BY DAVE TILSEN We are electing School Board members this November: two citywide candidates and three in districts—two of these districts are Southsiders. Incumbents Nelsen Inz and Said Ali from the two Southside districts are currently unopposed DFL- and union-endorsed and seemed positioned to cruise to reelection. Opponents will likely…
BY ASHLEY THE GREY As a former attorney, I have walked in powerful shoes. Gained respect by the mere title “Attorney at Law.” People wanted to know me. I was asked to sit on boards for nonprofits and odd museums. I had been taught that being a lawyer was the…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN “I’m having an affair with a married man,” my friend Allie, who is a pillar of respectability, told me. “What???” I said. Of course I had to act surprised, but anybody who ever saw her and her husband together would NOT be surprised. Could they ever laugh…
BY ED FELIEN Snelling Yards is a vehicle storage lot for the city at 3601 E. 44th St. between Snelling Avenue and the railroad tracks. In the 1930s the city had storage facilities in every ward especially for snowplowing equipment that would be watched carefully by the two aldermen from…
Memorial Day on Lake and Chicago. Robert’s Shoe Store building up in flames. The original home of In The Heart of the Beast.
BY LARA NORKUS-CRAMPTON Look around and it is not hard to see that Minneapolis is being transformed—corridor by corridor, neighborhood by neighborhood. This is a stated goal of the 2040 Comprehensive Plan. We are told that the special permits and upzonings to allow many of these oversized developments are necessary…
BY JOHN KARRIGAN After odd April weather for last month, we are having odd May weather for the end of May with all kinds of record-setting very hot days and odd rains. Song birds and other small birds still seem quite rare in the park, but they are doing well…
BY ED FELIEN A report from the Hiawatha Golf Course Property Master Plan Citizen’s Advisory Committee (CAC) meeting at Park Board Headquarters A friend who was there told me: “I think it was an excellent meeting. Did you notice that most of the CAC questions came from women? These are…
BY DAVE TILSEN We pulled in fast on the hard packed driveway, stopped in a cloud of dirt and took in the scene. My eyes strained, trying to remember as many details as I could. The small one-story stucco home had trampled gardens around it, three large helicopters surrounding it,…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE The month of May was not very merry but there was a lot of radical stuff. On May 2 through 4, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief came through town on its disaster relief training tour. The Northland Health Collective helped pre-arrange the venues for the workshops. There…
BY DAVE TILSEN The Eagles beat the Vikings, so I hated the game. Didn’t even put up all my banners, hardly had a party. It was more like a morgue at my place than a party, but that’s just me. Perhaps you did let your Eagles fly, you ate your…
BY TONY BOUZA Every century has its memorable years—think your birthday. The ’20s had 1927 (Lindbergh), 1928 (Mickey Mouse and Oscar), 1929 (Crash). And then there was 1968 (Nixon, Humphrey, Chicago) Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Kent State. The Kerner Commission. 1941 (War). 1945 (Peace). And the Columbia University…
We asked candidates for county commissioner in District 4: Would you answer the following question in 50 words or less? Your answer will be published in all three editions of Southside Pride in May. Understanding that transportation costs are a major burden for the poor; and, further, understanding that Hennepin…
BY ED FELIEN Virgil Welna died last month. He was 89. For 50 years I depended on him for advice. I walked into Welna Hardware with a problem, and he knew that problem, and he had a solution for it. It wasn’t just the wise expertise, though. When he saw…
BY JOHN CHARLES WILSON Few Minnesotans know who Mark McLaughlin or Herman Liebelt were. For the safety of our transit operators, this is a crying shame. You see, on Black Friday 1998, in the mid-afternoon, Mr. McLaughlin was peacefully driving King County bus number 2106 with 34 passengers on board.…
