The draft of Saint Paul’s comprehensive plan has been released. It is not as exciting as Minneapolis, or as ambitious as Red Wing’s. Deep within lies the above slide, noting ‘significant public views’. I had doubts so I went and looked myself. Cap Wigington’s iconic water tower is there, but to get an […]
Alleyways are streets unto themselves, with stories to tell about neighborhoods, landlords, homeowners and maintenance of these forgotten thoroughfares.
Writer’s note: On August 14, 2018, St Paul Ward 4 residents will have the opportunity to vote for a new City Council Member in a special election to replace Russ Stark as he accepts a new position within the city. As a Ward 4 resident, I wrote to the candidates to ask them specific questions […]
Gardens, artwork, and other points of interest gave me plenty to look at in the northern half of East Harriet, notwithstanding that I walked past far fewer residences than in the southern half. The two walks were of similar length (7.2 and 7.4 miles), but this second one circumnavigated a large area of cemetery and parkland. […]
Logic and nomenclature are uneasy bedfellows, but for the East Isles neighborhood they get along passably well. The neighborhood generally lies to the east of the Lake of the Isles, extending as far west as Hennepin Avenue. True, that doesn’t explain why the northern boundary is 22nd Street rather than Franklin Avenue. Nor, more consequentially, […]
June 5, 2016 Highland Park, Macalester-Groveland, Summit-University/Rondo, North End, Como 19 miles This ride featured significant stops in five neighborhoods. First, Highland Park where I spotted what strikes me as a house with a mullet because it’s all business in the front and a party in the back. Macalester-Groveland Grand Avenue plus the first Sunday […]
The East Harriet neighborhood is named for its position relative to Lake Harriet, and Lake Harriet is of course named for Harriet, but who is Harriet? I’m grateful to the Frontier Army Museum for making available the image of an oil painting, believed to be by John Wesley Jarvis circa 1815, from which I extracted this detail. Certainly […]
In February, the Minneapolis City Council voted to reject an appeal by the East Calhoun Community Organization (ECCO), allowing over 300 new homes to be built at the Sons of Norway site on Lake Street. The location is in the “Heart of Uptown”, one of the most transit-rich and walkable communities in Minnesota. There are […]
Minneapolis’s East Calhoun (ECCO) neighborhood is small enough to walk in a single outing, as shown in the map below. It spans the six-block distance from Lake Street to 36th Street and the 4–6 blocks from Hennepin Avenue to the lake. The red lines on the route map are spurs walked back and forth off of […]
What happens when “history” becomes a gatekeeping mechanism to dictate who lives where — especially when voiced by “white hobbyist historians”?