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I am happy to bring you a conversation with Nelsie Yang, who is a candidate for City Council in Saint Paul’s Sixth Ward, which covers the large northern part of the East Side. Yang is a community organizer who is advocating for economic sustainability, affordable housing, and better public safety on the East Side. We sat down the other day at Caydence Coffee and Records on Payne Avenue to chat about her campaign, her background, and her vision for the neighborhood. I hope you enjoy the conversation, and don’t forget to vote on November 5th. This podcast is sponsored by the Saint Paul flag. Since 1932, the Saint Paul flag has been subtly symbolizing the great city of Saint Paul. With its distinctive primary colors and significant design, the Saint Paul flag means pretty good things when you stop and think about it. Get your Saint Paul flag today, available in two sizes and styles. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/podcast127nelsieyang.mp3

I’m happy to bring you a conversation with Chelsea DeArmond, one of the founders of Saint Paul’s 350.org chapter. 350 dot org is an international climate action group that is trying very hard to place climate change at the center of our cultural conversations, and catalyze change in how we use energy in the US. Founded by Bill McKibben back in 2007, the name is sadly a bit out of date at this point, as we’ve already hit 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere. The founder of Saint Paul’s chapter is Chelsea DeArmond, a walking and biking advocate who is organizing climate actions from her home on the East Side. I sat down with Chelsea a few months ago to chat about the city’s new draft Climate Action and Resilience Plan, a document aimed at getting the city of Saint Paul in line with some of the changes that would be necessary to make a low-carbon city. It’s a document full of detailed and ambitious plans, but at least according to DeArmond, it could be even better. We had a great conversation about climate change, why it matters in the Twin Cities, and how we can finally begin to make some progress on reducing the use of fossil fuels in Minnesota. I hope you enjoy this critical chat. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/podcast126chelseadearmond.mp3 This podcast is sponsored by: Nate Pentz is a realtor with Pentz Homes at Keller Williams Classic Realty NW. You can start your own home search at pentzhomes.com and if you have any questions about the buying or selling process shoot him a message at nate@pentzhomes.com, or call 612.308.1122.

Proposed 800-stall parking ramp in the North Loop. I’m excited to bring you today a conversation with Nancy Gardner and Tom Mallon, who residents of downtown Minneapolis that organized an effort to successfully stop a large parking ramp from being constructed in their neighborhood. Nancy and Tom live near the Mississippi River on the northern part of downtown Minneapolis, located very close to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. When we recorded this chat, it was an auspicious moment: The week before, both Nancy and Tom had testified at a dramatic meeting of the Minneapolis Planning Commission where the plans for the parking ramp had been narrowly rejected. The day after we chatted, a Fed spokesperson announced that the plans for the ramp’s constructed had been cancelled. Anyway, it seems like a good time to share this chat with Nancy and Tom about why and how they organized to stop the 800-space parking ramp. At least for the time being, they consider their work to be a success. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/podcast125fedramp.mp3 This podcast is sponsored by: Nate Pentz is a realtor with Pentz Homes at Keller Williams Classic Realty NW. You can start your own home search at pentzhomes.com and if you have any questions about the buying or selling process shoot him a message at nate@pentzhomes.com, or call 612.308.1122.

Today I’m bringing you a conversation with Liz De La Torre, who is running for City Council in Saint Paul’s Ward 1. I sat down with Liz a while back at the Heritage Tea House on University Avenue to talk about her campaign, her background working as a advocate for victims of domestic violence, and why she decided to run for City Council in Saint Paul. We had a nice conversation about her background and experience, what her platform looks like, and what her approach toward outreach and equity. Finally, we discussed affordable housing, transit, and other transportation questions that are central to her campaign. This podcast is sponsored by the Saint Paul Flag. If you or someone you know is living in Saint Paul, go to this website and ask yourself if a Saint Paul flag is right for you. Enjoy!   https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/podcast124delatorre.mp3  

