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Ann Street Black Business District

For most of the twentieth century, the 100 block of East Ann Street was a hub for Black-owned businesses in downtown Ann Arbor. A rotating set of barber shops, shoe shine parlors, dry cleaners, restaurants, blues bars, and pool rooms formed the backbone of Black social life, especially for men. The district stretched around the corner onto North Fourth Avenue where the Colored Welfare League housed Black-owned businesses and community organizations such as the early Dunbar Center.

Real Estate Transfers

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Parent Issue
Day
29
Month
July
Year
1898
Copyright
Public Domain

George Whitman and Watermelon in Garden, October 1968 Photographer: Eck Stanger

George Whitman and Watermelon in Garden, October 1968 image
Year:
1968
Published In:
Ann Arbor News, October 3, 1968
Caption:
Weed Killer "All I intended to have was the vine," George Whitman explained as he showed this ripe watermelon growing beneath his rose bushes. Although cantaloupes can be grown this far north, the climate is usually too cool for the long hot season required by the watermelon. Whitman, who has maintained a rose garden all of the 10 years he has lived at 415 Evergreen, recently began adding marigolds, snapdragons, verbenas and petunias for color. He added the vines this year because "training them around the flower bed helps smother the weeds." Whitman eliminated crab grass in his garden and gained four cantaloupes and four watermelons to boot!

Real Estate Transfers

Real Estate Transfers image
Parent Issue
Day
29
Month
July
Year
1898
Copyright
Public Domain