Ask and You Shall Receive - Photos of 2222 4th St N

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.  Warning:  I get a little worked up in this post, and (gasp!) resort to a few Bad Words.

In the last post about Judge Hallbrooks' ruling on this property, an anonymous commenter asked for photos to show whether this property was adequately rehabbed.  In my opinion, the answer is no it has not.  I also hope that its current condition will still eventually allow the structure to be demolished.  Based on what the city staff report said about the poor quality of the interior, and the photos below, I would hope that we have higher standards for what is acceptable housing stock in the city of Minneapolis.  The prospect of widespread condemned housing being brought back to use is far from appealing if they look like 2222 4th St N by the time the owner is done.

Let's take a look, first at the windows...

Khan's Property Lives to Blight Another Day

Post and photo by the Hawthorne Hawkman, photo originally appeared on a Johnny Northside blog post about phone books.

Mahmood Khan's property at 2222 4th St N has, for the time being, taken a step back from demolition.  John Hoff and I have covered the house's course quite extensively, from when Annshalike Hamilton was found murdered there, to its path towards possible demolition. (more links found here, here, here, and here)

The ruling that pulls 2222 4th back from the brink only gives it a temporary reprieve.  The document can be found here, and from a policy wonk standpoint, it is quite fascinating.  I'm reminded of a vignette in the book "The Year of Living Biblically." Two people are having a very polarizing argument, and go to their rabbi to help resolve their conflict.  After listening carefully to each side, the rabbi turns to the respective parties, saying, "You are right AND you are right."  Another friend witnessing the discussion said, "Wait a minute, they can't BOTH be right," to which the rabbi responds, "And you are also right."

The court ruling is like that, except each side tends to get at least a little bit wrong.  We'll start with Khan, who of course...

Snow Emergency Slip-Up

Jimmy Howard of the Red Wings makes an amazing save.

Red Wings leaving the ice. These two pictures were taken after 8 p.m. on 12/26/10.  That will be important later.

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman

Yes, yes, I'm tracking my NoMi purchases, but I also hail from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Like Minnesotans, us Yoopers take our hockey pretty seriously.  So when the Red Wings were in town last night for one of their two yearly visits to my current home state, I gave myself a Christmas present and went to the game.  And although Detroit was missing their leading scorer, they put on the kind of precision-passing clinic that they are famous for.  The game was so lopsided that the home crowd was booing their team halfway through the match.  It was a good night to be wearing a Red Wings jersey.

But enough basking in the glow of my hockey team, this post is about what happened with my car and a towing citation after I went home.  I checked the parking rules before I even left, planning on putting my vehicle on the correct side of the street for the final day of the snow emergency.

But when I woke up, I found...

The Urbanophile is the Blog that Keeps on Giving

Post by the Hawthorne Hawkman, photo and image from the Urbanophile blog.

Since deciding to look at ways to expand the scope of this blog, I was sent several links to various revitalization/redevelopment blogs from across the country.  The one that I'm most currently enamored with is called the Urbanophile.  It is (almost) everything I had hoped this blog would become, except, if you can imagine it, perhaps even too dry for my tastes.

The Urbanophile is a treasure trove of information from across the country, with over 600 posts since its 2006 inception and countless links to other blogs and redevelopment efforts from across the country.  There's so much valuable history here that it's hard to figure out how to take it all in - chronological order, by topic, or by geographic region.  The writing is balanced, thoughtful, and based on actual evidence.  I could spend days looking at the content it provides, and probably will.

Currently, what has captured my attention is...

Proposal for BJ's Site Get an Upgrade

Post by the Hawthorne Hawkman, photos by Pat Carney.
Editorial note:  This post is appearing on NXNS instead of Hawthorne Voices because there has not yet been time for the Hawthorne Neighborhood Council to review Land Ho's proposals or take an official position on them.  It's clearer, then, that any opinions expressed here are mine only, and not necessarily formal positions of HNC.

The developers for Land Ho, which is moving forward with a plan to acquire and develop the current site of BJ's, came before the Hawthorne business committee last week.  One of the first things I noted when they gave their proposal was that the name on the bottom of their design plans had changed from "North Loop Gateway" to the far more bland "W Broadway & Washington Mixed Use Development."  I consider this to be at least a small sign that they are paying more attention to our community.  Some of my neighbors had agreed with my expressed concern that naming the project after a neighborhood where the development wouldn't even take place was, at best, insensitive to the Hawthorne and Near North communities.

As it happens, the name won't be prominently displayed on the constructed building; it's just a tagline for the proposal as it moves forward.

The other area of concern that I had was in regards to how well the current proposal fits in with the West Broadway Alive Plan.  The initial site drawings for the development really did not take enough of that Plan  into account.  As Land Ho has gone to various community groups and committees at the city council, it appears that their plans have come more and more into conformity with West Broadway Alive.  Are they close enough for approval?  That remains to be seen, although I have to admit to being pretty impressed with what was presented to the HNC business committee.

Where things really get interesting is in a dispute between...

Changes Coming to NXNS

Post by the Hawthorne Hawkman

In one of my many discussions with friends where we solve the world's problems (or at least the neighborhood's) but then can't seem to remember all of our brilliant ideas the next day, one solution stuck with me. One neighbor was saying how he could find out where a lot of the cutting-edge revitalization was occurring in cities around the country by looking at (wait for it) those cities' blogs. We talked about how there really isn't a central location for people to come together and find out what's been working in other cities that we could try here - or what advantages Minneapolis has over other areas in terms of how we are moving forward.

This reminded me of another project done earlier this year by an organization called Policy Link, called "When Investors Buy Up the Neighborhood."  While that study had some useful information, it was rather top-heavy and aimed at institutions.  I want to get more granular and find out what residents and activists on the ground level are doing to change their neighborhoods and influence those institutions.  So over the weekend, I'll be looking at quite a few blogs from across the country, and tinkering with the layout of this site somewhat.  The plan is to have a "NoMi blog roll" and some kind of "Revitalizer blog roll."

Here's a sampling of some candidates:
Victorian Antiquities and Design
CityKin
And a blog that I've read before - The Urbanophile

I'm open to suggestions if readers know of others as well.

"Upper Drug-o-topia" - Gone!

Post and photo by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

With a name like "Upper Drug-o-topia," new NoMi blog readers might think that the city's demolition of this property is a good thing.  However, the house was solid and its needless destruction was nothing short of a colossal mistake.  Now, I'll be fair to CPED and explain that in attempts to use federal money to get out ahead of slumlords and other unscrupulous investors, the city and other non-profit partners have been buying up quite a bit to rehab or demolish in Hawthorne - and doing a fair amount of rehab too.  Also, their purchase of this house, in spite of the fact that the Hawthorne Neighborhood Council opposed its demolition, did lead to changes in how we work together to agree on the acquisition and disposition of future houses.

Because things have gone rather well since then, I'd be generally inclined to let this unwarranted demo go to the wayside.  But after the City Council voted to strip Hawthorne of $730,000 in NRP funds, and north Minneapolis of roughly $3 million, I'm of the opinion that neighborhoods ought not be so charitable towards city shortcomings.

I lived at 2218 Lyndale for a while, and the history behind the name "Upper Drug-o-topia" began shortly after I moved in, when...