Closed for more than nine months, the Dunkin’ Donuts shop on Michigan Avenue, just west of Telegraph appears to be on the verge of reopening.

Dearborn's Dunkin' Donuts, covered and closed in this photo, is now on the verge of reopening.

The plastic that once covered the windows and sign of the building has all been removed.

A sign on the door to the building says it will soon reopen and that it is now taking applications.

We’re not certain why it closed in the first place but we’re happy to see that it is reopening and hopefully with friendlier drive-thru service than the first time around.

Earlier last week we mentioned in our Upcoming Events section that the Ford Historic Homes District was celebrating its 90th year with its annual home tour from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 6.

Well, The Detroit News ran a fantastic good-news story about Dearborn’s Ford Historic Homes District on Friday the 13th and the upcoming home tour that we’re hopeful will help generate even better attendance than in previous years for this neighborhood association.

This is a Model A home photo in the Ford Historic Homes District taken back in the day.

The article is a shot in the arm for Dearborn and does a nice job of capturing the neighborhood’s charm. It is well worth reading and clicking through the photographs, too.

Here is just the top few paragraphs from the story:

Ford Homes Historic District celebrates 90 years

By Susan R. Pollack / Detroit News Design Writer

Jason Hayburn and his family live in a Model A.

But it’s not one of Henry Ford’s vintage cars.

Rather, it’s a distinctive home in an historic west Dearborn neighborhood that’s a lesser-known — though no less fascinating — part of the auto pioneer’s legacy.

The Hayburns live in the Ford Homes Historic District, a community of 250 high-quality yet affordable houses built for Ford Tractor Plant workers in 1919 and 1920.

One of America’s first planned subdivisions, the neighborhood was built using production concepts borrowed from the assembly line. It features seven home styles — models A-F, plus a modified, four-bedroom version of D — by architect Albert Wood, who also designed Henry Ford Hospital and the Masonic Temple.

The two-story homes, sometimes called Ford Colonials, are set back at different distances from the streets to avoid cookie-cutter sameness, and included front or side porches to promote neighborliness, according to district historians. Building materials were delivered to the site via a mini railroad, they say, with horses pulling train cars along tracks laid in a backyard alley and separate crews of construction workers — diggers, plumbers, painters, etc. — rotating from house to house.

“It’s quaint and charming — I wouldn’t live anywhere else,” said Don Ludwig, a Ford Homes history buff, as he washed the original wavy-glass windows on his Model F home, with its trademark central entrance, on Nona Street this week.

Over in his Model A on Park Street, Hayburn is among 11 district homeowners preparing to throw open their front doors — his is a 1919 wood original — and welcome visitors to a Holiday Home Tour on Dec. 6, to celebrate the neighborhood’s 90th anniversary.

For the complete article in The Detroit News, click HERE.

With Dearborn’s loose leaf collection program set to come to an end Dec. 4, there is a possibility many of us may be bagging that last batch of leaves from the front lawn.

In a city press release, Dearborn officials say this:

“The volume of leaves this year means that City crews cannot reach every street within each trash section on that trash day. It may take three weeks before the leaves on your street are picked up on your trash day.

“For instance, if you live in the Tuesday trash collection section, it may take three Tuesdays before leaves are picked up on your street.”

While the city recommends that leaves not be raked into the street until the day before your trash day or ideally until you know crews are coming to pick them up, a drive through most neighborhoods shows that most are already in the street.

To find out if your city does have a leaf collection day coming, you can call the city’s Leaf Collection Hotline at 313-943-2444 after 3 p.m. the day before your trash day. Alternatively, you may also call 313-943-2107 from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. to get an estimate of where crews are expected to be over the next several days.

Now the city doe say that to guarantee leaf pickup, the best bet is to bag your leaves and then set them out the night before trash day. While some balk at the thought of having to bag – with the amount of trees in some neighborhoods bagging leaves can result in upwards of 25 bags curbside – it is better than the days of leaf burning.