This podcast is an interview with Terri Thao, who is running for City Council in Saint Paul’s 6th Ward, on the East Side of the city. Terri Thao is a long-time non-profit professional, former Planning Commissioner, and community organizer, among other things, who has spent years working on issues around housing, transit, and economic development in Saint Paul. I sat down with here a few weeks ago to talk to her about her campaign and am pleased to share it with you today. We became friends and colleagues in our time on the Planning Commission and I have always been impressed by Terri’s dedication, intelligence, and the sheer amount of activities she manages to accomplish in Saint Paul every day. (Fair disclosure: streets.mn co-hosted a pedestrian advocacy event with a non-profit that Terri Thao helped to run, Nexus Community Partners, a few years ago.) Check out her whole campaign website here. I hope you enjoy the conversation.   https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/podcast123territhao.mp3

Cover of the city’s first draft Pedestrian Plan. DETAIL. Today I’m bringing you a conversation with Fay Simer. Fay Simer is the Pedestrian Coordinator for Saint Paul Public Works Department, and she has been working diligently on the city’s first ever official pedestrian plan. Like most cities, Saint Paul has never had an official plan for how to design a city for people to walk. Typically, there might be ordinances or policies about sidewalks or street engineering or ADA requirements, but putting everything together into a city-wide plan to push walking infrastructure is not something that most cities have ever done. After lots of community input, advocacy efforts, and problematic crashes, Saint Paul has finally come up with a plan for how to improve our streets with walking in mind. That’s all about to change. Thanks to Fay Simer, who has been working diligently on the plan over the last year and a half, an actual city pedestrian plan is in draft form right now. I sat down with Fay in her office building the other day, across the street from city hall, to chat about the draft plan and how she and the city came up with it. We chatted about the challenges, procedures, and policy prescriptions that come with trying to change walking in a city like Saint Paul, where there are lots of gaps in the sidewalks, dangerous streets, snow storms, and other barriers to walking. It’s a nerdy conversation and an important one, and I hope you enjoy it. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/podcast122faysimer.mp3   This podcast is sponsored by Bill Lindeke’s Sidewalks store, full of great gift ideas for people who love local history. I have some new flags available for the holiday season! After a long time MIA, Northeast Minneapolis and Saint Paul flags are in stock in the large 3’ x 5’ size, suitable for flying from flagpoles. (Go big or go home.) In addition, I have printed up a limited amount of “original 1932 edition” Saint Paul flags, in the 2’ x 3’ smaller size. These have the Saint Paul crest, but without the “SAINT PAUL” banner at the bottom of the flag. It’s just how Gladys Mittle intended it. (The banner was added after 1932 by an unknown bureaucrat or booster.) If you’re into flag design, this is the Saint Paul flag for you! Just one thing… If you want any of these goodies delivered before Christmas, put in your order soon.

An activation event on Nicollet. Today I’m bringing you a conversation with Lisa Middag, the director of Nicollet Activation for the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District. What does Nicollet activation” mean? I’m glad you asked. You’ll find out all about it in just a second, but it’s the person who is charged with bringing street life and economic activity to Nicollet Avenue in Downtown Minneapolis. You might be familiar with Nicollet, which is not only Minneapolis’ #1 shopping street, but was also remodeled at great expense a year or so ago. (Here’s a hint: It’s the street formerly known as Nicollet Mall.) Lisa Middag has been spending lots of time trying to ring activity to the new Nicollet and has been using a whole bunch of art, vitality, placemaking, and other tactics to do this. We sat down a few weeks ago on a nice day in downtown Minneapolis to talk about her work, and about what makes a downtown a great place, how that works in a place like Minneapolis that has a few structural challenges, and what the future might hold for downtown Minneapolis. I hope you enjoy the conversation. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/podcast121lisamiddag.mp3   If you like this podcast, consider purchasing some local urban swag from Bill Lindeke’s store. Flags, books, booklets, and more!

