Small retail treasures in Ann Arbor: Kerrytown's Treasure Mart

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 | Source: The Detroit News

The conventional wisdom that independent stores are extinct in downtown Ann Arbor haven't been searching very hard for Treasure Mart in Kerrytown.

Excerpt:

When Elaine Johns' mother opened Ann Arbor's Treasure Mart in 1960, naysayers cautioned her that it wouldn't last. The neighborhood wasn't the best, and the building had been empty for many years.

"The whole Kerrytown area had been slated for urban renewal then," Johns says. "This was long before Zingerman's or the farmer's market."

She forged ahead anyway and opened a consignment store that today is considered a city institution. Elaine started working in the shop, housed in a building that dates to the mid-1800s, in 1974.

"I came to work just for the summer and got sucked in," she says with a laugh. "I've never left."

Read the rest of the story here.