Posted on Thu, Mar 17, 2011 : 12:43 p.m.
Images from St. Patrick's Day in downtown Ann Arbor
By Angela Cesere
Today is St. Patrick's Day, bringing the usual revelers out to local bars, including Conor O'Neill's and Arbor Brewing Co. Photographer Angela Cesere captured these images:
For more from St. Patrick's Day, don't miss the live blog from David Bardallis, AnnArbor.com's beer writer.
Comments
matt
Sun, Mar 20, 2011 : 10:17 a.m.
I used to be in law enforcement, if more people knew what a costly, logistical nightmare St. Patrick's Day is they might rethink their notion that it's this cute little holiday. Every year we would have a large number of revelers urinating and puking in public places, we would have people who would sail beer bottles off of the highest points of the parking structures, drunken idiots who would walk in front of cars when the drivers had a green light, many, many fights, and we even had people who were so drunk that they had to crawl home. Let's say for the sake of argument that the more mature drinkers refrain from that behavior, If 10,000 people are celebrating in Washtenaw County, and just 10% are drinking and driving, that's still 1000 drunk drivers on the road. And this is all day and all night long. A lot of people drink at football games as well, but the biggest problems don't start until after the games, SP Day is 24 hours of drunks. To all the people who are drinking in moderation and using designated drivers, good for you, but there are still quite a few others who are causing problems.
Ann English
Sat, Mar 19, 2011 : 12:08 a.m.
Ordmad Did you ever hear that the Irish like to fight? There's a story about an Irishman walking down a street and came upon a fight taking place, with a crowd spectating. He asked one spectator, "Is that a private fight, or can anyone join in?"
David Bardallis
Fri, Mar 18, 2011 : 3:18 p.m.
Yes, it's not possible that there may be more aspects to the day than students drinking and playing beer pong. These pictures must be fake! Of course, there's quite a difference between South U and downtown. I actually hung out for a bit with the green mohawk kid's parents and also met and talked with a number of fun and interesting people, some of whom came from Detroit or elsewhere to enjoy St. Patrick's Day here in Ann Arbor (and praise our brewpubs). It's a great time for mixing and mingling with people from all walks of life. Shame that there nevertheless seem to be many who are unable to shake off some prejudices, loosen up a bit, and take the opportunity to enjoy life a little more. We who do would love for you to join us!
ordmad
Fri, Mar 18, 2011 : 12:37 a.m.
A very G rated and myopic view of the "holiday" here. A true view would capture the drunken beer pong games at 8 a.m., the fights starting around noon (I saw two in the South U area in a ten minute walk to grab lunch), and the mess that's left behind tomorrow. I could have written about 100 MIP tickets in that short walk but didn't see a single police officer in sight. At some point, if we're truly interested in bringing people (other than students) downtown to live, we're going to have to take quality of life issues a lot more seriously.