Today I’m bringing you a conversation with Heather Worthington and Paul Mogush, two of the people behind the forthcoming Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan. The Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan is the basic planning document for the city, a ten-year update required by the regional government, and Minneapolis’ plan has been getting a lot of attention for making some change to zoning and transportation issues, and for placing equity and climate values at its core. In her role as Long-Range Planning Director, Heather Worthington has been overseeing the release and revision of the plans, and has been the main figure at public meetings throughout the city this summer, discussing the goals and policies in the plan with community members. Paul Mogush is a Manager of Community Planning for the city, and has been working behind the scenes on the 2040 plan for years. Both work within the city’s Community Planning and Economic Development department, and it was great to sit down with them a week or so ago and discuss the goals and context for the new plan, and how the discussion has been going throughout Minneapolis and at City Hall. I hope you enjoy the conversation.   https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/podast120mpls2040.mp3 If you like this podcast, check out my new coffee table book on Twin Cities history, Minneapolis / Saint Paul: Then and Now. The book features over 140 pages of old and new photographs of interesting sites in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Edina, South Saint Paul, and the Fort Snelling Unorganized Territory. The historic photos range from the 1870s to the 1970s, and the new photos were taken last summer by a professional photographer who matched the scenes, angles, and aspect rations nearly flawlessly. It’s a great read and makes a great gift

Today I’m bringing you a conversation with Christian Huelsman, a public space preservationist who has, for years, been an advocate for alleys, public spaces, and urban history in Cincinnati Ohio and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Alleys are not always places that get a lot of love in the United States, especially in cities that have a legacy of downtown poverty like Cincinnati or Minneapolis, and many people see alleys as places to avoid. But for Huelsman, alleys are public treasures hiding in plain sight. We chatted about his work resurrecting the alleys of Cincinnati, where he lived for years and started a non-profit organization aimed at restoring and maintaining alleys throughout the city. Now Hulesman is working again on public space and place making in Saint Paul and Minneapolis. One of his hobbies is leading tours of alleys in historic parts of downtown Minneapolis, in a collaboration with the Preserve Minneapolis group. I talked him about his work and research into how Minneapolis’ endangered alleys got their shape and form. It’s a topic I personally adore, and we had a great chat about the most obscure and misunderstood spaces in old midwestern cities. I hope you enjoy the conversation. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/podcast119christianhuelsman.mp3   If you like this podcast, check out my new coffee table book on Twin Cities history, Minneapolis / Saint Paul: Then and Now. The book features over 140 pages of old and new photographs of interesting sites in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Edina, South Saint Paul, and the Fort Snelling Unorganized Territory. The historic photos range from the 1870s to the 1970s, and the new photos were taken last summer by a professional photographer who matched the scenes, angles, and aspect rations nearly flawlessly. It’s a great read and makes a great gift

A dangerous crosswalk in Saint Paul on Kellogg Boulevard. Today I’m bringing you our 118th episode, a conversation with Dr. Nichole Morris. Dr. Morris is the director of the HumanFIRST Laboratory at the University of Minnesota, and is a researcher and scholar who focuses on the intersection of transportation, technology, and behavior. We sat down a few months ago in her office at the University of Minnesota campus to discuss her ongoing research project about pedestrian crossings and driver behavior and street safety in Saint Paul, Minnesota. With help from a state grant, Dr. Morris’ team has spent almost a year studying how often, where, and why drivers in Saint Paul stop for people crossing the street. As you may know, there’s a state law on the books that makes it mandatory for people driving cars to stop for pedestrians crossing the street at legal crosswalks, which are defined as just about every intersection you can think of, with the lone exception of the recreational trails in Saint Louis Park. As you probably also know, however, drivers stopping for people to cross the street is a rare sight. You can stand on a street corner for minutes and watch dozens of cars go by before one might stop, and in many cases, people crossing the street take their lives into their hands. That’s what Morris’s project is all about, studying Saint Paul’s difficult pedestrian crossings and trying to analyze whether or not its possible to change the behavior of the city’s drivers. It’s hard to think of a more difficult or more worthy task than this one, and I had lots of questions for Dr. Morris about her project, her initial results, and the innovative approach she is taking to applying science to something so seemingly simple as crossing the street. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/podcast118nichole-morris.mp3 This podcast is sponsored by Nate Pentz and Pentz Homes realty. Nate Pentz is realtor with Pentz Homes at Keller Williams Classic Realty NW. You can start your own home search at pentzhomes.com and if you have any questions about the buying or selling process shoot him a message at nate@pentzhomes.co or call 612.308.1122. Thanks to him for sponsoring this podcast, and if you or anyone you know is interested in becoming a sponsor, let me know.

