BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE This year Franklin Avenue’s Open Streets celebration will be on Sunday, Aug. 27, at the usual times: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The boundaries of the Franklin Avenue festival are Portland Avenue in the west and 32nd Avenue in the east (four blocks longer than last…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE The automobile, specifically the Ford automobile (and truck) for good or ill, built Highland Park. This fact was amply reflected in the Ford-only Car Show that was a feature of the recent 2017 Highland Fest. But, you know, they don’t make Fords in Highland Park any…
BY DEBORA KEEFER RAMAGE Just like last year, the Open Streets program is putting on eight events on eight separate Sundays through the summer. (Two events, Downtown and Lyndale, have occurred already.) The routes of a few of the events are different this year. Last year the event for East…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Southside Pride, well, OK, me, that is I, took advantage of the long Independence Day “weekend” (flexible day Monday, off Tuesday) to visit some alluring businesses that I had heard about lining the mixed residential and shopping hub corridor that is 66th Street, just over the…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Just like last year, the Open Streets program is putting on eight events on eight separate Sundays through the summer. (Two events, Downtown and Lyndale, have occurred already.) The routes of a few of the events are different this year. Last year the event for East…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Cedar Avenue from the West Bank to Lake Nokomis does not, at first glance, seem to be a cultural corridor. Its houses are modest, its restaurants and other businesses not trendy or pretentious. But nevertheless, it is home to a few unique art spaces and on…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE When Sean Doyle, general manager of Seward Co-op, gets me on the phone, he agrees with me that Seward Co-op is currently the biggest news item on Franklin Avenue. It all happened very quickly, with little warning, so the board and managers have understandably been busy,…
In May of 2000, the Nicollet Avenue Task Force published its official report, laying out its plans to guide the “Revitalization” of Nicollet Avenue, or “Minneapolis’ Main Street,” as the report referred to it in the subtitle. Looking back from our vantage point of 17 years later, it seems the…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Kirstin Wiegmann lights up when she talks about the cafe, bar and music venue Reverie that she and her partner, Jeff Therkelsen, co-own and run. And it’s good to love the work you do, to have a dream, to share a dream, and to make it…
