After a friend first told me about the Minneapolis Pedestrian Advisory Committee (PAC) a few years ago, it took another two or three gentle suggestions before I was willing to seriously consider applying. Despite being car-free by choice and a Minneapolitan for my entire adult life, I saw myself as neither a pedestrian nor someone […]
This week, signs are being installed along the Green Line corridor that are meant to encourage more walking to and from the light rail. Here’s how they got there. How the project came up My wife and I moved to St Paul in 2013, buying a condo on Grand Avenue close to Hamline. Despite living […]
Tank’s a fan of biking. He was a bike commuter (in addition to walking, running, and transit) starting in the 1940s, riding even when coworkers mocked him and family teased him. My earliest foggy memories are of being on the back of my mother’s bike while she cycled to meet up with him as he […]
I took my mother to the Oak Grill in January. We needed to see the place one last time. Share one last popover. And a manhattan. I’m embarrassed to say I’d never been. So for me eating at the Oak Grill was a new experience in downtown Minneapolis. Looking around the dining room that day […]
My phone dinged insistently. It was the Target CVS pharmacy, texting me yet again to come pick up my prescription. I had been avoiding this trip all week because it required going to the big box store capital of Northeast Minneapolis, the Quarry. Rather than face the prospect of traversing the enormous parking lot by […]
This coming Saturday, February 4th is the Saint Paul Winter Carnival’s Torchlight parade. If you have never been, I highly encourage you to go. I brought my friend, Mary, for the first time last year and this was her review: “This is the strangest parade I have ever been to, but it is the best […]
Snow emergencies are a big deal here in Minneapolis. You hear about it on the TV news. There’s an app–tens of thousands of people have installed it on both iPhone and Android (“avoid the cost and hassle of a ticket and tow…”). People are very interested in not having their cars towed, so people become very interested in […]
Like many parts of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the Midway in Saint Paul is a slightly strange hybrid between urban and suburban built forms. Houses and apartments on narrow lots and streetcar-era retail buildings with zero setbacks coexist (oftentimes uneasily) with suburban-style big-box stores that have giant parking lots. The Green Line provides frequent transit service to places that have […]
Perhaps you have seen people wandering around with their face in a phone, more than usual? Perhaps you have heard them exclaim that they have found a “Pokestop!” or a “wild Charmander?” Perhaps you have even heard of the new craze, which is a mobile game called Pokemon GO. In it, mobile phone users become […]
One of the most paradoxical aspects of the downtown Rochester ecosystem, is the relationship between Destination Medical Center (DMC) and Mayo Clinic. It is quite the dichotomy. On the one hand, Mayo Clinic is DMC. They were the ones responsible for its inception; the ones who felt compelled to act and create DMC. The ones who ultimately […]