Downtown West Neighborhood News and Events

Skyscrapers

Photo by Julie Fields

The Downtown West neighborhood is the central business district of Minneapolis.

 

Venora HungVenora Hung is our neigh-borhood corres-pondent for Downtown  - and she wants to hear from you. Tell Venora about the garage sale, or the music festival -and  ask her how to register and get your profile on TC Daily Planet! Email Venora at venorahung [at] gmail [dot] com.

Venora Hung, a lawyer practicing in the Twin Cities,  volunteers on several boards and dabbles in cooking and writing. Most recently she started a company called Cupcake Goddess specializing in Asian inspired cupcakes. She also enjoys exploring the Twin Cities - particularly anything that has to do with healthy living, yoga and pilates.

As such, it is home to many Fortune 500 corporate headquarters, moderate and upscale retail shops, and luxury, boutique, family-friendly, and landmark office building conversion hotels.

Nicollet Mall—which is very active with restaurants and shopping—runs south from Washington Avenue. Hennepin Avenue, with its concentration of theaters and entertainment, runs south from the Mississippi River. (Description from livemsp.org)

For detailed demographic information, see the neighborhood profile from Minnesota Compass. 

 


MUSIC REVIEW | Madeleine Peyroux enchants The Dakota Jazz Club

By Betsy Gabler, TC Daily Planet

Photo courtesy Madeleine Peyroux

The singer/vocal enchantress Madeleine Peyroux performed at The Dakota in Minneapolis on Tuesday, April 2 and will do so again on Wednesday, April 3 with two shows each evening. If you can afford the time and the tickets ($50-$65), invest, invest, invest. What you'll come out with is a glimpse into song history, artistic tribute and interpretation that is stellar to the core. British singer/songwriter/actress Rebecca Pidgeon (with Tim Young) is the opener with a short song set including her Grammy nominated "Slingshot".

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MUSIC PREVIEW | Airick Woodhead of Doldrums gears up for the 7th Street Entry

By Lindsay LaBarre, TC Daily Planet

Photo credit Jeff Rutherford (May 2012)

On Wednesday, April 3, Doldrums wlll play at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis. I had the chance to catch up with Airick Woodhead, the man behind the Montreal-based solo project, via e-mail.
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MUSIC REVIEW | Local Natives bring impressive range and musicality to First Avenue

By Daniel Niepow, TC Daily Planet

Photos by Chad Rieder

By the time Local Natives took the stage at First Avenue on Saturday, March 23, a sold-out crowd had filled into nearly every inch of the main floor. In the balconies folks peered down from tables or pressed against railings to get a better view.

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MUSIC REVIEW | Lee Brice is all country at Mill City Nights

By Patrick Dunn, TC Daily Planet

Photos by Patrick Dunn

Country music fans packed Mill City Nights Thursday, March 21 to see rising star Lee Brice play a 90-minute set primarily consisting of songs from his current release "Hard 2 Love" and his first album Love Like Crazy. The 32-year-old singer/songwriter chose his path in music after a career ending football injury in college. He is becoming known for his very personal and relatable style of songwriting.

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VISUAL ARTS | Croatian-Minnesotan artist Vesna Kittelson pushes the boundaries of portraiture to promote intercultural understanding

By Graham Ojala-Barbour, TC Daily Planet

Above: LuLu I. Below: Border Crossing. Both images courtesy Vesna Kittelson.

Vesna Kittelson paints bright, bold, optimistic portraits that defy the traditional rules of portraiture, but despite the cheer in her paintings, she has insights into the dark side of human nature generally and the dark side of immigration in the United States more specifically. Her view of immigration is not only dark, though—it is also lively and cheerful, as one can see in her Young Americans series of paintings, which appropriately includes the confident faces of ethnicities from all over the world. Her work is on display at Form + Content gallery along with sculpture that, in contrast with the bright color of her images, expresses her vision of a chaotic world.

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