Welcome to the streets.mn podcast. Today I’m bringing you episode 117: Saint Paul’s Ward 4 with Mitra Jalali Nelson. This is another in my interviews with political candidates for local public office. Longtime listeners of this podcast will remember, for example, five years ago when I interviewed people running in Minneapolis and Saint Paul for city council during their election. I’ve also interviewed people running for City Council or Mayor in places like West Saint Paul, Columbia Heights, and Newport. The goal of this kind of election coverage is to talk to people who aren’t running for high-profile offices, but rather running the down ticket elections, people who might not get a lot of attention or chances to talk about their campaigns and platforms in the mainstream press. Today’s candidate is Mitra Jalali Nelson, who is running for Saint Paul City Council during a special election in Ward 4. This part of the city covers the northeastern corner of Saint Paul, areas like Hamline-Midway, Saint Anthony Park, and Union Park. With the August 14th special election rapidly approaching, I sat down recently with Mitra at the Work Horse Coffee Shop on University Avenue to talk about her background, platform, and campaign. Our conversation ranged all over the place, from specific transportation and housing policy ideas to the big picture of city politics in the age of Trump. I hope you enjoy the conversation. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/podcast117mitra.mp3 [Thanks to our sponsor.] In addition to hosting this podcast, I am a freelance writer. Conveniently, I have written a short guide booklet that details some of the history of parks in Saint Paul’s Ward 4. It’s called Overlooked Parks of Saint Paul, and is one of the many booklets that I’ve written over the years that serve as guides to different historical places, small-scale establishments, and urban curiosities in the Twin Cities. You can get them online at my store. They’re affordable and fun and make great gifts.

A blurry photo of the panel. Welcome to the streets.mn podcast, Episode 116: Saint Paul 1978 with George Latimer, Jerry Mathiason, and David Lanagren. Today I have a fun conversation for you that I taped back in May. The chat took place between former Saint Paul mayor George Latimer, photographer Jerry Mathiason, and Macalester Geography professor David Lanagren that took place at the Landmark Center as part of an exhibition of Mathaison’s photographs from downtown Saint Paul in 1978. Saint Paul 1978, a year before I was born, has always fascinated me. Looking at the old pictures, is to see a very different Saint Paul, vast empty lots, 70s era urban squalor, sidewalks and streets designed around cars intermingling with historic pre-war people-centered architecture. It’s fascinating, and thinking about this period of time in American cities is something I greatly enjoy. Thanks to the Ramsey County Historical Society and the Landmark Center museum for hosting the forum and allowing me to tape the proceedings. The chat was about an hour long and full of interesting tidbits about Saint Paul history, downtowns in the 1970s, economic development schemes like the never-built Saint Paul “people mover”, and more. I hope you enjoy it. Here’s a link to the audio, with some of Mathiason’s 1978 photos appended below. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/podcast116saintpaul1978.mp3 The podcast is sponsored by Nate Pentz, so thanks to him! Nate Pentz is realtor with Pentz Homes at Keller Williams Classic Realty NW. You can start your own home search at pentzhomes.com and if you have any questions about the buying or selling process shoot him a message at nate@pentzhomes.co or call 612.308.1122. [Photos continue.]  

