Once Upon a Time

. . .there was an old streetcar suburb located just beyond downtown Minneapolis. It began its life in the 1880s with the arrival of Thomas Lowry's public transportation system, the horse-drawn streetcar lines. In 1884 new tracks were laid from the urban core southwards, past Lowry's mansion on the east slope of what is now known as Lowry Hill, down Lyndale Avenue, turning west onto 27th Street, then south onto Dupont Avenue.

A Minneapolis horse-drawn streetcar.

With the streetcar line came a host of builders who began platting and developing lots on and around the tracks. Before that, farms and fields filled the landscape east of the swamp that was later dredged to form Lake of the Isles. The building frenzy that ensued in the mid-1880s and ended with World War I filled the neighborhood with middle- and upper-middle-class homes. The designs of these large, handsome houses reflected the changing architectural fancies of the time: the playful Queen Anne, the decorous Colonial Revival, and the scaled-down, cozy Prairie School.

Victorian houses on the 2100 block of Hennepin Avenue South in the early 1900s.

The Depression brought major changes to the housing stock of the neighborhood. Some large, old residences became boarding and rooming houses; single-family homes were often occupied by multiple generations. In 1963 the City rezoned the neighborhood to allow the construction of two-and-a-half-story walkup apartment buildings. Scores of houses were wrecked; gardens and orchards became parking lots. The north-south streets were made into "paired one-way commuter corridors" to allow downtown workers coming from the south to speed through the neighborhood.

2747 Dupont Avenue S., a typical Wedge walkup apartment building of the 1960s, now condos.

A number of  residents, both established and newly arrived, grew alarmed at these City-made changes affecting all aspects of neighborhood life. The neighborhood took on a new identity as the Wedge. In 1970 these residents banded together to form the Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association (LHENA) as a forum for discussing neighborhood concerns, a vehicle for solving problems, and a means of promoting community life.  As a result of their efforts, the core of the neighborhood was down-zoned to R-2, allowing only new single-family and duplex apartments. The one-way racetracks were turned back to two-way streets, with direct access from Hennepin Avenue cut off.

But the periphery of the Wedge remained zoned commercial or multiple-unit housing (R-6). Forty years later, with the encouragement of the City, developers again turned their attention to the Wedge. The entire commercial corridor along the former railroad tracks was cleared, the old buildings replaced with luxury condos and apartment buildings. When that area was filled, developers began eyeing the residential area zoned R-6. Aided by City Hall, the wrecking began.To date, five Wedge houses have been demolished. with another one slated to go down soon.  In the R-6 area, many properties are worth more as vacant land than with the buildings sitting on them. Predatory investors are buying up these hot Wedge properties in the expectation that they will be continue to get the backing and variances from City Hall they need to put in new higher-density luxury housing. This process will continue as long as developers own City government and/or the luxury housing market in Minneapolis tanks.

An ad welcoming "tarts" to the new Lime apartment complex on Lyndale Avenue South, 2013

For me, the most unfortunate part of the transition has been the loss of community spirit in the Wedge. LHENA meetings have become tense, filled with factional disputes. High-density advocate trolls make vicious ad hominem online attacks against those who don't agree with them. Citizens who speak critically of  development proposals at City Hall get ignored, or worse yet, sneered at. Forget dialogue.

The frenzy and debate surrounding the current candidates for president underscore for me just how weary Americans are becoming of a political process that seems rigged for the Establishment. From both right and left, American voters are speaking out against the business-as-usual which is part of every level of government.  We can't change the past, but we can make changes for the future.

Owner Sheldon Strom removing the asbestos siding on 2116 Bryant Ave. S., 1976

By telling the story of how residents came together four decades ago to make a decaying urban neighborhood into the sassy, funky Wedge, I hope to spur vigorous discussion about how we can best manage change in Minneapolis neighborhoods. It certainly won't be done by wringing our hands and talking about the Good Old Days. And it won't be done by getting involved in the so-called "citizen participation process."

Do we sit around and watch the march of the faux-urbanist developers, or do we stand up and get cracking? Time will tell.

“Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don't need a lot of money to be happy--in fact, the opposite.”
―Jean Vanier, "Community and Growth"

 --T.B.