Were it not for the Mississippi River and its St. Anthony Falls, there would be no downtown Minneapolis, and so my exploration of the neighborhood inevitably brought me to the riverside and its historic gateway, railroad, and mill areas. Although I saw a few structures dating to the 1870s, the area has been so extensively […]
A few months ago the American Planning Association dubbed the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis a Great Place in America. They cited a lot of the things I like about the neighborhood: parks, bike paths, grocery stores, light rail, community events, small businesses, and the people. There’s one way that planning limits the opportunities of low-income […]
One of the best ways for me to learn about different neighborhoods is to check them out through Google Maps. Their algorithm is complex enough that it shows map perimeters of Elliot Park and Downtown East, but not quite fast enough to include one for the new(er) East Town, but I digress. A few months ago, […]
Leaving everything from Washington Avenue to the Mississippi River for a fourth day, I planned a nice, systematic route to finish off the rest of what I hadn’t walked on days one and two. And then reality happened. As a result of construction, the block of Nicollet Mall between Washington Avenue and 3rd Street was closed even to […]
There’s nothing like a big snowfall to bring people together. What are the lasting lessons from these blasts of goodwill?
Part of Minneapolis’s Downtown West neighborhood could as aptly be grouped into the warehouse district. Day 2 contained that part as well as some more of the central downtown area and was divided into three segments, as shown on the route map below. (As on day 1, the blue tint indicates the full extent of the […]
The Downtown West neighborhood, indicated with blue shading in the route map below, is approximately to the west of Downtown East, though that direction is considered “north” so far as street nomenclature goes. Indeed, the directions north, south, east, and west are not particularly useful in central Minneapolis, where the streets are aligned more nearly to […]
Previously on this site there was a post on the phenomenon on schools relocating from urban neighborhoods to areas with more space on the fringes of town. Schools have their issues, like parking spaces in the case of high schools for students arriving by car, and space for athletic fields, but the fundamental model of […]
The Mill City Farmers Market, Mill City Museum, and Mill Ruins Park were among the principal attractions for a second day in the Downtown East neighborhood, most of which I had walked on a previous visit. The map shows three loops in blue, each connected to the next by a purple segment, as well as two red spurs off of […]
Bank, bridge, book arts, bordello, and brewpub. Hotels and high-tech. Lofts and linseed oil. Mill ruins, museum, and medical clinics. Shelter, supportive housing, and sculptures. Theater and threshers. Downtown East has it all, from the 19th century to the 21st. And yes, one big indoor football stadium that has gotten a lot of attention surrounding […]