The EcoVillage Snowman

Post and photo by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

While the connection might seem tenuous at first, this picture of a snowman in the Hawthorne EcoVillage was the most inspiring sign of neighborhood progress I've seen in quite some time.  Telling the whole story from start to finish would take far too long.  For the sake of people new to NoMi, here's a 3-sentence history lesson:

The EcoVillage area, with 31st Ave N and 6th St N at its center, was once among the most crime-ridden parts of the entire city.  Only a few years ago one resident said, "It wasn't a matter of if we were going to get shot, it was only when."  Now the development area is thriving.

So I was driving through an intersection that was once an epicenter of violent crime.  The formerly vacant house that was on the corner was frequently broken open, used for all sorts of unsavory activities, and eventually driven quite literally into the ground.  After its demolition, PPL built a home that is certified by Minnesota Green Communities and a whole host of other environmental and health organizations.  And the home was built by Mitchell Construction, a locally- and minority-owned business.

But I knew all of this already, so why did the EcoVillage snowman represent such progress?

I Hereby Declare Boom Island Brewing to be NoMi's Best Beer

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman, video by Hillside Chronicle.

Over on Get to NoMi, we've been promoting local businesses, including the startup Boom Island Brewing.  We've all been promoting the place, but I'm not sure if anyone has actually tried their beer.  So I took it upon myself to do just that.  Such is the sacrifice that I am willing to undertake on behalf of my community.

And make no mistake, this was indeed a sacrifice.  Their beer locator shows that the closest place to buy their beer is in St. Louis Park.  I cannot stand driving to, through or even thinking about St. Louis Park.  Their on-again, off-again freeway exits drive me crazy.  It's like they were built by a civil engineer with commitment issues after an especially traumatic breakup.  Or maybe an overly sarcastic city planner said, "I like St. Paul's practice freeway on 35E, but do you know what would make it even better?  Strip malls."  And then the city council passed the design plan before anyone realized that was a sadistic joke.

Just about the only good thing I can say about the highway and street layout of St. Louis Park is that it finally answers the question, "What if David Bowie's Goblin King from the movie Labyrinth got a master's degree in urban planning?"

"Damn it, Carl!  The GPS says there's a T.G.I. Friday's right around the corner."

So I braved the freeway ramp mazes, found the Four Firkins beer store, and made my way back to NoMi with my newest acquisition.  And that beer tastes...

Historypin and a Get to NoMi Challenge

Post and photos below by the Hawthorne Hawkman, photos above from the Get to NoMi Facebook page.

In the summer of last year, I found a nifty new smartphone app called Historypin.  I tried it out on West Broadway and Friedman's, with varying degrees of success.  In essence, here's how the application works:  You take an old photograph, like the one shown above, and upload it onto the Historypin website.  Once uploaded, the photograph can be positioned using Google Street View, like so:

Step 1: find the house on Street View.

Then line up the old photograph; it can be adjusted to be translucent or opaque.

Now the picture is lined up directly over the current map.  We're good to go.

And now anyone who downloads the historypin app onto their phone can go to 2806 James and see the exact same thing, in the palm of their hands.

I have wanted to gather a large number of old pictures to do a historypin walking tour of part of NoMi.  But many older pictures are copyrighted or otherwise can't be used without permission or paying fees.  I've asked around about funding opportunities, but I'd rather get this done myself sooner rather than get funding later.  So when I saw this picture on the Get to NoMi page, I had an idea.  I'm asking neighbors on the page to send me old photographs.  I will pin the first twenty I receive on the application, and we can do a small tour from that initial collection.

Here are the rules for the NoMi Historypin Challenge...

Stenglein on Lowry Bridge: "Beautiful doesn't even BEGIN to describe it!"

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

On Wednesday the final piece of the Lowry Bridge arch was put into place.  This is going to be a world-class bridge that will bring north and northeast Minneapolis back together.  The aesthetics are already amazing, but we found out it's just getting better.  The bridge will have LED lighting similar to the 35W bridge, the bike lanes are done right, and the county is building storage tanks that will hold hundreds of gallons of rainwater before the runoff gets to the Mississippi.  Hennepin County really hit it out of the park here, and this bridge will help transform and revitalize our communities by leaps and bounds.

A side note on blogging and social media here:  the implosion of the Lowry Bridge was the first video I uploaded onto Youtube.  In the spirit of trying new ways to connect people and events through social media and smartphone technology, I streamed footage live from my phone on an application called Qik, and uploaded videos 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the event.  I'm still ironing out the wrinkles and looking for a way to stream live directly on Blogger, but live streaming is yet another way blogs and social media can get coverage of an event out faster and more nimbly than traditional sources.  (Although the Strib's video is quite cool if I do say so myself.)

The videos of the final piece being put into place are indicative of the building process as a whole.  The arch was completed so slowly as to be almost imperceptible.  I moved the camera from side to side a few times just to show anyone watching that the video had not paused in any way.  I am compelled to warn you, with some degree of irony, that you should not watch those clips while operating heavy machinery.  But once the arch was completed, one almost forgets how long it took to finish the job.

More photos after the jump...

Qik - Lowry Bridge arch completion 1 by Jeff Skrenes

Qik - Lowry Bridge arch completion 2 by Jeff Skrenes

Qik - Lowry Bridge arch completion 3 by Jeff Skrenes