A beautiful spring day welcomed me back to the Diamond Lake neighborhood. Having walked nearly everything east of Portland Avenue on my first three days, I was able to focus on the area to the west. This avenue makes a natural dividing line because the areas to the west were platted and developed separately from those to the […]
Via Scott Shaffer’s Twitter feed, here’s a wooden map for you. It’s a cutting board available for sale under the “Totally Bamboo” brand, that features the different neighborhoods of Minneapolis and Saint Paul Here’s the map, followed by some cutting remarks: OK, so… Minneapolis famously has way too many neighborhoods. Over 80, at last count, […]
Returning to the Diamond Lake neighborhood for a third day, I took a circuitous loop (shown in blue, with supplemental spurs shown in red) through the northeastern corner of the neighborhood. In addition to the neighborhood boundaries of 55th Street and Cedar Avenue, this area is shaped by two parks: Lake Nokomis Park on the northeast and Edward C. Solomon […]
Who can resist the warmth of lights on neighboring houses on a dark, freezing night? Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, embrace the glow!
April 16, 2016 Highland Park, Hamline-Midway, Como, North End 17 Miles April rides can look gloomy no matter the temperature, with few signs of spring, and sandy grit still on many roads. No matter, that first ride of the spring is always exciting. The first stop on the first ride of 2016 was 2122 Highland […]
Here are a pair of fascinating maps from journalistic gadfly, David Brauer, who has been working on a project that pairs urban neighborhoods with their closest demographic equivalents in the suburbs (or Greater Minnesota). Using five elements, “(kid %, whiteness, income, poverty, rental %” — Brauer does his best to match up like places, and […]
In the 1950s, houses took root where peonies had grown. In the 1960s, Highway 62 separated a couple blocks of Minneapolis from the rest. Other city territory was ceded to the airport. And in 2017, my six-mile walk through the southeastern portion of the Diamond Lake neighborhood wound its way through all of this. The […]
Oct 19, 2015 Union Park, Hamline-Midway 8.8 miles Even though it was nearing the end of the season for a blogging bike ride, Mother Nature was with me this glorious October day as the temperature peaked at 76 degrees. It had taken more than a year to get this interview arranged. By the time I […]
Now that the days are shorter and colder, summer’s blooms have given way to dried seed pods and stems. Gardeners across the state are making final preparations to rest their green thumbs this winter. So, this is a perfect time to post a love letter to all of the people who make walks so enjoyable […]
The Diamond Lake neighborhood is in Minneapolis’s southernmost tier, running generally from 55th Street East to 62nd Street East. The west-to-east extent of the neighborhood is even greater than the seven blocks it stretches from north to south. The western border is Interstate 35W and the eastern border is generally Cedar Avenue. That makes for […]