2F - The Michigan Daily - New Student Edition 2006 fast facts Ann Arbor boasts a number of archi- techturalstandouts - to find them, you just need to know where to look. Nickels Arcade The passageway connecting Maynard and State streets, built in the 1910s, is one of a handful of remaining glass- roofed shopping arcades in the United States. The Michigan Theater Built in 1927, the theater's renovation 50 years later actually took longer than its original construction. The Shant The address of Delta Kappa Epsilon's first fraternity house is odd enough: 611 1/2 William Street. The house's designer was also the first in the world to design a skyscraper. The Weimann Block The 200 block of East Washington Street features decorative, pressed sheet metal; it was an innovative way to imitate cast iron in the 1800s. Treetown takes root By Anne VanderMey Daily Staff Reporter Plagued by financial hardship, East Coast- ers Elisha Rumsey and John Allen fled into the untamed Midwest. In 1824, they founded the village of Annarbour in honor of their wives, both named Ann. Rumsey died three years later, and Allen eventually left to look for gold in Cal- ifornia, but the town developed rapidly despite their departure. The original 640 acres that constituted the fledgling town - purchased for alittle more than $1 each - might never have reached the tower- ing prices of today had the state university not relocated from Detroit in 1841. Ann Arborites at the time considered this a consolation prize from the state after the city was passed over for state capital in 1836. Instead of fading into obscurity - as did the six other towns Allen founded - Ann Arbor, with the University's help, established itself as a prominent city as well as a center of political fer- ment. Until the 1970s, Ann Arbor's City Council was predominantly Republican. In 1972, a strong student vote helped elect two candidates from the Human Rights Party - a party that later ran with a platform of overturning drug laws, promoting socialism and firing the police chief. The coun- try's first openly gay elected official was HRP councilwoman Kathy Kozachenko in Ann Arbor in 1974. Demonstrations were frequent downtown in the '60s and '70s, mostly for progressive politi- cal causes, but at least once overzealous students started a riot out of what a Michigan Daily edi- tor called "boredom." The town was also at the forefront of the effort to decriminalize marijuana. Hash Bash, a pro-marijuana rally, once drew thou- sands of proponents from all over the country. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has deemed Ann Arbor one of Michigan's "cool cities" Its elected officials are now turning their attention toward regulating its growth to allow residents what the visitor's bureau calls "big-city living ... with small-town appeal" Courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library Even 50 years ago, the Intersection of North University Avenue and State Street was a hub of local activity. Victor Douvan buys apples and cider from Alex Nemeth at the Ann Arbor Farmers's Market. The Farmers's Market runs year round on Wednesdays and Saturdays in Kerrytown. KER RYTWN Ne ghborhood has plenty to offer am finishing up my 12th month there, but in no way am I ungrateful rytown for our junior year, I realized grabbed a bite at Angelo's, and let as a resident of Kerrytown, to East Quad and the Central Cam- with dismay how far I would be me tell you - speaking as Ann which coincidentally marks my pus experience. The women and the from Lucky Kitchen, Big Ten Bur- Arbor's resident half-Jew - that the first summer in Ann Arbor I lived pizza slices are cheap, and although rito and Backroom corned beef hash was and partied hard in East Quadrangle I only turned 21 recently, numer- Pizza. Those crazy- phenomenal, the farm- Residence Hall with my fellow hip- ous bars speckle South University cool bars - Good bread heaven and the pies for two years, and let me say Avenue for entertainment. Upon Time Charley's, The wait staff courteous and this for the record: Iam extremely realizing my soon-to-be housemates Brown Jug - would clean-shaven. glad to have gotten the hell out of were set on findinga place in Ker- be memories for me to s Kerrytown, I real- nourish on the Siberian ized, is an incredible side of town. neighborhood. And as But - and you soon as that thought knew a but was com- gave way to more ing, didn't you? - I alcoholic musings, I soon found how wildly ANDREW was whisked through inaccurate my original several merry water- conception of Kerry- KLEIN ing holes along Main town really was: overtly Street, such as The Full and overly chic, more yuppie than Moon and, of course, The Heidel- sugar-free mochas, better marijuana berg. Darts, pool, decent jukeboxes (you get the point: Kerrytown just and good people litter the social holds too much class for a scruffy paths of Kerrytown, without the herb like me). I'd only peeped pizza plates and ubiquitous plastic behind