Welcom To Ann Arbor: Customer Service Center
Welcom To Ann Arbor: Customer Service Center
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in the downtown area and around the University of Michigan campus. Aside from a large restaurant scene in the Main Street, South State Street, and South University Avenue areas, Ann Arbor ranks first among U.S. cities in the number of booksellers and books sold per capita. The Ann Arbor District Library maintains four branch outets in addition to its main downtown building; in 2008 a new branch building replaced the branch located in Plymouth Mall. This new branch is called the Traverwood Branch, and opened on June 30, 2008. The city is also home to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
A person from Ann Arbor is called an "Ann Ar borite", and many long-time residents call themselves "townies". The city itself is often called A ("A-squared") or A2 ("A two"), and, less commonly, Tree Town. Recently, some youths have taken to calling Ann Arbor Ace Deuce or simply The Deuce. With tongue-in-cheek reference to the city's liberal political leanings, some occasionally refer to Ann Arbor as The People's Republic of Ann Arbor or 25 square miles surrounded by reality, the latter phrase being adapted from Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus's description of Madison, Wisconsin. Ann Arbor sometimes appears on citation indexes as an author, instead of a location, often with the academic degree MI, a misunderstanding of the abbreviation for Michigan.
reputation as a center for liberal politics. During the 20th century, the economy of Ann Arbor underwent a gradual shift from a manufacturing base to a service and technology base, which accelerated in the 1970s and 1980s.
Ann Arbor was founded in January 1824 by John Allen and Elisha Rumsey, both of whom were land speculators. On May 25, 1824, the town plot was registered with Wayne County as "Annarbour". The city became the seat of Washtenaw County in 1827, and was incorporated as a village in 1833. The town became a regional transportation hub in 1839 with the arrival of the Michigan Central Railroad, and was chartered as a city in 1851. During the 1960s and 1970s, the city gained a
University of Michigan, established in 1837. As the dominant institution of higher learning in the city and one of the top public universities in the world, the university provides Ann Arbor with a distinct college-town atmosphere. The university shapes Ann Arbor's economy significantly as it employs about 30,000 workers, including about 7,500 in the medical center. The city's economy is also centered on high-technol ogy, with several companies drawn to the area by the university's research and development money, and by its graduates. On the other hand, Ann Arbor has increasingly found itself grappling with the effects of sharply rising land values and gentrification, as well as urban sprawl stretching far into the outlying countryside.
Many Ann Arbor cultural attractions and events are sponsored by the University of Michigan. Several performing arts groups and facilities are on the university's campus, as are museums dedicated to art, archaeology, and natural his tory and sciences (see Museums at the Univer sity of Michigan). Regional and local performing arts groups not associated with the university include the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre; the Arbor Opera Theater; the Ann Arbor Symphony Or chestra; the Ann Arbor Ballet Theater; the Ann Arbor Civic Ballet (established in 1954 as Michi gan's first chartered ballet company); and Per formance Network, which operates a downtown theater frequently offering new or nontraditional plays.
The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, located in a renovated and expanded historic downtown fire station, contains more than 250 interactive exhibits featuring science and technology. Multiple art galleries exist in the city, notably