BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Rondo – reconnect or reparations, or both? St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood was the center of the Black community in the Minneapolis–St. Paul region for much of the 20th century. The intact Rondo neighborhood was economically active, social and self-supportive. The core of Rondo was demolished between…
BY STEPHANIE FOX The Minneapolis neighborhood celebration known as Open Streets will have its final festival for 2022 with Open Streets Minnehaha, in the Longfellow neighborhood on Oct. 1 from 11 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. The street will be closed to all motor vehicle traffic between East Lake Street and…
BY KAY SCHROVEN Commissioner of Public Safety Cedric Alexander is wasting no time getting out to meet the communities of Minneapolis. On Aug. 25 he was introduced to the Phelps community at Phelps Park by Andrea Jenkins, City Council president and Ward 8 council member. It was Alexander’s third week…
Bikester Chronicles There was a proposal before the Park Board to close Minneapolis parkways to vehicular traffic on certain days every month. The Board received so much negative feedback they canceled the proposal in August. BY JOHN DAHL On June 6, Southside Pride published an opinion of Patricia Kelly, Board…
BY ED FELIEN It’s time. “It’s time,” the people of the East Phillips neighborhood are saying. It’s time the city started taking itself seriously and started believing some of the things it’s been saying about the environment and equity. In 2019, Mayor Jacob Frey said, “Minneapolis is doing nation-leading work…
BY ELINA KOLSTAD The Minneapolis 2040 Plan was back in the headlines recently when a judge put the plan on hold in June, siding with groups who said the city should have performed an environmental review, and then again in July when the same judge allowed the city to continue…
BY SUE KOLSTAD This September the Vine Arts Center will be celebrating its reopening with a Member Show, dedication and thank you to our supporters. The Vine arts Center had been closed for a few months due to COVID when, on May 29, 2020, sparks from the burning Hexagon Bar…
BY LYDIA HOWELL It’s a strange time to be a progressive with a lifetime of doing anti-racism and police accountability activism and, now, seeing my city overwhelmed by crime. Conversations about Minneapolis ping-pong between right-wing screeds, “Minneapolis is a crime-ridden hellscape! Leave NOW!” to progressives asserting, “The real problem is…
BY DORIS OVERBY I read a sign recently that said: “You are our neighbors … no matter who you vote for, your skin color, where you are from, your faith or who you love. We will do all we can to be there for you.” The words reminded me of…
BY TONY BOUZA America has always spoken to me. Its powerful culture overwhelmed me on my arrival from Spain on Dec. 22, 1937, at nine and a half years old. I embraced the movies, songs, magazines, comic books, etc.—and unconsciously rejected everything I came from. And those voices? What follows…
BY CAM GORDON The role of public involvement has been questioned as the mayor and City Council move forward towards court agreements on racist policing practices. Last April 27, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) released a report that found probable cause that the city and its police department…
BY YOEL YOHANNES In the sweltering hours of a late summer’s evening, airplanes touch down in Havana’s José Martí International Airport and pull into gates, full of tourists and expatriates returning to see family. Past passport security and baggage claim, cigarette-smoking airport employees direct recent arrivals into the currency exchange…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Openings and closings A sad closing happened in late July but didn’t make it into the August Dish – Pie & Mighty on Chicago Avenue. We are so sorry to see them go. Another big favorite that closed recently, not so close to home, was Mort’s…
BY ED FELIEN The DFL won the DFL primary last Tuesday. DFL-endorsed candidates beat challengers up and down the ticket. At the top of the South Minneapolis ticket, Ilhan Omar beat Don Samuels for a seat in Congress by a little more than 2%, in spite of her support for…
BY ED FELIEN Ian Young, in a Star Tribune editorial published Aug. 5, said, “Those commissioners voting to advance the nine-hole master plan are the ones who have done their homework and understand the reality of the issue.” Really? Young says any proposal to save Hiawatha Golf Course would “not…
