Historypin at FLOW

Post and bottom photo by the Hawthorne Hawkman, top photo from the Hennepin History Museum, used with permission.

Today at FLOW I will lead a historic walking tour at key nodes along West Broadway.  Although to be more accurate, this walking tour is meant more to showcase the Historypin website and smartphone application.  I consider it quite likely that others joining me for the event will know more than I do about connections to our community's past.  And that's quite the point of the exercise; my goal is to raise awareness about both the application and our history, so that our neighborhoods can strengthen those connections.

Between two and three today, I will be at the Broadway and North 2nd Street node.  From four o'clock to five, I will be at the Capri Theater, showing photos along that stretch.  And from five thirty until seven, I will be around Broadway and Emerson.  That node has the most photographs pinned, and should prove to be the most revealing segment.

Ironically, that same stretch shows the main flaw in the Historypin application:  what were once many separate addresses for individual storefronts have now been consolidated into one or two large commercial buildings that take up entire blocks.  Since the app "pins" photos using Google Street View, the pictures are attached to address numbers.  What should appear as a row of continuous buildings instead results in photographs being jumbled together onto one site.  I am working with the folks who created the app to fix this bug.

If people cannot be at the nodes during the scheduled times, I will mark the ground where you can stand and see a Historypin image on your smartphone or tablet.  Simply download the program and you're good to go.  I can also be reached on my cell phone, 952-210-1086, if readers wish to meet up in the middle of a tour.

"H" marks the spot

I hope to show off a great way to connect people to our history, and in turn I look forward to learning more about my own community.  Come and join the fun at FLOW!

Giving Away Hula Hoops at the Habitat Closing Ceremony

Post, photos, and video by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

First off, I have to admit a bit of irony here on NXNS.  I set out to blog about the North High Polars football games basically to tell a feel-good story about the youth in our community, and to give myself something to blog about on a regular basis that wasn't controversial.  I specifically said that I did NOT want to get steeped in school/education politics.  And yet, if I had not started down that road, then when the proposal to close North High came about, I certainly would have approached that issue with less vigor.

And now my last seven posts in a row have focused on North High in one way or another.  Their final football game is tonight, and I may or may not get to that depending on how an evening meeting goes.  I still have a write-up of Monday's community forum to finish as well.

So here's a break from the North High posts.  At the closing ceremony for Habitat week in the Hawthorne EcoVillage, I gave away ten hula hoops to kids in the neighborhood.  I'm looking for ways to make more hoops and get them donated to schools or parks in the area.  Thing is, the supplies, especially the tape, are not cheap.  And making them can be fairly labor-intensive.  If anyone has ideas or wants to help, please contact me.