Thomas - Dale/Frogtown : Featured Stories

In A Line or Two, I share some of my enthusiasms and discoveries as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: At an upcoming potluck and community meeting,  you can get to know a unique arts-based activist group in Saint Paul's Frogtown.

Far from simply decorating the light-rail route, Saint Paul's Central Corridor Public Art Plan is redefining art in the public sphere.

With a new school year approaching, we take a look at three unique programs that show how Minnesota has become a "thought leader" in developing--and funding--positive alternatives for youth.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: Get to know Irrigate, our public-spirited and art-fueled Central Corridor placemaking project.

Saint Paul's Selby Avenue is the home of some celebrated and beloved local institutions. But for this issue, lensman Bill Kelley took portraits of Selby Avenue places that may be a bit below your radar unless you know the street well--plus some cool new businesses that have popped up in recent months. It's our effort to show how one of the Saintly City's most attractive, even genteel, streets is also one of its most dynamic and diverse.

BeNeighbors.org, is an online forum that connects people who live near each other to build community and tackle real issues. With a brand-new grant, it's adding Saint Paul neighborhoods to its ambitious goal of getting everybody talking. Can the city become a national leader in "digital inclusion?"

In one magical zone in the Twin Cities, there's a loon made of junk, a chimney covered in shattered glass and ceramic shards, and a place to buy tarantulas. It's called the Central Corridor. Here's a second look at what photographer Bill Kelley and managing editor Jon Spayde picked out last year as they traveled down University Avenue and Washington Avenue, seeking out their favorite offbeat, oddball, one-of-a-kind things.

An aggressive, and unconventional, marketing campaign to keep people coming to Central Corridor businesses during light rail construction in 2011 appears to have paid off in less business decline than expected--and a mood of cautious optimism about the future.

Often, says Concordia University economist and biz-school dean Bruce Corrie, our minority and immigrant communities are seen solely through the "problem" lens. Their struggles are real, but their contributions to our prosperity and potential for growth are greater than most majority Minnesotans realize. And Corrie's got the figures to prove it.

Nobody expected Central Corridor light-rail construction to be easy on the small businesses along the route. But now that the challenges of access and parking are hitting, business owners, the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce and other local organizations are working to keep the Corridor as customer-friendly as possible.

When it comes to dining-and-drinking venues, there's atmosphere--and then there's atmosphere. Some go the extra mile beyond a good color sense and a lively vibe to actually spirit you away to another place or time, real or imaginary. Herewith, a slide show of four of our favorite local places to escape the here-and-now.

Our photographer, Bill Kelley, took a leisurely trip from Maryland Avenue to Selby Avenue on Dale Street, making images of the many faces of this great old Saint Paul street: the well-loved neighborhood institution called Conny's Creamy Cone, a place to get Cambodian DVDs, the ambitious new Frogtown Square development, Big Daddy's Barbecue--and a gigantic sunflower too. Join him on one of the city's most diverse and soulful thoroughfares.

In one magical zone in the Twin Cities, there's a loon made of junk, a chimney covered in shattered glass and ceramic shards, a place to buy tarantulas, and a hotel straight out of the Coen brothers. It's called the Central Corridor. The Line's ace managing photographer, Bill Kelley, and its managing editor, Jon Spayde, traveled University Avenue and Washington Avenue, where much of the light rail line will run when it's completed in 2014, seeking out their favorite offbeat, oddball, one-of-a-kind, things, things they hope and trust will be preserved through the construction of the line and the development of the Corridor neighborhoods. Herewith, their top ten.

It's four years before a single train is slated to set out on the tracks, but the Central Corridor light rail line between Minneapolis and Saint Paul has already created a powerful network of connections across the Twin Cities. In particular, ad-hoc collaboratives, instead of a single light-rail "czar" or bureaucracy, and Saint Paul's traditionally strong neighborhood political structure, have pushed planning for how the line will impact the city now and in years to come.