This week’s episode features Trista Matas-Castillo, who is running for Ramsey County Commissioner in the 3rd District, which covers a big chunk of the northern neighborhoods of Saint Paul. Most people in Ramsey County cannot even name a County Commissioner, and yet county governments do a ton of work to help people and govern transportation decisions in our cities and towns. We sat down in her campaign office on Rice Street the other day to chat about her background, what Ramsey County does, and which County issues she is focusing on in her campaign this summer. I hope you enjoy the conversation. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/podcast115trista.mp3    

Carolyn Swiszcz is one of my favorite local artists, a painter, printmaker, and visual artist who works a lot in some of my favorite slash least favorite landscapes: post-war suburbia. I first came across Carolyn a short musical video she made about West Saint Paul Minnesota, a first-ring suburb near where I grew up. As she explains in our chat, Swiszcz made the piece for an exhibition at the Walker about suburban landscapes, and it was so catchy that it went somewhat viral. Only after that did I start to learn about Carolyn’s amazing paintings of strip malls, parking lots, brutalist or mundane architecture, and other scenes of everyday life in modern America. Carolyn’s portfolio features amazing almost pop paintings of such landscapes as a Petsmart strip mall, the old Metrodome, the 3M Corporate Headquarters, and the Old Mexico restaurant in Roseville. I saw her work recently at an exhibit this spring at the Highpoint Center for the Arts in Uptown, and later reached out to Carolyn to chat about her work and her relation to the urban landscape. We had a nice chat about design, Minnesota, and the mixed appeal of strip mall parking lot paintings. I hope you enjoy this conversation with a wonderfully talented Minnesota artist. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/podcast114carolynswiszcz.mp3 The podcast is sponsored by Nate Pentz, so thanks to him! Nate Pentz is realtor with Pentz Homes at Keller Williams Classic Realty NW. You can start your own home search at pentzhomes.com and if you have any questions about the buying or selling process shoot him a message at nate@pentzhomes.co or call 612.308.1122.   [Some of my favorite of Carolyn Swiszcz’s paintings follow.]    

I’m really excited to share this podcast with you, because it’s a new topic for me — an in depth look at restoration of a unique old house on the East Side of Saint Paul – and I personally loved talking to Matt about his incredible passion for his house. I first came across Matt Mazanec through his blog, — 1889 Victorian Restoration — which I happened across years ago and added to my RSS feed. Matt has been writing his blog for years now, posting photos of his old house full of tiny details from another era. For example, here’s a list of some of the things that Mazanec found in the walls of his home as he restored it: children’s shoes, women’s purses, postcards, a halloween invitation from 1907, receipts, notes, and newspapers… After the latest post this spring, which was about unearthing still-operating century-old “speaking tubes” out of the wall, I wrote an email to Matt and asked if he’d be willing to chat. A few weeks later, I was getting a tour of Matt’s amazing house, which he’s been restoring to its Victorian-era standards. We walked through the multiple floors of tall-ceilinged rooms, some of which were finished and others which were still in great disrepair. Matt even took me up into the attic and showed me the turret room, before we went to the Dancing Goat coffee shop and chatted about his house, his work with the historic preservation commission, and his attempts to get some traffic calming on the East Side. I think you’ll enjoy the conversation, because I sure did. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/podcast-113victorianrestoration.mp3 The podcast is sponsored by Nate Pentz, so thanks to him! Nate Pentz is realtor with Pentz Homes at Keller Williams Classic Realty NW. You can start your own home search at pentzhomes.com and if you have any questions about the buying or selling process shoot him a message at nate@pentzhomes.co or call 612.308.1122. [More photos of Matt’s house over the years below.]

