AADL Talks To: Lisa Tuveson and Ken Pargulski, Longtime Espresso Royale Employees & Owners of M36 Coffee Roasters and Cafe

Wed, 08/28/2024 - 9:47pm

In this episode, AADL Talks to Ken Pargulski & Lisa Tuveson. Ken & Lisa were both long-time employees of Espresso Royale. When the company closed in 2020 they carried on the legacy and lessons they had learned by opening M-36 roasters in Whitmore Lake and their own cafe on South U. They tell us about the coffee house culture of early Espresso Royale, the company’s expansion, and its community impact.

AAPI Washtenaw Oral History Project - Cynthia Yao

Wed, 05/29/2024 - 10:10pm

Cynthia Yao was born in Kingston, Jamaica, where her parents settled after immigrating from China. In 1959, she moved to Boston to attend Emmanuel College. She met Edward York-Peng Yao who was at Harvard finishing his PhD in Physics. They married and came to Ann Arbor where they raised four children: Michelle, Mark, Steven and Lisa. She received a Master of Museum Practice from the University of Michigan in 1979. She was inspired by science centers and children's museums that she visited with her children. Yao proposed to the city a museum in the former firehouse building and worked with many community members to create the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum which opened on October 13, 1982. She served as Executive Director for 18 years. 

Note: Cynthia and Ed’s eldest daughter Michelle passed away in 2022, after the recording of this interview. All four of their children have successful careers–three became doctors, and one became an engineer.

View historical materials.

AADL Talks To: Gary Grimshaw

Fri, 12/09/2011 - 9:50am

Gary Grimshaw is one of the most renowned and recognizable poster artists to come out of the 1960s. His most prolific period as a graphic artist was his time spent with John and Leni Sinclair in the mid-1960s and early 1970s, first in the Detroit-based Trans-Love Energies commune and then in Ann Arbor with the White Panther Party/Rainbow People's Party. In this interview we talk with the former White Panther Party Minister of Art about creating art for the Grande Ballroom and the White Panther Party, the night John Sinclair met both him and the MC5, and how he made his art then and now.