Our neighborhood has a lot of great people putting together really great events for us to kick back, relax, and just enjoy. Check out the awesome happenings this weekend in our hood.SaturdayMinneapolis Parks knows how to throw a good kid party. This one shouldn’t be any different. Meet Peter Rabbit, hunt for eggs, visit a petting zoo – all at the Minne-Hop-Hop Family Egg Hunt at Minnehaha Falls Park.Also for kids, Boneshaker Books has its weekly Saturday storytime. Sometimes crafts and songs are thrown in for good measure.Work on your bike at Spokes during its open bike shop session. Continue Reading
Quick, what do Forage Modern Workshop, Parka, and Blue Door Longfellow have in common? Mike Smith and James Brown. They’re the owners of local design-build company Brownsmith Restoration. Mike and James own Forage Modern Workshop, designed Parka and Blue Door Longfellow; and lease building space to those two restaurants. With Mike and James, one project leads to another bigger project. Continue Reading
You probably have some ideas about where your home is losing energy. We did too, but we wanted to make sure we knew the full story. We saw that Xcel Energy was offering subsidized home energy audits, and we signed up.
So much happens in our neighborhood there’s no way we can fit it all in one post. Check out our complete calendar to find out about everything that’s going down.SaturdayDuluth author Chris Monroe reads her latest children’s book, Cookie the Walker, at Boneshaker Books.Bring your bike down to Spokes to get tuned up for spring riding. Tools and a bike stand are free to use, plus mechanics are around to lend a hand.Minnehaha Free Space is holding free playshops for kids age 5-14. Today’s theme is creative construction and accessible play.Three bands perform blues and folk music at the Riverview Cafe.SundayIt’s an album release party at Hymie’s for Dan Newton, aka Daddy Squeeze. He “pumps and sings his way through a series of originals and standards that ramble from rags to blues to hokey jug tunes,” says Hymie’s.The Zacc Harris Trio takes over the Riverview Wine Bar for a night of jazz and wine.Coming Up This Week – HighlightsIf you’re thinking of applying to the Urban Scholars program, be sure to get it in by Monday.The Seward Montessori plant sale has been extended one more week. Continue Reading
With the weather changing from cold to warm-ish and back to cold again, potholes are starting to appear. Driving around, we’ve seen some seemingly big enough to eat small cars.
This weekend’s events calendar was packed, and we couldn’t fit it all here. Check out our complete calendar for more events and listings.SaturdayIf you’re looking for a last minute date idea, you have to check out Peter Ostroushko at the Riverview Cafe. If we listed all of the people he’s played with we’d be here all day. Just know – amazing violinist and mandolinist who plays in the classical and country world. $15 for tickets.It’s supposed to snow, but that doesn’t mean that spring isn’t coming. Continue Reading
We hate to spring it on you like this, but if you didn’t know, Minnehaha Avenue between 46th Street S. and Lake Street is slated for reconstruction beginning in 2014.One of the bigger decisions that needs to be made is determining the type of bike facility to install – bike lanes or a cycle track. Since the number of bicyclists is growing in our neighborhood and the city has set a goal of becoming a more bike-friendly city, we wanted to see if there were data available about what type of path bicyclists preferred and if one facility was safer than another.Currently there are two options for Minnehaha Ave – a bike lane in traffic, or an offset cycle track. Minneapolis has one cycle track already at 1st Ave N (downtown).We were in luck. In a recent bicycle count done by the city, volunteers also recorded where cyclists rode – whether it was on a sidewalk or path, or on the street.The findings are interesting. When a separate path is available (a sidewalk or bike path), 90% of bicyclists will use the path instead of riding on the street. Continue Reading
Plans for a grocery store on the 3800 block of East Lake Street are moving along, according to grocer Joel Ahlstrom and architect Mike Mularoni. The two presented to a packed house at the Longfellow Community Council office on Monday night during the meeting of the Neighborhood Development Committee.One last hurdle for the project is financing. The project total is $4.5 million, and the majority of funding is through bank loans, which are expected to close in mid-April. The project has a remaining $180,000 gap that they hope to fill through community loans. Once the project funding is secure, renovations and demolition will begin. Continue Reading
A Close View of LongfellowThe city recently released the results of a resident satisfaction survey done in 2012. While the number of residents surveyed was small, only a bit over 1,000, it does show that residents in the Longfellow Community are generally satisfied with city services compared to the rest of the city.According to the survey, more than 90% of Longfellow respondents were happy with the neighborhood as a place to live, believe that people in the neighborhood look out for one another, and are happy with the garbage and recycling programs as well as snow removal.Receiving less glowing feedback was the assistance received from the city during foreclosure, the level of value they believed they received from the city, and public education.The one area where we were less satisfied with the city services than the rest of the city? Traffic signals, signage, and pavement markings for pedestrians, bicycles, and vehicles. Perhaps what could be attributed to this is that up until recently, Hiawatha Avenue had issues with slow traffic signals. Additionally, two intersections in our community were noted as having some of the highest number of bicycle-car crashes in the city.Also of note, nearly half of Longfellownians surveyed believe that K-12 education has improved, but when asked, only 68% say they are satisfied with public education.Looking at the Broader PictureWhile responses from the Longfellow Community were fairly positive, some Minneapolis residents weren’t as happy with the city. Continue Reading
Kristy Allen and Erin Rupp, the two women behind Beez Kneez are on a mission to bring bees and bee education to Minneapolis in a big way, and their headquarters – the Honey House – will be right in Longfellow.The Honey House: Bee-coming a CommunityThe Honey House will serve a few purposes, it will be a place for the beekeeping community to share information, a place for members of the community to learn more about bees, and it will be a space for local beekeepers to extract honey.In the first year, the primary goal of the Honey House will be to provide local beekeepers the equipment to extract honey, and it wouldn’t be done by hand – it would be done by bike. Allen and Rupp developed what they believe is the first bicycle-powered extractor.The extractor itself works like a salad spinner. To extract honey, you first remove the wax capping that bees put on the top of the comb to preserve the honey. Then you place the frames that hold the honey and honey comb into the extractor and start spinning it, in this case by pedal power. The honey gets pulled out of the comb through centrifugal force.“It goes really fast,” said Allen. Continue Reading
