Warehouse/North Loop : Featured Stories

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: five more of my Top Ten Reasons to Visit (and Love) the Twin Cities. It's a list of offbeat but worthy places and happenings that you might miss if you only visit our big-ticket attractions.

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: the first five of my Top Ten Reasons to Visit (and Love) the Twin Cities. It's a list of offbeat but worthy places and happenings that you might miss if you only visit our big-ticket attractions.

Qiuxia and Kevin Welch are professional musicians, playing the French horn in many major local ensembles. Qiuxia teaches the Chinese language and Chinese cooking. Kevin is a certified tungsten inert gas welder. So why not become microbrewers too, bringing authentic Belgian-style beer to thirsty locals?

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?

Managing Photographer Bill Kelley--a knowledgeable home-brewer himself--explored some of our local microbrew establishments to see just how these alchemists turn grain into drinkable gold. Here's his visual record of the process.

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.

Following our selection of some favorite public artworks in Saint Paul two weeks ago, here is our take on the beautiful and the quirky in Minneapolis outdoor art--minus the Spoonbridge and Cherry, which is terrific but a little overexposed. It's just a taste of the richness available, designed to get you outside looking at art before the snow flies.

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.

In the past year or so, the Twin Cities have solidified their reputation as one of the bike-friendliest metropolitan areas in America. And we're not resting on our laurels. An expanded bike-share program, a brand-new online bike-rental business, new trails and connections, a new bike/coffee shop combo in the works, and more--they all point to a great spring for the human-powered-transport set.

"We need to grow, meaning more people have to live here to support all the good things we all want," says David Frank, Minneapolis' first-ever Director of Transit Development, in a conversation with The Line's Jeremy Stratton. For Frank, who came here from Minneapolis' friendly rival Portland, that means giving people more choices, and that means making wise plans around the places where we've already committed resources, like our light-rail lines. The biggest challenge? Finding the money.

In colloquial Italian, the word spunto means a creative idea. Italy has given the world more than its share of spunti in art, architecture, music, design, and more--and five years ago some adoptive Twin Citians got a spunto of their own: to create a place that celebrates all things Italian. Today the Italian Cultural Center teaches language, sponsors film showings, collaborates with art and opera venues--and it's just getting started.

The Twin Cities' newest bike cafe, Angry Catfish Bicycles and Coffee, joins two predecessors, One on One Bicycle Studio and Cars R Coffins Coffee Bar/Cykel Garage in catering to the caffeination needs, and gear lust, of serious bike riders. These coffee house/bike shop/art gallery hybrids are celebrations of two-wheel culture in a town that's getting prouder and prouder of it.

The trendy new TractorWorks office building in Minneapolis' North Loop looks a lot like an art gallery inside-- ex-SoHoite Ron Ridgeway has made it that way. The artist and design professional curates the building's art collection, but what he's actually creating is an art center where employees of the firms in the building can explore their creative selves and get their art on. In the world of "tenant amenities," this just might be 2010's answer to the workout room.