A racially restricted ad for homes in Minneapolis, from 1919. I’m back with another streets.mn podcast and it’s a good one. I sat down a few weeks ago with the team from Mapping Prejudice, a groundbreaking historical research effort to shed light on the racist history of housing practices in Minneapolis. Joining me around the table in the basement of the Borchert Map Library were three people who’ve been in the think of this untold story, Kirsten Delegard, Penny Peterson, and Kevin Ehrman-Solberg. Together they have been researching dusty old deeds from deep in the bowels of Hennepin County history, and mapping those deeds that have “racially restrictive covenants” so that you can see where these were located. Racially restrictive covenants are one of a series of historically troubling practices that was widespread during the 20th century. Basically, for decades, it was written right into the mortgage that a home owner could not sell their house to a person of color. I hope you enjoy the episode. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/podcast112mappingprejudice.mp3   The podcast is sponsored by Nate Pentz, so thanks to him! Nate Pentz is realtor with Pentz Homes at Keller Williams Classic Realty NW. You can start your own home search at pentzhomes.com and if you have any questions about the buying or selling process shoot him a message at nate@pentzhomes.co or call 612.308.1122.   The Mapping Prejudice team, looking at a Minneapolis redlining map.

Superior Street in Duluth in winter. The podcast this week is a conversation with Ben Garland, a Duluth resident who runs a small business in the hillside neighborhood. Over the last year or so, Garland has been organizing to try and change the design for a street reconstruction project on Superior Street in downtown Duluth. Superior Street is Duluth’s main street, and there’s a huge reconstruction project planned for the next two years where the city will be re-doing all the curbs and pavement in the heart of downtown. Garland spent much of the 2017 trying to get the city to re-design and re-think some of its intersection treatments on Superior Street, especially to improve the pedestrian experience there. I was in Duluth this winter and looked up Ben Garland at his home, in the middle of a snowstorm in very cold weather. We chatted for a long while about his efforts, some of the frustrations he had dealing with the community engagement and public policy process in Duluth, and what his vision for a better Superior Street and a more walkable Duluth might look like. We had a great chat, and I hope you enjoy it. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/podcast111bengarland.mp3

Representative Hornstein points. The podcast this week is a conversation with State Representative Frank Hornstein, who represents district 61A in south Minneapolis. Frank Hornstein has long been a leader in the Minnesota House on transportation issues, and is currently the ranking minority member of a whole bunch of transportation-related committees. The state legislative session is going on right now in downtown Saint Paul, and we sat down in his office the other day to talk about a whole bunch of topics. If you’re into the messy world of state politics you’ll find this interesting. We had a great chat, and I hope you enjoy it! https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/podcast-110-hornstein.mp3 If you have ideas for future guests, please reach out to Bill Lindeke!

Not Max, but rather a statue of Floyd B. Olson taken on one of his recent walks. The podcast this week is a conversation with Max Hailperin. Max Hailperin is fascinating Minneapolis flaneur who has been quietly walking down every street in Minneapolis over the last few years. To do it, Hailperin maps neighborhoods, figures out the most mathematically efficient route through the neighborhoods, walks every street, and then writes about it on his website, allofminneapolis.com. Max has also been cross-posting his articles at streets.mn, and if you’ve been on the site in the last year you’ve certainly seen them. It’s a huge and intriguing project to say the very least! I sat down with Max in Linden Hills the other day to ask him about why and how he’s launched himself on this project, and what kinds of takeaways he’s gotten so far from his many many many hours of work and steps across the Minneapolis’ many diverse sidewalks. I was myself quite surprised by our conversation, and I think you will be too. I hope you enjoy it. https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/podcast109maxhailperin.mp3  

The podcast this week is a special one. Just like we did four years ago, streets.mn co-hosted a forum with candidates running to be the mayor of Minneapolis. This is a recording that hour-and a half long conversation, which was moderated by Freddy Bell and featured four candidates for mayor: Raymond Dehn, Jacob Frey, Tom Hoch and Betsy Hodges. They discussed issues on the theme of equitable and sustainable transportation in Minneapolis on stage at the old Bell Museum on the University of Minnesota campus. I hope you enjoy it.   [no transcript this time. enjoy!] https://streets.mn/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/podcast-forum-2017.mp3