Northeast : Featured Stories

Get ready for some changes in our already-stellar park system that will expand your ideas about recreation, ecology, and economic development.

This week: a heads-up about a July class in the University of Minnesota's extension division that will fill you in on the local craft beer revolution--it's origins, its economics, its varied business models, and more. Requirements include the actual consumption of product.

This week: Get in gear (or jump on your fixie) for what ARTCRANK, our high-powered local (and national and international) poster collective, touts as "the biggest bike-art shindig ever thrown," this Saturday.

What is an art gallery? What should it do, not just for the artists it shows and the patrons who view and buy the art, but for the community as a whole? These are some of the questions Tricia Khutoretsky and her colleagues are asking as they prepare to debut a new, and rather oddly named, art space in Northeast Minneapolis.

No doubt about it: the aristocracy of the circus are the aerialists, the trapeze and high-wire and other up-in-the-air artists who defy gravity (and major injury or death) by soaring high above the crowd. There's a deceptively modest-looking place in Northeast Minneapolis where you can study these arcane skills, and photographer Bill Kelley paid it a recent visit.

Managing Photographer Bill Kelley talked to some friends, checked in with some experts, and wandered the city a bit on his own to find the local street art that appealed to him the most. Herewith, his images of art meant to make you stop, look, have a startle reaction, and then continue on your way, energized.

Changing regulations and evolving tastes are sparking a craft-beer and microbrewing revolution across the country, and nowhere is the quirky, über-entrepreneurial, nouveau-beer buzz louder than in the Twin Cities. Are you ready for Angry Planet Pale Ale and Masala Mama IPA?

Most of us in the Twin Cities are aware that we've become a great town for bicycling in recent years, but urbanist and author Jay Walljasper--an avid biker for decades--has been digging into the trend to find out the what and the why behind it. In this adaptation of an article he wrote for Bikes Belong, he fills in the story and gives us some impressive facts about the sheer scale and promise of our new two-wheel era.

To accompany Jay Walljasper's take on bike policy and bike culture in the Twin Cities, here's a video by Streetfilms that shows just how valuable one of the crown jewels in our bikeway system is--the Midtown Greenway, running more or less parallel to Lake Street from Chowen Avenue to the Mississippi River.

For urban designer Peter Musty, who's collaborating on plans for the Loring neighborhood in Minneapolis and the Ford site in St, Paul, walkable, transit-focused neighborhoods are non-negotiable. We need them for our health and prosperity--and to help our culture calm down.

Every summer Northeast Minneapolis struts its artistic stuff at Art-a-Whirl, which bills itself as the largest open-studio and gallery tour in the country, and which highlights the rapid growth of this fine old residential neighborhood into a magnet for artists, gallerists, and edgy restaurateurs. Bill Kelley's images capture the visual--and musical--richness.

Most medical spaces and procedures aren't designed with the patient in mind. But that's beginning to change as health-care designers pay more attention to making the patient's experience pleasant and even fun. Here are four local examples of "human-centric" med-design.

The stretch of Minneapolis' Central Avenue Northeast that runs from around 18th Avenue to a little past Lowry is a colorful collage of immigrant businesses: Hispanic, Arab, Afghan, Indian, Southeast Asian. Bill Kelley's images capture a neighborhood that feels both faraway and very close to home.

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.