Wolverine to Wolverine

World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg and iconic American playwright Arthur Miller are two extraordinary exemplars among Michigan alumni. And now they will be neighbors. Sort of.

Nearly a century after they left Ann Arbor, the homes where they lived as students will soon stand side by side. In May, the U-M Regents approved an action request to move Wallenberg’s one-time home from its original location at 308 E. Madison to the spot next to Miller’s student abode at 439 S. Division.

The move was motivated by construction of the Central Campus Residential Development, a footprint that included Wallenberg’s college house. Once the move to the corner of Jefferson and Division streets is completed, a renovation project will update both properties to create a combined space for administrative and research purposes.

Notably, Wallenberg and Miller could have been real neighbors at U-M. Wallenberg graduated in 1935; Miller in 1938. Both pursued the arts: Wallenberg studied architecture; Miller excelled in creative writing. Each pursued entry to the University with passionate fervor and expressed how much they enjoyed their time on campus. And upon graduation, each transformed the world with an unmatched lust for life.

Here comes the neighborhood

Arthur Miller (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

It’s hard to know if Wallenberg and Miller ever crossed paths. But one can imagine they would have found common ground, even though they came from wildly different backgrounds. As with most Michigan alumni, they would have connected on their undying passion for the University.

New Yorker Miller, who would go on to write such classic American plays as Death of a Salesman (1949) and The Crucible (1953), arrived on campus in 1934. A 2013 story for Michigan Today by Frederic Alan Maxwell noted Miller was born into a prosperous family whose fortune was destroyed by the Great Depression. The determined teenager delivered bread on his bike and worked in an auto parts warehouse for two years to make tuition. In a December 1953 essay for Holiday magazine, Miller published an ode  to his alma mater.

“I loved it because of the surprises,” he wrote. “Elmo Hamm, the son of a potato farmer in Upper Michigan, turned out to be as sharp as any of the myopic drudges who got the best grades in New York. I loved it because Harmon Rammel, the son of an Arkansas banker, lived in the room next to mine and from him I got a first glimpse what the South meant to a Southerner, a Southerner who kept five rifles racked on the wall, and two .38s in his valise, and poured himself bullets in a little mold he kept on his desk.”

Imagine how he would have described Wallenberg, born into one of Sweden’s most prominent families — often referred to as the “Rockefellers of Scandinavia.” Would he have seen the qualities in Wallenberg that would take this young man to Budapest during World War II, where he led a courageous effort to save some 70,000 Hungarian Jews from the Nazis before disappearing at the hands of the Russian military? A 2012 Michigan Today story by Sheryl James reveals a former classmate later said Wallenberg declined to join a fraternity, though he could have afforded it, because it would isolate him from other, less prosperous students. “There was just no snobbery about him,” the classmate recalled.

Your friends and neighbors

Wallenberg (left) with college buddies. (Image courtesy of the Wallenberg family.)

Like Miller, the idealistic and adventurous young Wallenberg immersed in college life, biking and hitchhiking to get around. In his letters home, he emerges as fun-loving and adventurous, but also humble and hardworking; easy going, yet dedicated to his work.

“I feel so at home in my little Ann Arbor that I’m beginning to sink down roots here and have a hard time imagining leaving it,” he wrote soon after arriving. Miller also was content on campus and seemed to enjoy “anatomy lessons” in the Arb as he told the readers of Holiday. Wallenberg participated in a debating society in the then-College of Engineering and Architecture; Miller achieved his goal of winning the Hopwood Award in creative writing.

Move it or lose it

Charming and just a little bit shabby, these temporary student residences have been home to hundreds of students long after Wallenberg and Miller graduated. Each life has left an impression on the creaky floorboards and sagging porches. We are blessed these places are still standing, physical reminders of the vast, life-changing potential that exists on a university campus.

Construction crews are digging the foundation for Wallenberg’s house as I write this. The move is set for late November. When the time comes, signage will offer tour guides and trivia fans some fascinating  new talking points.

For now, most passersby likely have no idea what the chain link fence around the empty lot symbolizes. As I took some pictures to document the move, I approached some students waiting for the bus. I was busting with information I wanted to share about the history burbling around them. The ones without earpods did not appreciate the unsolicited dissertation about two ghosts they’d never heard of. I could almost see the “911” in one poor girl’s eyes, and can only imagine the story she told her roommate later about the unhinged lady at the bus stop.

One day they’ll get it. I simply hoped to plant the seed, the one that both Wallenberg and Miller planted, to nurture curiosity, fellowship, and wonder about our “little Ann Arbor.”
 
 
(Lead image: In October 2025, crews prepare the foundation to set the house formerly occupied by World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg. Image credit: D. Holdship.)