1522 Hillside Cleaned Out - "Forty-One People in Forty-One Minutes"

Post by the Hawthorne Hawkman, photo by Blong Yang.

On Saturday, dozens of people from across the Twin Cities--and possibly beyond--converged on 1522 Hillside to do a volunteer clean-up.  Growing up in a farming community, the trash-out of the house held similarities to good, old-fashioned barn raisings.  What would have been a job taking up at least a full day's work was instead completed in less than an hour.  "Forty-one people in forty-one minutes" was how Nicole Curtis described the task.  Most participants had expected to work for a few hours, and others arrived late under the assumption that there would be plenty to do all day long.  The final tally was eighty-nine people who came to help.

I got to see the interior of the house for the first time, and it's quite the labyrinth.  The old house lovers did get to "geek out" a bit as we meandered through..

Sale of 1522 Hillside a "No-Brainer," New Avenues for Rehab to Be Rolled Out

Post by the Hawthorne Hawkman, image is a screen shot of the 3/19/13 Community Development committee meeting.

Last week the sale of 1522 Hillside Avenue North cleared one of the final hurdles before Nicole Curtis can begin restoration of this historic property.  Council member Goodman called the sale a "no-brainer," and initiated a 20-minute discussion about how to preserve more houses and engage the private market in a better way.  The motion for 1522 carried unanimously, but the preceding discussion marked what could be a sea change in city disposition of boarded and vacant properties.

For those of you who want to watch, it's the first item on the agenda, and can be seen at the link above.  If you're more interested in celebrities than policy, Nicole Curtis speaks at the 25:00 mark.  The discussion leading up to that was ripe with all sorts of fascinating information, and began with...

The Big House on Hillside, Connected to THE Big House

Post and bottom photo by the Hawthorne Hawkman, top photo contributed.

The mansion at 1522 Hillside Avenue North has long been a gateway property with the potential to set the tone for the rest of one of the Northside's most picturesque blocks.  However, for the past several years, the house near the corner of Hillside and Irving Ave N has sat vacant.  1522 was carved up, from an expansive single-family home into an eight-unit rental monstrosity.

The locals along Hillside will tell you that after it went vacant, the place became a flophouse for transvestite hookers.  There are two ways to confirm that tidbit of information.  One involves reenacting scenes from "The Crying Game" or "Funky Cold Medina," and the other is achieved by reading the police reports and finding a statistical over-representation of men being arrested there.  I'm guessing the good people of Hillside went with the latter route.

Eventually that was shut down, and the empty home has been slouching towards demolition ever since.  It went into tax forfeiture, was transferred to the city of Minneapolis, and had a date with a bulldozer.  While utilities were being disconnected, a new benefactor approached the city and asked to purchase the house.  That person is...