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#33 Ann Arbor Stories: Dirty Rotten Founders
Rugged pioneers John Allen and Elisha Rumsey founded Ann Arbor in 1824 and named their new town Ann Arbor because, 1.) Both of their wives had "Ann" in their names and, 2.) The wives frequently relaxed and chatted under a grape arbor the men had planted for their beloved spouses. That's the story most people get fed when they arrive in Ann Arbor. But it isn't the truth. The truth is a lot messier. The town founders more scofflaws than saints. This is the real story of the founding of Ann Arbor and a look at the true nature of our dirty rotten founders.
Music by Chris Bathgate, from his new album Dizzy Seas.
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Martin Bandyke Under Covers: Martin interviews veteran sports journalist Tom Gage about The Big 50: The Men and Moments that Made the Detroit Tigers.
In his first-ever book, the award-winning beat writer Tom Gage recounts the living history of the Tigers, counting down from No. 50 to No. 1. The Big 50 brilliantly brings to life the Tigers' remarkable story, from Ty Cobb and Kirk Gibson to the rollercoaster that was the ‘Bless You Boys’ era to Justin Verlander's no-hitters and up to today.
Tom Gage covered the Detroit Tigers beat for The Detroit News from 1979 to 2014. In 2015, Gage was elected the 2015 winner of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. The longtime chairman of the Detroit Chapter of the BBWAA, Gage also serves on the screening committee that formulates the annual Hall of Fame ballot. The forward to The Big 50 was written by the 1984 World Series MVP Alan Trammell, who was a six-time All-Star while playing for the Detroit Tigers from 1977-1996.
The interview with Tom Gage was recorded on May 2, 2017.
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Building Matters: Black Architects in Michigan
In honor of Black History Month, local experts discuss the contributions of black architects, architectural designers, and landscape architects to the built environment of Michigan. They touch on Michigan's first black-owned architectural firm, Detroit's historic Black Bottom neighborhood, and Detroit's connection to the rise of hip-hop architecture.
This video includes talks from Jessica A.S. Letaw, Karen AD Burton, Saundra Little, and Emily Kutil. Burton and Little's project, the Noir Design Parti, is a 2016 Knight Arts Challenge winner. The project documents the professional journeys and creative works of Detroit’s black architects through a series of videos, photographs, maps, and tours. Kutil's project, Black Bottom Street View aims to connect Detroit residents with the Burton Historic Collection’s photographs of the former Black Bottom neighborhood, and is also a 2016 Knight Arts Challenge winner.
Saundra Little is a registered architect and founder and principal of Centric Design Studio, an architecture firm based in midtown Detroit. Her firm specializes in office, retail, healthcare, and multifamily design. She holds a bachelors and masters degree from Lawrence Technological University, is a past president of the National Organization of Minority Architects - Detroit Chapter [NOMA-D], a board member of the Detroit Creative Corridor Center, and past board member of the AIA Detroit.
Karen Burton is a marketing consultant to architects, engineers, and artists who combines her architectural design and entrepreneurial experience to help businesses grow to their full potential. She is also founder and president of SpaceLab Detroit, a new coworking space opening soon in downtown Detroit. Karen has a bachelor of science degree in architecture from the Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, studied business administration at Wayne State University, and is a board member of the Detroit Chapters of the National Association of Minority Architects and National Association of Women in Construction.
Emily Kutil is a designer, adjunct professor of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy, and a member of the We the People of Detroit Community Research Collective.
The program is moderated by Jessica A.S. Letaw, who enjoys working on, thinking over, and telling stories about architecture. Jessica's past day jobs included design/build and construction firms. She lives in Ann Arbor with her rescue hound, Henry, and keeps herself out of trouble by volunteering for the Ann Arbor Summer Festival and other local events. She enjoys reading, gardening, and well-made White Russians.
Don't miss this opportunity to explore the history and continuing legacy of local black architects in Michigan and beyond.
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Diego Rivera and the Detroit Industry Murals
In this fascinating presentation, Detroit Institute of Arts docent Ken Szmigiel discusses the art, history, and importance of the Detroit Industry Murals.
These famous murals, painted by noted Mexican artist, Diego Rivera in 1932-33 and on display at the DIA, provide an opportunity to consider both the working conditions within a major automobile factory of the era and a glimpse of social and political issues of the times as interpreted by the Marxist muralist. Commissioned by the DIA and funded by Edsel Ford, the project to cover two walls of the museum's Garden Court soon expanded as Rivera researched his subject and chose a broader theme of the evolution of technology.
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Kit Homes of Ann Arbor: A Historical Tour
Join kit house researchers Andrew and Wendy Mutch and learn about the fascinating history of catalog and kit homes, including Michigan's role in the kit house industry. The presentation explores the steps of buying and building a catalog house through the story of one Ann Arbor family's home. Attendees are taken on a photographic tour of some of the 200+ catalog and kit houses located in and around Ann Arbor. Andrew and Wendy Mutch are kit house enthusiasts, researchers and owners of a 1926 Sears Roebuck “Hamilton” kit house in Novi.
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#32 Ann Arbor Stories: Dam Arbor
The Huron River travels 130 miles from White Lake Township in Oakland County all the way down to Lake Erie - meandering through Dexter, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Belleville, Flat Rock, and Rockwood. Since Ann Arbor's founding, the river has been used as a method of transportation and source of power, helping the city prosper and grow. Here's a dam fine history of Ann Arbor's dams, which includes death, floods, and the odds of a coming watery apocalypse.
Listener warning: This episode contains references to drowning, dead people, and liberal use of the word "dam."
Music by Chris Bathgate, from his new album Dizzy Seas
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The Beatles and "Abbey Road"
Released in October 1969, Abbey Road was the last album the Beatles recorded together and it remains a fan favorite.
Learn about the making of this masterpiece from Walter Everett, a professor of Music Theory at the U-M School of Music and a world-renowned Beatles scholar whose works include The Beatles As Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology, which has been called "the most important work to appear on the Beatles thus far," and The Foundations of Rock: From Blue Suede Shoes to Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.
This event was cosponsored by the Michigan Theater.
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Nerd Nite #42 - Prostitutes, Politicians, and Pornography: The History of Ann Arbor’s Red Light District
There was a time in Ann Arbor’s history when the Fourth Avenue area of downtown was known as the red light district. Lined with prostitutes, adult bookstores and massage parlors, Ann Arbor’s red light district was presided over by the Pied Piper of Porn, Terry Whitman Shoultes. Take a trip into the seedy underbelly of Ann Arbor’s dirty past.
Learn more about this topic in the AADL Old News Archives.
About Rich Retyi and Brian Peters: These gents produce Ann Arbor Stories, a podcast featuring stories from Ann Arbor’s distant and not so distant past. Rich runs digital and social media strategy for the University of Michigan hospitals and enjoys writing, playing with his kids, and Friday beers. Brian is the Operating Officer for Ghostly International, a multi-platform cultural curator and record label, as well as co-owner of local indie label, Quite Scientific; he enjoys fishing, camping, mustard, and surprise surprise – Friday beers.
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#31 Ann Arbor Stories: The Dictator Comes to Town
Ann Arbor loves hosting dignitaries, celebrities and heads of state like any other Midwestern city. In 1966, Ann Arbor had the pleasure of hosting newly-elected Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos and his lovely wife Imelda. He wasn't a dictator yet. Hadn't murdered 3,257 of his own people. Tortured 35,000 more. That would come six years later. In 1966, when the president and his wife enjoyed lunch in the Michigan League, they still looked at him like Southeast Asia's JFK, rather than one of the most brutal modern-day dictators.
Music by Ben Benjamin, courtesy of GhoLicense
Parental listener warning: Contains references to torture, murder, beauty pageants and hidden World War II treasure.
See photos from Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos' trip to Ann Arbor in the AADL archives
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Martin Bandyke Under Covers: Martin interviews Martin Torgoff, author of "Bop Apocalypse: Jazz, Race, the Beats, and Drugs"
From the author of the acclaimed Can't Find My Way Home comes the gripping story of the rise of early drug culture in America.
With an intricate storyline that unites engaging characters and themes and reads like a novel, Bop Apocalypse details the rise of early drug culture in America by weaving together the disparate elements that formed this new and revolutionary segment of the American social fabric.
Drawing upon his rich decades of writing experience, master storyteller Martin Torgoff connects the birth of jazz in New Orleans, the first drug laws, Louis Armstrong, Mezz Mezzrow, Harry Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, swing, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, the Savoy Ballroom, Reefer Madness, Charlie Parker, the birth of bebop, the rise of the Beat Generation, and the coming of heroin to Harlem. Aficionados of jazz, the Beats, counterculture, and drug history will all find much to enjoy here, with a cast of characters that includes vivid and memorable depictions of Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Jackie McLean, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Herbert Huncke, Terry Southern, and countless others.
Bop Apocalypse is also a living history that teaches us much about the conflicts and questions surrounding drugs today, casting many contemporary issues in a new light by connecting them back to the events of this transformative era. At a time when marijuana legalization is rapidly becoming a reality, it takes us back to the advent of marijuana prohibition, when the templates of modern drug law, policy, and culture were first established, along with the concomitant racial stereotypes. As a new opioid epidemic sweeps through white working- and middle-class communities, it brings us back to when heroin first arrived on the streets of Harlem in the 1940s. And as we debate and grapple with the gross racial disparities of mass incarceration, it puts into sharp and provocative focus the racism at the very roots of our drug war.
Having spent a lifetime at the nexus of drugs and music, Torgoff reveals material never before disclosed and offers new insights, crafting and contextualizing Bop Apocalypse into a truly novel contribution to our understanding of jazz, race, literature, drug culture, and American social and cultural history.
Martin’s interview with Martin Torgoff was originally recorded March 7, 2017.