My never-ending search for our region’s most enigmatic super villain, the Ypsi Tooth, led me a few nights ago to a long-closed-up building in downtown Ypsilanti. [You can enter said building by way of a manhole downtown.] While I don’t want to get into specifics concerning what clues I may have found, I did want to pass along a few photos of an old Ypsi artifact that I thought you might find of interest. At the back of the building, in a space that once housed a small manufacturing facility where fake teeth were produced, I found several boxes of matches from Haab’s, the Ypsilanti steakhouse that first opened its doors on Michigan Avenue back in 1933, just after the repeal of prohibition. My guess, given the design of the packaging and the matches inside, is that these boxes date back to the late ’70s, but I’d love to hear from folks who might have firsthand knowledge of when these were handed out. Am I off by a decade? If so, let me know… Also below are a few images taken in what I think may have been the lair of the Ypsi Tooth.
