The Minnesota Department of Transportation is planning the first major reconstruction since I-94 opened. This got us thinking about what Union Park was like before the highway was built.
A Slow Roll bike tour of North Minneapolis reveals the assets of this historic neighborhood — as well as its historic lack of access to the Mississippi River.
On a recent Saturday afternoon the Rotary Club of North Minneapolis’s sea of green wheeled through on the Northside Ramble, a history, art, and libation tour by bike.
The history of a neighborhood can be gleaned by walking; its culture is often discernible through a leisurely tour of its Little Free Libraries. So it is with the Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul.
Quarry Island lies in the middle of Gun Club Lake in Mendota Heights, just north of the 494 bridge and beneath the roar of MSP Airport runways.
Late last month, one of the most unique chapters in Minnesota’s transportation history was permanently enshrined in the public record through the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of the nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. The newly-listed steamboat Minnehaha is the lone survivor of the Twin City Line’s once-famous “streetcar boat” service. […]
An essay posted January 15, 2021 on streets.mn entitled “Preserve The Future, Not Just The Past” is a fairly typical critique of heritage preservation and the role of heritage preservation commissions (HPCs) in American cities. The article points to the frequently absurd minutia and short-sightedness of HPC meetings and staff reports, but does not fully […]
Because I have a lot of important things to fill my time, I recently tuned in to a meeting of the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission. There was just one item on the agenda: the proposed demolition of a low-slung downtown office building at 17 N Washington Avenue, which would then be replaced by a 27 […]
very day at The Overhead Wire we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the D.C. region. […]
Much as Golden Valley is the closest suburb to downtown Minneapolis, West Saint Paul is the closest suburb to downtown Saint Paul. Unlike Golden Valley, West Saint Paul has fairly good transit, especially on Robert St. No streetcars ran in West Saint Paul, though three streetcar lines ran from downtown Saint Paul to the city […]