May 21, 2016 Lowertown, Downtown 15 miles The grand and solemn Saint Paul Union Depot is a train station. Although this seems patently obvious, Union Depot in fact took a 43 year break – from 1971 until 2014 – as the train station for Saint Paul. Today, Saint Paul Union Depot is a transit hub, […]
Previously this series covered federal and private involvement in Minnesota’s highways from the pioneer days into the 1920s. Now it’s time to cover the involvement of the state. As early as 1890 there was state involvement in highways, with the state contributing funds towards the Old Cedar and Bloomington Ferry Bridges. A 1898 constitutional amendment allowed […]
The Minnesota State Capitol area is “terrible urbanism,” due to industrial expansion, racism, freeways, institutional biases and, of course, politics.
Some of Minnesota’s roads predate statehood. First in a series looking at how our state went from dirt trails to 10-lane interstates.
A January 18, 2018 walk down Nicollet Mall and what used to be Nicollet Avenue and the Gateway District. Music: freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Good_China/Masters_Remastered/From_the_New_World_Theme_from_Dvoraks_9th_Symphony Bill Lindeke’s piece about the Gateway District of Minneapolis the other day (and the Super Bowl infrastructure going up) inspired me to record my walk down Nicollet on this fine day.
I’m as obsessed with Minneapolis’ lost Gateway District as anyone who hasn’t written a book on the topic, so I read with some relish the peerless local historian Larry Millett’s recent Star Tribune opinion piece: Minneapolis’ notorious Gateway District was razed almost 60 years ago. It’s time to stop mourning its loss. I came away disappointed. […]
Look here, I’m a new photo-blogger here. Kendra is my name. I’m going to be doing a photographic series on Nicollet Avenue S. involving history and memories, for the remaining days of November and December. If you live anywhere between Whittier, Loring Park and Stevens Square you’ve probably seen me walking with coffee and my […]
Going through some files recently, I came across a City of Minneapolis cordon count from 1948 and 1949. It shows how many people entered and left downtown on a single day in May. I also have a metro-wide traffic study from 1949, which happens to be the year I was born. Among other things, it […]
An unsightly strip mall in the East Side’s Payne-Phalen neighborhood sits on the former site of a major job center, whose departure precipitated an economic downturn that has not yet ended. This location is poised to have major transit improvements and could be positioned to breath life into the neighborhood once again. Seeger Refrigeration The […]
Here’s a (crap image of a) map spotted at the recent Selby Avenue Jazz Fest, showing landmarks of the old Rondo Avenue neighborhood. I was told by the people staffing the tent here that this map and research were done with help from the Minnesota Historical Society, and that a copy of this map is available […]