Kerrytown's curtain once or cups that mar the nightspots of twice before, and places like Zinger- Central Campus. man's and The Heidelberg seemed This is by no means a beat down like bastions of cool (the kind of cool on my Central Campus roots. On the with money). contrary, the two spheres work well After drinking away in my together, and a good mix of the two room and listening to The Band would harm no one. - Ala East Quad - my friends And for you hopeless romantics finally dragged me out to the curb of out there, taking your sweet one out - Catherine Street and brought me to on a walk through the brick and the Canterbury House on Huron Street, bling of Main Street will surely yield one of the chillest and most intimate some fruitful ending. venues on campus, bringing in musi- cians that span the great gamut of - Klein can be reached musical aesthetics. For lunch, we at andresar@umich.edu. Filmmakers flock to.A2 for annual film festival By Amanda Andrade Daily Film Editor From its humble inception in 1963, when a modest assembly of local film students and filmmakers crammed into the Lorch Hall auditorium to screen a few independent movies, the Ann Arbor Film Festival has relied on the give-and-take of goodwill: nurture and be nurtured. The festival, which kicks off at the Michigan Theater every March, strives to be a guardian of creative expression by fostering independent and experimental film. Created in a decade when constant innovation in the film medium dared artists to step onto the very edge of the avant garde, the festival will retain its original mission of promoting filmmak- ers who accomplish the unconventional and the extraordinary. "There's total creative freedom here as a forum 'for the avant garde, and that is so rare," said Christen McArdle, the festival's executive director. "It's a showcase for the arts and for the people who do cutting-edge work." But film junkies cramped in a dim and smoky auditoriumcould only do so much. Ittook the community's support to transform such inauspi- cious beginnings into the international event the festival has become, boasting more than 2,000 film entries from 31 countries (13 of the films were programmed at the world-famous Sundance Film Festival). Hav- ing separated from the University in 1980, the festival is now an inde- pendent, nonprofit arts organization, relying entirely on the Ann Arbor community. "Something like (the Ann Arbor Film Festival), which is a celebra- tion of experimental art, is something that the community should be aware of and celebrate and keep strong," McArdle said. "It's the first thing to get cut when money goes down, like we're seeing in Michigan right now, and the only way to keep arts organizations strong is through community support." McArdie, who makes her debut as festival director this year, has a new strategy to encourage precisely that kind of audience participation and patronage. This year will see the unveiling of the Audience Awards, in which audience members vote on their favorite film of the night. A $500 award will be bestowed daily during the six-day festival for a total of $3,000 in prize money. "I think it's one of the most interesting awards, and I hope it encour- ages people to be more invested' McArdle said. In addition to the audience awards, the festival doles out $15,000 in prize money to a film or films selected by a three-person jury. This year, the jury is composed ofsexperimental filmmakersCourt- ney Egan; last year's festival winner for Best Michigan Director, Richard Pell; and David Baker, director of the Kalamazoo Anima- tion Festival International. The judges will choose the top in artistic achievement from the approximately 100 films in competition. But win or lose, the films selected to compete have already made it through a rigorous screening process. Filmmakers submitted a record 2,000 entries this year. McArdle said the current method for culling the very best - amounting to only 5 percent of the submitted works this year - will probably need tobe revamped because of such overwhelm- ing interest in the festival. For this year's process, two committees, consisting of three members each, spent between 20 and 30 hours per week watching all the entries. The process took months. While the overall quality is exemplary, the festival headlines a handful of major films. "Wassup Rockers;' a film focusing on a group of L.A.-based Latino teenagers, has had a particu- larly large amount of pre-festival hype. McArdle described another of the festival's most anticipated films, "Camjackers," as "really fun and high- energy - very young." The festival officially gets rolling tonight in the opulent Michigan Theater lobby, amid live music by Los Gatos and plenty of boozing and schmoozing. As a revered defender of cutting-edge culture, the festival promises an atmosphere where community members, film lovers and filmmakers can mingle together at the altar of great art. - This article originally ran Mar. 21, 2006.