Dyna says she can't afford art, huh? I know that much of that response had a tone of sarcasm to it so I'm hoping she's being sarcastic there, as well. Can't afford art ........ kind of a blanket negative comment about art in general, I think. I get the impression she might think it's all overpriced and expensive -- I'm a starving artist and even *I* can afford art! You just gotta decide what you want to spend and head out to one of the many art festivals throughout our city this summer and find what you're looking for!
Seems like a good time to plug the Northside Arts Collective right here! NAC recently put on one heckuva a SPRING ART PARTY on June 7th at the North Mississippi Regional Park on 49th & Lyndale. We'd hoped for 500 people but well over 1,000 showed up from as far away as St Cloud, Eden Prairie, St. Paul, Maple Grove, Wayzata and Burnsville! We had over 50 visual artists mostly from North Mpls as well as a couple dozen musicians, jugglers, poets, storytellers and kids art activities. We even had a 100 foot Chinese dragon under which you could see the tiny legs of 50 gleeful children! It was spectacular -- the most exciting event I've ever been a part of and I'm proud to say I played a key role along with a handful of other volunteers. We got support from the Mpls Park Board and number of Northside businesses including daily PR from KBEM Radio -- yes, a radio station in North Mpls! -- but we raised all the money ourselves. While it was a huge effort this time, we've laid the groundwork now and with the 70 people who signed up that day to help, next year is going to be astounding! Maybe even astonishing! NAC is artists and art lovers from North Mpls whose aim is to unite, enrich and advance our community through the arts. We're in the process of polling now, but we've found more than 100 artists living and/or working in our part of town. Founded by George and Bev Roberts of Homewood Studios, one of our goals is to design and promote community arts events which enliven the sense of community and raise the level of awareness about the arts. Beyond the arts, we've got all kinds of great shops for groceries, coffee, food, hardware and everything! I think all neighborhoods have great little shops to offer -- some even unique enough to cross town for :-) So if you like what you've got, by all means, stick to it! Connie Beckers THE GODDESS OF GLASS www.goddessofglass.com <http://www.goddessofglass.com> "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." ~John Lennon > And none of them have natural food co-ops in their communities now, > do they? So if one were to locate on West > Broadway somewhere, then in retailer language, that's what's known as a > "destination" for drawing folks into your community. Because do you > know > what those folks are doing now? They're traveling through the > Northside to > I-94 without stopping and then heading down to the Wedge. Mark, we have plenty of empty storefronts on West Broadway and your yuppie co-op is welcome to them. Just don't expect any city subsidy and don't expect the city to keep CUB and other competitors out for your yuppie co-op's benefit. > And these are the kinds of folks I'd think the Northside > would like to have more of. After all, one of them is a med student at > the U > who is about to start her rotations and the other is going for his PhD > in > history. We also have plenty of empty houses here and your friends are welcome to them. I don't expect they'll last long though. > "[Walker] claimed that the vitality of established smaller scale > businesses was > bruised when Target established the Broadway store - now the shopping > facility is closing, she added, 'the area is even worse off than before > their arrival.'" I'm old enough to remember what wasn't on the Target site before Target. The largest building was Northside Mercury, which had already rebuilt after the fire and moved back into their old building across Broadway, so that building was already empty. The Post Office was already moving out and consolidating with the Camden station at the current Lowry Avenue location. The only other business I remember on the Target site was a tiny resturant and barber shop. The resturant could never compete with Bernie's across the street and was empty by then, and I suspect the barbershop was too. So Target caused little or no displacement of small businesses when they came in. > I ask for some good things that might draw people to the Northside and > this > is the best you can come up with? A grocery store that's not open yet > and an > Asian takeout place in the middle of an urban strip mall? I realize that's not up to your sophisticated tastes, but hey, we're just dumb Northsiders. > Geez, Dyna! What about Lucille's Kitchen, Been there, and it's not on Broadway. > Caf� Tatta Buna, How much is coffee gonna cost me? > Tooties on Lowry, No complaints. > Theo Wirth Park, Know it well. > Homewood Studios on Plymouth Ave, Sorry, I can't afford art and us hick Northsiders wouldn't appreciate it anyway. > the new Houston's > Neighborhood Market on West Broadway, just past Penn Ave? Haven't shopped there since it was Red Owl's competitor to CUB. At present it's morphed into a convience store, I'll withhold judgement on what Houston will do with it until they're done. > What other good places are there to talk about on the Northside? > Anyone? Sorry, we're just a bunch of dumb hicks who wouldn't know culture if it ran over us. Don't get us started on the Camden Aurocamp, Soo Line, Webber Baths, Bassett's Creek, etc.. or we'll talk your ear off though. > Yeah, this is the kind of mindset that's really going to help West > Broadway > and the Northside realize it's potential. Mark, thanks for giving me credit for singlehandedly destroying the Northside by not dumping a couple hundred thousand into an old house only to have it torched by the gangbangers. Never mind the destruction I'm causing by not paying inflated ghetto prices at the local convience stores/fences. > Sunsets restaurant on pedestrian-friendly new Lake > Street in Wayzata along Lake Minnetonka. Even some of suburbs now are > embracing the concept that people LIKE the idea of being able to > actually > walk someplace to eat or shop. The streets have one (that's right, > one!) > lane in each direction and traffic flowed smoothly even though the > area was > bustling with activity from the various shops, restaurants and folks > visiting the lake. Due to being a Northsider I have no experience with Sunsets or the local boutiques. However, I have had the adventure of trying to haul the mail out of this cute little bit of "new urbanism" by the lake. We have enough trouble making the turn off that narrow Lake Street to get to the Wayzata Post Office even with our smaller trucks. Then we try to back up to the loading dock at the Post Office while the locals try to drive expensive luxury cars and SUVs into the back of our truck. Attempting to save these wealthy idiots from themselves, we honk the horn while backing and often have to get out and remind said wealthy idiots that we need to back up where they're in the way and thing would go much quicker if they got out of the way and let us get our job done. About this time the twit that owns the recording studio across the street comes out and complains about all the horns honking, Give me a proper big box loading dock any day! > If Wazayta can pull this off with their Lake Street, why can't > Minneapolis > get by with two lanes on ours? Go STRIDE! Because Wayzate has a parallel 6 lane freeway a few blocks away and Lake Street doesn't- unless you want to revive the 29th Street Crosstown? Another uncultured dummy from the Northside, Hawthorne to be exact... Dyna Sluyter TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
