Editor: Zoe Ash is a Junior at Ann Arbor Skyline High School and an intern at The Ann Arbor Independent. Beginning this week, she will be working on a project called Businesses of Ann Arbor. The photo essay project is a riff on the “Humans of….” websites that have popped up all over the United States, including in Ann Arbor.
In the summer of 2010, the Humans of New York website/blog was launched.
“I thought it would be really cool to create an exhaustive catalogue of New York City’s inhabitants, so I set out to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers and plot their photos on a map,” said photographer Brandon Stanton. He went on: “I worked for several months with this goal in mind, but somewhere along the way, HONY began to take on a much different character. I started collecting quotes and short stories from the people I met, and began including these snippets alongside the photographs.”
Taken together, these portraits and captions became the subject of a vibrant blog. With over eight million followers on social media, HONY now provides a worldwide audience with daily glimpses into the lives of strangers in New York City. It has also become a #1 New York Times bestselling book.
Local photographer Susan Campbell, who launched the Humans of Ann Arbor Facebook page, contributes her photo essays to The Ann Arbor Independent. Look for them in print and online.
Intern Zoe Ash chose to focus on some of the city’s oldest local businesses. Her interviews consist of a single question and then an accompanying photograph.
Businesses of Ann Arbor—Angelo’s
by Zoe Ash
What do you eat for breakfast?
Asking this of the owner of a locally renowned breakfast restaurant, I expect an extravagant response. Instead, I get this: “When I eat breakfast, well, if I’m here and I do eat breakfast, I eat eggs, potatoes, and sausage the basic breakfast things.” I sit in silence for a second, waiting to see if he adds some spice to his morning diet, but when he speaks again it’s “Eggs over easy, butter and toast, you know the basics!” I couldn’t help but find this amusing. After all, what Angelo’s is known for is raisin bread and Greek culture. The restaurant’s immigration story is plastered on the walls through newspaper articles and pictures – in fact, the first thing I noticed when walking into the small side store was a classic Greek dessert. Regardless of the back story, it seems Steve the owner likes to stick to the quintessential American breakfast, adding a little humor and charm to an already classic Ann Arbor breakfast spot.
