The "Ann Street Block" still houses storefronts, offices, and residences. It was built in 1871 as the Hoban Block after fire destroyed earlier buildings. Customers came to butchers, grocery stores, saloons, restaurants, billiard halls, a laundry, hotel, and adjoining monument and harness shops.
By 1920 the growing Greek immigrant presence in the neighborhood added the social life of all-male coffee houses. After African American workers migrated to Ann Arbor and doubled the black population in the 1920s, the businesses in the Ann Street Block primarily served the black community. The block was restored in the 1980s.
JOSEPH ARNET (FAR RIGHT) IN FRONT OF HIS SHOP, CA. 1910.
DAVE & MOZELLE KEATON'S MIDWAY LUNCH, CA.1940S (MOZELLE IN MIDDLE).
THE ACCOMPANYING ARTICLE REPORTED: "RECENTLY A NEW POLICEMAN WHO WAS NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE SITUATION TELEPHONED CHIEF OF POLICE ZENAS SWEET LATE AT NIGHT THAT HE HAD JUST SEEN 14 MEN ENTER THERE AND THAT IT WAS 'RIPE' FOR A RAID. THE CHIEF SAID THAT HE '...HAD NOT TIME TO INTERFERE.'" .
IN 1898, THE ANTI-SALOON TRACT, "THE VOICE," PUBLISHED A MAP SHOWING ELEVEN SALOONS CLUSTERED WITHIN A BLOCK OF THE COURTHOUSE. THE TRACT CLAIMED THEY WERE CORRPUTING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS. AN "OFFICIAL" BAWDY HOUSE "LARGELY SUPPORTED BY STUDENTS" OCCUPIED THE SECOND FLOOR OF THE BUILDING DIRECTLY BEHIND THE POST OFFICE.
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