There was a time in Ann Arbor’s not-so-distant past when a part of town was widely known as the red light district. Adult bookstores, topless massage parlors, prostitutes, hoodlums, and bums—all just blocks from City Hall and Ann Arbor police headquarters. Cops were raiding massage parlors every few months, rounding up a dozen massage workers at a time, but the arrests never made a dent. Crackdowns on prostitutes and the johns who solicited them didn’t make much impact either. The red light district regenerated. Persisted. Grew stronger.

How did Ann Arbor become home to this kind of brazen adult fare?

Music by FAWNN

Learn more in the AADL Old News Archives.

Total revenue sharing payments sent by the state of Michigan to local governments have decreased by 45% since 2001. How have our local governments met this challenge? What can be done to reverse this trend?

League of Women Voters of Michigan Board Secretary Harvey Somers will moderates a panel which includes representatives from county, city, and township levels of government, and discusses how the Michigan Legislature’s revenue sharing policies and budgets have affected local governments and how local governments are meeting these challenges.

The program is co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Ann Arbor Area.

Police spotted the Nazis in their rented U-Haul at the edge of the city around 11 am— two hours before anyone expected them to arrive. Fifteen members of the S.S. Action Group out of Westland—sitting three in the front and 12 in the back, riot shields and jackboots bouncing over every pothole.

It was March 20, 1982, and a crowd of 2,000 anti-Nazi demonstrators were about to show the world what Ann Arbor thought of their Aryan visitors.

Music by Diego and the Dissidents.

Learn more about this story in the AADL Old News Archives.

In a time of spirits, specters, and the people who could contact them - Daniel B. Kellogg fit right in. The good doctor could diagnose you in person or halfway across the country—see inside you and prescribe the perfect cure—despite having no formal medical training. He needed only his keen sense of the spirit world and the ghosts of two medicine men to help with long distance cases. This is the story of Ann Arbor's clairvoyant physician and the family empire he built right in Lower Town.

Music by Hollow & Akimbo.

Special thanks to Katie Reeves for suggesting this topic, and our enduring thanks to the Ann Arbor District Library archives staff for providing many of our research materials.

Learn more about this story in the Old News archives.

That spring in 1936, seven years into the Great Depression, the entire city of Ann Arbor, age 14 and under, lost their marbles over the biggest sporting event the city had ever known. Hundreds of kids battled for 26 coveted spots in a tournament that could determine their futures. It was the 1936 Ann Arbor Daily News Marbles Tournament, pitting the best shooters in the best schools in the city against each other for an all expenses paid trip to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to compete in the Western Finals. The champion of the west would punch his or her ticket to the National Marbles Tournament on the Jersey Shore, and a chance at marbles immortality.

Music by Stepdad.

Learn more about this story in the Old News archives.

Most of Santa’s helpers are great people - guys and gals - and, as it turns out, Ann Arbor used to have one of the best.

Our Santa’s helper was so good that four U.S. presidents praised his work. As did governors, senators, congressmen - essentially any elected official looking to shake hands and smile into the camera around Christmastime. Our Santa’s Helper had the keys to the city of Ann Arbor, Detroit and Washington, D.C. Our Santa's helper was in Life magazine in 1956. Our Santa's helper was one of the best.

Music by Ben Benjamin, made possible by GhoLicense.

Read more about this story in the Old News Archives.

George Washington never slept here. Neither did Abraham Lincoln or Andrew Jackson or George W. Bush. Of the 43 men who have served as President of the United States since 2016, we’re confident 17 Commanders in Chief have set foot in the Ann Arbor area … 18 if you count young Army officer Ulysses S. Grant. Here are their stories, as well as the stories of some presidents who never set foot in Ann Arbor but are still tied to the city in some way.

Music by John Philip Sousa

Listener discretion advised. When Martha Crawford stepped out of her carriage and set foot in the Village of Dixboro in 1835, no one could have predicted her eventual fate, or that she'd be the origin of Dixboro's first creepy ghost story.

Music by Michna and Ben Benjamin, made possible by GhoLicense.

We talk a lot these days about "connectivity" that now means being plugged into the Internet and all the information it provides. But, being connected certainly predates the arrival of the smartphone.

Ann Arbor in the 19th century, though a small town, also wanted to be connected to the wider world. They achieved this through an astonishing accumulation of what Henry Tappan called the "materials of learning."

For this special presentation in honor of the Ladies' Library Association Sesquicentennial, Professor Francis X. Blouin Jr. will discuss the accumulation of more than 40 million objects, including the holdings of the Ann Arbor District Library, which exist in our city and have connected us in different ways to the world. Professor Blouin will also discuss how and why these were collected and cataloged.

Francis X. Blouin Jr. is a professor in the University of Michigan's School of Information and the Department of History and the former Director of the Bentley Historical Library.

The Ladies' Library Association
In 1866 a group of Ann Arbor women formed a small subscription library to fill the need for a free, public library in Ann Arbor. Initially, they occupied a rented space above Main Street. Over time, their collection grew, and by 1885 they had purchased land and erected a building. The ladies supported their endeavors with concerts, strawberry festivals, and other fundraising activities, and soon amassed a sizable collection.

Libraries in frontier towns were considered intellectual luxuries, but the 35 ladies who founded the Ladies' Library Association were determined, like similar women's groups in Kalamazoo, Flint, and Lansing, to establish a library in their young town 42 years after its founding. In 1916, on the 50th anniversary of their association, the Ladies' Library Association transferred their collection to the Ann Arbor Public School District.

Ann Arbor's LLA is unique in maintaining an unbroken existence to the present time. Since their inception, they have remained active supporters of the Library, using the income from their endowment to purchase a beautiful collection of art books for the Library, and to furnish the branches with original works of art.

In 2016 we celebrate the Sesquicentennial of the Ladies' Library Association, thanking them for 150 years of service to the greater Ann Arbor Community.

Ashley Park is a Grammy-nominated Broadway performer most recently seen playing Tuptim in Lincoln Center’s Tony-Award-Winning Revival of "The King And I" (Original Broadway Cast Recording), and also appeared on Broadway in "Mamma Mia!"

Ashley, a Pioneer High School graduate, discusses her year with "The King And I," her acclaimed portrayal of Tuptim, the Tony and Grammy Awards, and life on Broadway. She also discusses her high school battle with cancer, how the Make-A-Wish foundation granted her dream to see her first Broadway Show ("The Lion King"), and how her career led her from Ann Arbor to New York City and a Tony-winning production.

Ashley’s credits include a national tour as Gabrielle in "Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella," concerts and musical performances at Alice Tully Hall, Feinstein’s/54 Below and other venues. She is a proud graduate of The University of Michigan (BFA Musical Theatre), where she co-founded the Michigan Performance Outreach Workshop (MPOW) and worked as a member of the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP).