Found Magazine editor-publisher, author and filmmaker Davy Rothbart was living in Chicago five years ago when he got word from pal Dorothy Gotlib that a room was available in the historic 1873 John Adam Holz House she lived in near the Ann Arbor train station. "I called dibs," Rothbart cracks.
So Ann Arbor Community High School and University of Michigan graduate Rothbart moved back home. And the crumbling stone basement of the Italianate home proved to be the perfect headquarters for Found Magazine. One small offshoot of the basement — "the cave" — serves as a warehouse for all the Found finds that get mailed in from around the world.
"The dungeon" basement was a disaster when Rothbart moved in. "My friends and I spent a week cleaning it up. It was piled high with rubble, debris and broken glass," Rothbart says. "I love working here; it doesn't look like you're going to work at the office. And at night you can hear the walls crumbling."
When Rothbart takes Found Magazine on the road, his 2000 Dodge Ram van is his home. "It's not just for getting around in, it's for living in," he says of the customized van. (The back seat folds down into a bed where Rothbart spent 40 of 90 nights on his last tour.)
"Living in a van is strange" Rothbart observes. "The hardest part is learning to pee in a van. The best part is popping out of the van in the morning in some downtown brushing my teeth in my boxers while people walk past on their way to work."
You can view Found Magazine at foundmagazine.com.
