What became of the Arborland whale? It swam upstream to Livingston County

Brian Kruger, who grew up in Ypsilanti, got reacquainted with the Arborland whale at its new home near Pinckney.

Like most kids who grew up in the Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area in the 1960s and 1970s, the Arborland Mall was my home away from home back then.

My family moved to Michigan in 1968, when I was 7 years old, and we stayed in the Holiday Inn across the street from the mall while we looked for a house in the area. My mom used to take my baby brother, my sister and me across Washtenaw Avenue to Arborland, where we'd visit Kresge's and Cunningham Drugs and the Hobby Center toy shop. My mom would shop for dresses at Winkleman's and she'd buy clothes for us kids at Montgomery Ward. It was my first real exposure to a shopping mall, and I loved it.

Most of all, though, I loved the Arborland whale.

The Arborland whale was a granite sculpture that sat at the east end of the mall. It had a hollowed-out belly and a tail that you could slide down. I used to play on the whale for what seemed like hours on end while my mom shopped for clothes. I loved that thing.

As the years went on, I continued to spend time at Arborland. My eyes started going bad in the fourth grade, and my optometrist was at the mall. After every visit to the eye doctor, my mom would let me play on the whale for a few minutes.

I'm guessing that most kids who grew up in the Ann Arbor/Ypsi area have similar memories of the Arborland whale. We all played on it, we all loved it, we all remember it.

Sometime in the 1980s, though, the Arborland whale disappeared. Arborland went through a major renovation, and many of the familiar stores went away, replaced by big-box retailers. The mall is still there today, but it bears almost no resemblance to the Arborland we remember from the 1960s and 1970s.

The kids who played on the whale are all in their 40s and 50s now, and they might be wondering: Whatever became of our beloved piece of granite?

The answer: It swam upstream to Livingston County.

Yes, the Arborland whale has a new home now, sitting just south of Pinckney on Baseline Lake. It rests in Mark and Patty Allen's backyard, looking out over the lake as boats and passengers float on by.

Mark Allen was working for one of the companies that handled the mall's renovation a couple decades ago, and he offered to give the Arborland whale a new home. It's been sitting in Livingston County ever since.

A friend of mine posted a picture of the whale on his Facebook page recently, and it got a tremendous response from all of his Ann Arbor/Ypsi friends:

"I LOVED that whale!!! After the dentist I got to go and get a small toy from the Hobby Center Toys and then play on the whale, and then to Sanders. You have made my entire day with that picture. THANK YOU!!!"

"I saw the pic and knew exactly what it was. I have such memories of crawling around in its belly."

"Wow! That really is it. Look for some gum I stuck under it in 1968..."

"Memories are flooding back! I couldn't play on the whale unless I behaved. And then if we were really lucky we'd go to Sanders."

Ah, yes. Simply seeing the whale again takes us back to those simpler days. It's a very cool thing.

I'm happy to know what happened to the Arborland whale, and I'm happy to know that it found a great new home in Livingston County.

And maybe, just maybe, Mark and Patty Allen will let me slide down that tail one last time.

Buddy Moorehouse is the publisher of Livingstontalk.com. You can e-mail him at buddy@livingstontalk.com.

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Buddy Moorehouse's column is sponsored by: PJ's Hot Dogs LLC. Serving wienies since '01. Visit us Saturdays at the Howell Tractor Supply, at www.PJsHotDogs.com, or call 517-861-6628.

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