Another day, another thought on Nicollet Ave S, I’m open to suggestions on what topics to cover, I have a dozen but I also like crowd sourced thoughts. To be honest, writing and photographing Nicollet Ave could be a forever project for me. It has been at least a self project for a while as if I was forced into picking a favorite street, Nicollet would be it. But what makes a favorite street anyways? Can anyone guess what year they began calling Nicollet Ave Eat Street? With that how many blocks does eat street cover?
For memory thoughts, did anyone try Cajun Boiling on Franklin and Nicollet on their opening day (11-28-2017)? I did not. I thought about it but my partner being a chef is not big on opening days. What have you seen on that corner? More so, over CVS (where I’ve worked), Starbucks or Jimmy Johns or Super America.
I have some memories of Acadia, some of The Nicollet, but fondly I was a fan of Reverie. Reverie brought my love of shows, even if the lighting with that picture window was hard to photograph into my neighborhood. It brought an all ages venue which is really hard to come by these days. What did you like in the spot that Cajun Boiling is at? What do you remember seeing there? What makes that corner significant to you? Or is this a corner of the city that you wish not to involve in because knowing now Franklin and Nicollet is the 3rd most dangerous intersection for pedestrians?
I remember Acadia as leading opposition to Lydia House, a supportive housing project a couple blocks away. That was a very, very long time ago. Reverie was the one place there I really loved, though, a favorite happy hour/dinner spot.
I wonder how things will change when Nicollet is reopened at Lake.
While closing it was a stupid thing to do, it’s allowed the Eat Street portion of Nicollet to become the great place it is. I hope it’ll remain great after the obstruction is removed.
I think the increased traffic will make Nicollet not nearly as inviting as it’s become.
I’m somewhat concerned about it too. As a much younger person who grew up in the Twin Cities and used to drive a lot more than I do now, I used to be irritated with the “delay” in going “around” kmart. Later, as a more-aware urbanist I continued for some time to think the closure was a bad idea, on the often-true premise that traffic is good for business.
More recently, a couple years after returning to Minneapolis, I’ve come to question the conventional wisdom of carheads and urban planners alike with respect to this street. Nicollet is doing pretty well, and with little traffic other than the vehicles actually bringing diners to restaurants, it’s a reasonably pleasant place to walk. It certainly will not be so once it’s reopened to commuters, unless a LOT of traffic calming is done. At a minimum, there will need to be stoplights at every corner, and HAWK signals mid-block, and the Blaisdell/1st couplet retained and hopefully still carrying most of the traffic. More ideally, a reopened Nicollet would be converted to a low-speed woonerf in order to deter through traffic.
I fear it’s a foregone conclusion that the street will be reopened. Time to start agitating NOW to keep Nicollet operating at a human scale, which will require it to be physically transformed. If it reopens as-is, it will be a disaster.
Anyone else seen the Judgmental Map of Minneapolis? “That kmart” has always been my favorite part of it.
http://judgmentalmaps.com/post/48615076593/minneapolis
Nicollet was far more functional as a major through street, lined with small businesses throughout its length. It became that ridiculous nickname of Eat Street in the late 1980s or early 1990s.