1920s-style New Year’s Eve gala to benefit Emergency Foodshelf Network

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With the current economy being described as the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, couldn’t we all use a little taste of the Roaring 20s? This New Year’s Eve, Three Sons Signature Cuisine hopes to party like it’s 1928, when it hosts a black-tie gala with a New Orleans-style jazz theme at the St. Anthony Main Event Centre, 219 SE Main St. (Three Sons owns and operates the event center.)
The theme for the evening is “Moonshine on the Mississippi,” a 1920s-style underground jazz club. Guests are encouraged to dress the part, but the black tie is required. Continue Reading

Vacation for humanity

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Call it a working vacation. For the third year in a row, Pastor Brett Miller of Southeast Christian Church, 960 15th Ave. SE, led 70 volunteers from his church and others to New Orleans, where they helped rebuild the city’s housing stock, still damaged from Hurricane Katrina. “I was surprised there was still that need,” said Miller. “Homeowners seem to be back, but a lot of rental properties aren’t back online. Continue Reading

Cedar-Riverside stakeholders commit action—and funding—to quell violence

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In the weeks since Augsburg student Ahmednur Ali was shot and killed just feet from Currie Park and the Brian Coyle Community Center, area residents, community organizations and institutions, and police have stepped up efforts on a number of fronts to improve public safety and community relations in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. The complicated issues being hashed out are of particular concern to the city’s Somali community, which has suffered three killings and even more shootings this year. Ali was the second young Somali man gunned down in the Cedar-Riverside area over the past six months. Ali was killed Sept. 22, after finishing up his first day at a work-study job at the Coyle Center. Continue Reading

VISUAL ARTS | Let us break art together

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A group of 13 artists has turned a former tobacco shop into a workshop for projects that resemble social experiments as much as they do art. The West Bank Shop — named for the sign above their rented space on Cedar Avenue — has embarked on a 50-day experiment through the end of November, when the former tobacco shop will take on new tenants and the group hopes to set up “shop” elsewhere on the West Bank and continue their work. That work is not the traditional studio/gallery experience, but a series of activities that engage strangers and passersby, turning the artist and audience into the tools, canvas, and medium of the work, which is more about meeting your neighbors than formal artistic practice. “We conceive our project as an engaged, fluid, critical and playful endeavor,” states the group in a release — a manifesto of sorts. “A project that is open and experimental, collaborative and process-based, conceptual, and social.”
Particular emphasis is placed on the social. Continue Reading

Superfund arsenic clean-up set for South Minneapolis

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency (not the MPCA, or Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, as was noted in our November print edition) has set a cleanup plan for the South Minneapolis Residential Soil Contamination Superfund site, which is contaminated with varying levels of arsenic from the former CMC Heartland company that produced and distributed pesticides and herbicides at the epicenter of the 1,480-acre area between 1938 and 1963. The pollution was discovered in 2004. By the end of this year, the EPA will have cleaned up almost 200 properties. In September 2007, the EPA designated the area a Superfund site, providing more resources to evaluate, select and perform long-term cleanup work. In October 2007, following that decision, the cleanup was expanded, adding 541 more properties. Continue Reading

Roller girls, attacking poets, and lots of art

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November in Seward means it’s art crawl time, and this year’s festival promises some new additions to the rich tapestry of neighborhood artists and venues, according to Seward resident and potter Erik Riese, who organized the festival for Seward Neighborhood Group (SNG).The ninth annual festival — which runs Friday, Nov. 7–Sunday, Nov. 9 — features more than 100 artists, writers, and performers in 30 locations across the neighborhood. In addition to open studios, where visitors can view and buy local artworks, a host of events take place Saturday and Sunday, starting with the Friday night precrawl. Riese said that 60–70 percent of the artists’ studios will be open that evening. Continue Reading

Grand Rounds ‘missing link’ route approved

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After a more than a year of plans, amended plans and often contentious debate with neighborhood residents, it appears a compromise has been reached on the route to fill in the “missing link” of the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway between St. Anthony Parkway in Northeast Minneapolis and East River Parkway in Southeast. On Sept. 3, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board commissioners unanimously approved the route, which will include parkways and open space. “Everyone came together and worked hard to recommend a route that reflects the vision and consensus of so many perspectives and needs,” said Park Board President Tom Nordyke in a press release. Continue Reading

Central Corridor takes huge step with FTA application

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After 19 months of preliminary engineering, the Metropolitan Council submitted its 4,000-page application on Sept. 5 for federal approval to enter into the final design phase of the Central Corridor Light-Rail Transit (LRT) line. The application includes information on project plans, technical drawings, ridership projections of 42,000 weekday riders by 2030, operating and maintenance costs, and the project’s $914.9 million budget. “We have had to overcome several major challenges to get this far, but I am very optimistic about the Central Corridor project,” said Met Council Chair Peter Bell. That budget came in just under the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) required cost-effectiveness index of $24.49, at $24.41, after increases in the costs of building materials and components forced modifications of the plan approved in February. Continue Reading

University Alliance expands home-ownership program

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The University District Partnership Alliance (UDPA) has expanded its home-ownership pilot project, originally open to those over 64 years of age, to residents of all ages within the two target areas: an eight-block section of Southeast Como and six blocks of Marcy-Holmes. The “demonstration project” aims to help people who may be planning to move from their homes, now or in the future, with the transition process, while keeping the home from being converted into rental property after it is sold. Residents who want to participate in the program would give the alliance an option to purchase their home and would receive relocation assistance and advice when ready to sell. UDPA sub-committee member Katie Fournier said that letters were to be sent in late September to all homeowners in the pilot areas. In October, UDPA will gauge interest by sending letters to everyone in the UDPA neighborhoods: Southeast Como, Marcy-Holmes, Prospect Park, University and Cedar-Riverside. Continue Reading