My search for the Ypsi Tooth leads me to an interesting Haab’s artifact

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.

teeth2

teeth

Haabs1

Haabs2

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8 Comments

  1. Eel
    Posted August 13, 2015 at 5:52 am | Permalink

    Ypsi had a fake teeth factory?

  2. Holly
    Posted August 13, 2015 at 9:38 am | Permalink

    God, I’d love to get my hands on those teeth. They’d be great in some art pieces.

  3. anonymous
    Posted August 13, 2015 at 10:18 am | Permalink

    What makes you think the teeth are fake. I think it’s more likely that they were pulling them out of people for resale.

  4. Eel
    Posted August 13, 2015 at 10:33 am | Permalink

    Now we know where Haab’s gets their steaks.

  5. historian
    Posted August 13, 2015 at 11:34 am | Permalink

    Otto Haab: “We love strangers. They’re delicious.”

  6. XXX
    Posted August 13, 2015 at 7:26 pm | Permalink

    Locally-make artisanal teeth are big in Brooklyn right now.

  7. Dave kabat
    Posted August 13, 2015 at 7:38 pm | Permalink

    Mark, 1979 is the year the matches were made..

  8. Posted August 13, 2015 at 7:41 pm | Permalink

    Damn, I’m smart. I said late ’70s and I was right. Thanks, Dave.

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