The Door to Ypsilanti's Past is Small and White

Just as the Smithsonian Museum is "the nation's attic," the Ypsilanti City Archives are "the city's basement." In contrast to the ornate splendor of the Museum building, the entrance to the Archives in the Museum basement is a modest lean-to on the Museum's north side. The door is so unassuming that I missed it entirely when I first arrived at the Museum as a new archives volunteer. The sidewalk curving around the Museum's facade leading to the Archives' door is curvy, like the Huron River behind the Museum. If a canoeist there put his boat in the river, the sinuous narrow waterway would soon open up into the comparative vastness of Ford Lake. The little curvy walkway also leads the explorer to a world astonishing--rich and wide and deep: the diaries, photographs, personal letters, location files, tax rolls, crime histories, obituaries, and artifacts comprising a city's collective memory.