Discovering Neighborhoods

As a born and bred Saint Paulite (with some time away to appreciate it!), I would say that I know the city pretty well. And I am pretty solid on most Minneapolis neighborhoods as well, aseptically after my time working for the Neighborhood Revitalization Project. (now, if you get into Maple Grove or something I'm lots, don't even ask me to go there).

But lately, I've been getting more familiar with neighborhoods I knew only fleetingly before, and it has been fascinating.

This summer, I started to get involved with several neighborhood Facebook groups. Hamline-Midway, just to the north of us, has several interesting groups — a neighborhood one, a Buy/Sell/Trade Group, a craft group, a foodie group, and even a preservation one devoted to saving the historic homes around Hamline University. As such, I have gotten to know several people in that neighborhood, and driven around it a lot picking things up, and also checking out such gems as Burning Brothers Brewing. It's a really charming area, full of cute in-the-process-of-renovating houses, funky/fun people, and lots or urban amenities like parks and bikeways. Hamline-Midway, I'm sorry if I discounted you before!

A similar kind of vibe exists in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis. We have spent a lot of time this fall at Junket, which is a great store that we love as much as Beatrix does (and they have had some greta craft nights!). There are several secondhand stores near there that are a lot of fun to go to. Today, Beatrix and I headed over to Off-Leash Area's "Garage Tour" in that neighborhood, and had so much fun. Plus, I have notices that there is a preponderance of Little Free Libraries there, so they are doing something right.

My heart still belongs to "my" core neighborhoods of Summit-University and Mac-Groevland, but it sure is nice to be getting much more familiar with some new ground!

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