BY ELAINE KLAASSEN The day before Easter, 2021, I went to George Floyd Square to meet with Marquise Bowie, a member of Agape, and Marcia Sanoden, a “make-the-world-a-better-place” reader of Southside Pride, to talk about her offer to volunteer at Agape and what that might encompass. But we didn’t sit…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE When you live in south Minneapolis, your only knowledge (if any) of Highland Park in St. Paul may be Ford Parkway and its mostly upscale businesses. That’s because Ford Parkway is accessed via the bridge over the Mississippi River which is at East 46th Street on…
BY ED FELIEN When I was a small boy attending Mass at St. Helena’s Church, I remember a sermon by my favorite priest, Father Don Schnitzius. The way Father Don told the story of The Ten Talents was slightly different from Matthew, Chapter 25, but the message was essentially the…
BY ED FELIEN On Sunday, June 27, Andrea Jenkins, the Black trans Minneapolis City Council Member, had her car surrounded by about a dozen protesters as she was trying to leave a Pride event in Loring Park. The ward she represents includes three of the four corners of George Floyd…
BY STEPHANIE FOX Minneapolis YWCA The YWCA has three Minneapolis locations, Downtown, Midtown and Uptown, and all were busy with activities and events. Then came the pandemic and things changed. During the governor’s shutdown the only thing open was child care. While the mandate eliminated most sports, activities that could…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE There has not been as much change in the past year on 66th Street as we have experienced in South Minneapolis. One or two small businesses have moved to new locations here. A few have closed; it’s not clear if it was the pandemic or just…
BY ED FELIEN On Thursday, June 24, Southside Pride wrote to Andrea Jenkins and Julie Stroeve, the two known candidates for City Council in Ward 8. We asked each candidate to please answer the following questions and send their responses by noon Monday, June 28. Only Julie Stroeve answered the…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Cedar Avenue, in the high 30s and low 40s of cross streets, is sort of my backyard, my stomping ground. So I was caught off-guard by the multi-story apartment building with a Lunds & Byerlys grocery store as its anchor tenant popping up seemingly overnight sometime…
BY TONY BOUZA Policing in America, today, is about where medical science was in the 19th century—desperate for reform but staggering blindly under the problems. Hacksaws, in the Civil War, got plenty of mileage. Wounds got fingered and microbes ignored. Progress came and discoveries flowed with surprising ease, right? Actually,…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Where I get information about restaurants In case you wonder where I get information about restaurants, either to pass on news of the restaurant world here or to decide what to review next, I mostly get it from the same place I get a lot of…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN Former Minneapolis Chief of Police Tony Bouza at 92 has written “Confessions of a Police Misfit,” a short autobiography that covers a long life filled with remarkable experiences and observations. Along the way, he has much to say about history, current affairs, his peers, anyone else on…
BY ED FELIEN Late Sunday night, June 13, Nicholas Kraus drove his Jeep Cherokee through the barricades at Lake and Girard and killed Deona Marie Knajdek. Barricades had been set up to protest the killing of Winston Boogie Smith by U.S. Marshals on June 3 at the Girard Avenue parking…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Right now, Seward neighborhood and Franklin Avenue from Cedar eastward to the bridge is percolating politically. There’s a city council race coming up in Ward 2 that will be very interesting. With the expected DFL outcome behind us of “no endorsement,” this race solidifies to one…
BY ED FELIEN The people who have held George Floyd Square for more than a year issued the following list of 24 demands on August 7, 2020, that they believed must be met before traffic at 38th and Chicago could return to normal: 1. Recall Mike Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney.…
BY DAVE TILSEN When Devin Hogan agreed to be Minneapolis DFL chair, he certainly didn’t expect the challenges ahead of him. The pandemic and the police killings caused him to stretch and learn and work very hard. Unlike many of our city officials, Devin rose to the task and is…
