lines. Jacobson's and the city's Maynard Street parking structure extension now occupy the area taken up by the Collins Shoppe, the University Press Building, Ann Arbor Press and the Music Building.