Media
#10 Ann Arbor Stories: Ann Arbor Invents the Cubicle
The cubicle. The three-walled cliche, surface to which so many Hang In There kitty cat posters are affixed, was invented in Ann Arbor. That’s right - the yoke around the neck of white collar workers everywhere was conceived and birthed in Ann Arbor. On State Street, no less. Here's the story of its invention and proliferation and how it came to be in Ann Arbor.
Music by Stepdad.
Further reading and photos from AADL's Oldnews
Birth of the Cube Farm from Ann Arbor Observer: Then & Now.
Media
#9 Ann Arbor Stories: It's Lovely to Die Together
(This episode is for mature audiences only)
The two girls were peculiar, even for Ann Arbor in 1971. They looked college aged, maybe they were hippies. Nothing outwardly weird, but something definitely strange. They stood a few feet apart, face to face on the corner of State and Liberty. Some said they were looking at the moon. Others said they just stared at each other. Stared for hours and hours that cold November night. This is the story of those two peculiar girls. And one tragic night in November in 1971.
Music by Diego and the Dissidents
Further reading and photos from AADL's Old News
Media
Eclipse Jazz: 40 Years On
In the fall of 1975, a dozen U-M undergrads came together to launch a student-run concert program, Eclipse Jazz, which became a local music phenomenon.
Beginning with a performance by jazz pianist McCoy Tyner (of the John Coltrane Quartet) at the Power Center, Eclipse Jazz presented over one hundred concerts by the world’s finest jazz musicians over the next 15 years.
This event featured memories by many of Eclipse Jazz founders and was moderated by WEMU’s Michael Jewett. Scheduled panelists included Lee Berry, Tom Bray, Michael Grofsorean, Mike Landry, Ann Rebentisch, Jimmy (Max) Robins, and Max Dehn. The discussion also focused on what happened to Eclipse Jazz and why.
The panel also discussed the legacy of Miles Davis, whose genre-bending music helped inspire and propel both the members and audience of Eclipse Jazz. A new biopic about Davis, Miles Ahead, starring and directed by Don Cheadle, opens at the Michigan Theater on Friday, April 22.
This event is cosponsored by AADL and the Michigan Theater. Information and tickets for the Michigan Theater film may be found on the Theater’s website at michtheater.org.
Media
John W. Barfield Discusses His Autobiography, "Starting From Scratch : The Humble Beginnings of a Two Billion-Dollar Enterprise"
John W. Barfield is a legendary entrepreneur who is known as a pioneer of corporate America's vital Minority Supplier Development programs. He is the founder of The Bartech Group Inc., a leading workforce management and staffing solutions provider to Global 500 firms. Bartech, based in Southfield, Michigan, employs more than 3,000 people, manages approximately 26,000 contract workers worldwide, and manages approximately $3 billion in contingent labor for its global clients. Bartech was named the Nation's Top Managed Service Provider firm for 2014 by HRO Today, a trade magazine for the contingent workforce Industry.
Join us as John discusses his life and his new autobiography, Starting From Scratch : The Humble Beginnings of a Two Billion-Dollar Enterprise. A book signing will follow and books will be for sale at the event.
The son of an Alabama sharecropper, John W. Barfield dropped out of high school to enlist in the United States Army, serving in Germany and France from 1945-1947. Upon his discharge, he worked as a custodian at the University of Michigan.
In 1954, he and his wife Betty, formed the first of many companies, J & B Cleaning Company (later renamed Barfield Cleaning Company) located in Ypsilanti. John and his wife Betty sold their first business to ITT Corporation in 1969. It was a breakthrough transaction that led to a relationship with General Motors Corporation and a second career as one of the most successful minority suppliers for GM and other companies.
In 1977, Barfield incorporated John Barfield and Associates and by 1984 he had expanded the company and renamed it Bartech Inc. Barfield formed and eventually sold additional businesses, including Barfield Building Maintenance Company and Barfield Manufacturing Company.
