Ann Arbor is a small, Mid-
western metropolis, home to many
families, faculty and students
stretching from near and far. It is
a city comprised of almost all loyal
Wolverines dedicated to the act of
rambunctious tailgating for foot-
ball games, avidly shopping for
fresh sourdough bread and vibrant
produce at the Kerrytown farm-
er’s market while inhaling a #48
Binny’s Brooklyn Reuben from
Zingerman’s. Its citizens often
participate in local political events
or protests and can stroll down the
endless streets of the summer Art
Fair alongside thousands of in-
quisitive tourists.
When the school year creeps
around each fall, tens of thousands
of students like myself storm
through the muddy yards of fra-
ternity houses on Packard and
Hill streets — engulfed by the re-
morseful smell of Kirkland vodka
and greasy sweat, typically com-
plemented by the sound of “Mr.
Brightside” booming from speak-
ers at 7 a.m. before football games.
In the rugged winter months,
I can be found nestled up in a
booth at M-36 with friends, enjoy-
ing an overpriced latte and luke-
warm chocolate scone — where
80% of our supposed “study ses-
sions” are overshadowed by play-
ful, light-hearted gossip. Maybe
splurging on some No Thai to-
night for a study snack at the UgLi
will help me get my 2,000 word
Pol Sci paper done that I haven’t
started yet, right?
Spring semester commences
with similar brisk days but is for-
tunately met by budding flowers,
chirping birds and a longed-for sun
as students have picnics filled with
laughter and card games on make-
shift blankets in the Law Quad.
Evening rolls around in the
summer, and the sun has begun
its slow cascade into the depths of
the faint blue sky. It’s 64 degrees,
a calming feeling fills the fresh air
as my friends and I embark on a
late night stroll, passing by young
couples on a Washtenaw Dairy
date, numerous fluffy dogs and
students passing around a soccer
ball on Elbel Field.
Seemingly so, Ann Arbor is a
relatively quaint and pleasant place
to attend college or raise a family,
as many do. Ann Arbor still has its
systematic issues and occasional
scandals; it would be ignorant not
to acknowledge such. But it is con-
sistently ranked as one of the best,
most friendly college towns in the
world. Cordial and genuine small
talk — a once foreign concept to
my New Jersey upbringing — is
the norm. Many white, Christian,
cisgender, nuclear-like families
are concentrated in the majority of
Ann Arbor’s suburban neighbor-
hoods. Students are smart, friend-
ly and successful, for the most
part. The crime rate is quite low,
and the Ann Arbor public schools
soar in the statewide and national
rankings.
There is a sense of quaintness
and innocence that inconspicuous-
ly fills the air. If a student were to
ponder it — socially and culturally
speaking — the most dirty, sultry,
sensual or sinful experience anyone
can indulge in Ann Arbor is a mod-
erately minor, regrettable drunk
mistake on the Skeeps’ dance floor
at 1 a.m. on a Thursday.
But Ann Arbor wasn’t always
like this.
During one of those serene
Ann Arbor summer evenings, I
found myself reading Richard Re-
tyi’s “The Book of Ann Arbor – An
Extremely Serious History Book,”
which I had picked up from Lite-
rati earlier that day. As I read sit-
ting on the porch of my former
house on 4th Avenue, I came to
learn that my seemingly innocent
and untroubled street, nestled
between the district library and
South Main, was once home to
Ann Arbor’s very own Red Light
District.
In an interview with Retyi,
the communications and market-
ing manager for the Ann Arbor
District Public Library, I learned
how he had rummaged through
thousands of pictures of local
newspaper clippings in the online
archives of the library in hopes of
finding inspiration for chapter
ideas. It is in those archives where
he stumbled upon articles detail-
ing Ann Arbor’s former Red Light
District. More than anything, Re-
tyi was surprised to learn of the
peculiar location for the district.
“I saw this weird storefront,
or I saw that they busted some
like, topless massage ring, and it’s
like ‘What? Oh, this happened,
not that long ago,’ ” Retyi said.
“It just seemed like a very wacky
— and unless you lived here during
the time — a weird thing to think
that the area between downtown
and Kerrytown was dangerous on
some level to go down there. And
when I think of Ann Arbor, I don’t
really think about it being particu-
larly dangerous.”
In May of 1970, within short
walking distance from city hall
and police headquarters, Harry
Mohney and Terry Whitman
Shoultes opened up two adult
bookstores — Ann Arbor Adult
News and Fourth Avenue Adult
News — right next to each other.
Above these stores containing
pornagraphic magazines stood
American Massage Parlor, a top-
less massage parlor with rumored
erotic services like a $20 handjob
or a $45 blowjob. You could also
check out other brothel-like plac-
es and massage parlors around the
corners of West Huron and Lib-
erty streets.
Despite
consistent
back-
lash from townspeople, protests,
police raids and undercover op-
erations, Ann Arbor’s Red Light
District
continued
to
thrive
throughout the ’70s and ’80s. A
decade later, the Danish News
— another adult bookstore con-
taining coin-operated peep show
booths — opened up its doors to
the public.
Ann Arbor’s Red Light Dis-
trict remained operational until
the early 1990s. According to Re-
tyi, the area — filled with alleged
crime and society’s most stigma-
tized industry — endured for a long
time, in spite of the town’s count-
less efforts to abolish it. Growing
resistance to rid of the district was
ironically met with the flourishing
of massage parlors and porno-
graphic stores.
“I think the people in the es-
tablishment of Ann Arbor did not
want that (the district) to be part
of the city,” Retyi said, later refer-
encing an old news clipping of the
local newspaper’s bias towards the
demolition of the district, which
was framed as an opportunity for
new beginnings. “As soon as this
(the district) started happening,
off my memory, those adult book-
stores established themselves and,
within weeks, they were pulled
into court.”
In 1990, the district col-
lapsed after a series of charges
related to zoning for Shoultes’
parlors and book stores. The
landlords and city consistently
found legal loopholes and various
ways to target the district’s busi-
nesses; missed rent checks, zon-
ing and other miscellany related
to lease agreements were often
the path of choice for opponents
of the bookstores and parlors.
MARTHA LEWAND
Statement Contributor
6 — The Statement // Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Design by Grace Filbin
The tale of two red light districts
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