As a long time philanthropist and mentor to other entreprenuers, Mr. Barfield has received numerous honors and awards, including The Tree of Life Award, the highest honor of the Jewish National Fund of America; the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion's Humanitarian of the Year Award; and the A.G. Gaston Lifetime Achievement Award from Black Enterprise Magazine.
Media
#8 Ann Arbor Stories: The Suicide Sub Comes to Ann Arbor
"See 38 and a half tons ... 81 feet of fanatical fiendishness. See one of the ships in which two of our enemies volunteer to accept death in order to blow up their objectives. See this Japanese suicide submarine and realize what a vicious, tricky, desperate enemy our boys are fighting in the pacific. Let’s hit them harder. Let’s depth-bomb them to the bottom of the sea - let’s show them what an aroused, all-out America can do." The Ann Arbor News
On that Saturday, July 17, 1943, this honest to goodness captured Japanese suicide sub would roll through the streets of Ann Arbor in one of the weirdest parades in city history.
Music by Hollow & Akimbo
Further reading and photos from AADL's Old News
Media
#7 Ann Arbor Stories: The Legendary Weed Contest of 1975
The Legendary Weed Contest of 1975 wasn’t just any contest. It was more than just a sweepstakes where the grand prize winner received one full-scale pound of Columbian smoking marijuana. It was a statement. A call to revolution. A brilliant marketing plan hatched during a smoke-filled discussion among the braintrust of the Ann Arbor Sun, looking for a way to increase the paper’s circulation.
Music by Chris Bathgate
Further reading and photos from AADL's Old News:
Contest winners announced
Legendary Weed Contest of 1975 ad
Prosecutor's Effort Fails to Halt Pot Giveaway
Prosecutor in court to halt pot contest
Media
#6 Ann Arbor Stories: Ghost in the Attic
For a town as old as Ann Arbor, it has surprisingly few ghost stories. But in the late 1950s, the congregation of the First Methodist Church in Ann Arbor was pretty convinced they had a spirit on their hands. Caretakers sometimes heard footsteps late at night, but never spotted anyone in the church. Until the early morning hours of August 30, 1959, when they made a chilling discovery.
Music by People Get Ready
Further reading from AADL's Old News:
Initial Story
Bill of Health
Lim Gets Aid
Going Back to School
Graduating Saturday
Hit by Car
10-year retrospective
Retrospective after Cheng's Death
Media
#5 Ann Arbor Stories: Ann Arbor's Oldest Gay Bar
It started on April 30, 1949, when Cupid Bar rebranded itself as The Flame Bar, turning a popular downtown student watering hole into a slightly more popular downtown student watering hole. Almost 50 years later, The Flame would close, shuttering an Ann Arbor institution. It wasn’t Ann Arbor’s first gay bar, and certainly not its last, but The Flame played a major role in the lives of many among Ann Arbor’s LGBT community - for good and ill.
Music by Lightning Love
Further reading from AADL's Old News:
The Flame bar review
Death of Harvey Blanchard
The Flame Bought
The Flame Reopens on Liberty
Media
#4 Ann Arbor Stories: The Birth of Iggy Pop
Muskegon claims him because he was born there. Ypsi claims him because, for most of his childhood, he lived in a trailer park on the outskirts of town. But it’s Ann Arbor - along with cocaine, meth, acid, booze, pills, AND ambition - that deserve the credit for turning James Newell Osterberg into Iggy Pop.
Music by FAWNN
Media
#3 Ann Arbor Stories: Martian Madness
On the night of March 20,1966, Frank Mannor’s six dogs started barking like they’d never done before. He went outside to shut them up and that’s when he saw what he saw. Something flying through the night sky. At first it looked like a shooting star, then it slowed. It changed color. And it landed in the woods a few hundred yards from his Dexter farmhouse.
Music by Diego & The Dissidents and The Dead Bodies.