Uptown, Minneapolis
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Uptown is a neighborhood in southwestern Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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[edit] Location
The neighborhood is centered on the intersection of Lake Street and Hennepin Avenue, just east of Lake Calhoun. Calhoun Square, a shopping mall built in the early 1980s amid much controversy, is found at the intersection of Hennepin and Lake. According to the Uptown Association, a group of business owners and landlords, the boundaries of Uptown are Lake Calhoun to the west, Dupont Avenue to the east, 31st Street to the south, and 28th Street to the north. However, in common usage, area people use the term "Uptown" to refer to the Calhoun Isles region of the city as a whole, as far west as the other side of Lake Calhoun, as far south as 36th Street, as far east as Lyndale Avenue, and as far north as Franklin Avenue. This usage is often accompanied by the user’s acknowledgement that they are stretching the use of the word “Uptown.” At the same time, the commercial and residential development of Uptown is expanding, and a larger defined area than the corporately-defined one is in order. Uptown proper primarily is made of parts of the Lowry Hill East, ECCO, Carag and East Isles neighborhoods. Perhaps confusingly, Uptown is actually southwest of Downtown Minneapolis.
[edit] Art and Culture
[edit] Cultural Geography
Uptown is a mix of various cultural strains and is considered a trendy area for young people to live and shop, a vibrant center for artists and musicians, a welcoming community for LGBT individuals, and a highly desirable address for young professionals. Many homeless individuals spend their day and much of the evening there, but do not spend the night there for lack of quiet sheltered areas. Much more numerous are the young professionals from throughout the Twin Cities who come at night, especially on the weekends, to visit local restaurants and bars.
[edit] Uptown Art Fair
Uptown annually hosts the Metris Uptown Art Fair, during the first full weekend of August. Local, national, and world artists converge to exhibit and sell art. Art media include paintings, sculptures, clothing, pottery, jewelry, kitchenware, and knick-knacks. Art cost ranges from $6 (USD), for prints, and up into the hundreds or thousands of USD for paintings.
[edit] Prince and Local Hip Hop
In 1980, 'The Minneapolis Genius' Prince, aka "The Purple Gnome," released his seminal recording, Dirty Mind which contained his paean to the artistic center of Minneapolis, appropriately titled, Uptown.
[edit] Gentrification
Housing in Uptown has seen a recent surge in gentrification. This has caused an increase in property value and in property taxes. At the same time, there is a glut of available rental housing in the area, resulting in lower-than-city-average rents. [citation needed]
[edit] Business and Public Buildings
Businesses in Uptown include many restaurants, bars, book stores, music stores, cafés, clothing stores, furniture and housewares stores, two indie movie theaters, an improv comedy theater, and several specialty stores. The Walker Library is underground beneath a small park located at Hennepin Avenue and Lagoon Street. It is denoted by large metal letters: "L-I-B-R-A-R-Y".
The Uptown Transit Station is located on Hennepin Avenue over the 29th Street Greenway and serves Metro Transit buses 6, 12, 17, 21, 23, 53, 114, 115, 681. The station also has a change machine, a heated interior, binoculars, bike lockers and posts, and a workers lounge and office area. The Midtown Greenway, a former railway cutting which now hosts a bike path, bisects Uptown roughly a block north of Lake Street (where 29th Street would otherwise have been located).
The Wedge Community Cooperative grocery store is one of the largest cooperative groceries in the city.
[edit] External links
- Uptown Association
- OurUptown.com - Promotional Site for Uptown
- Metris Art Fair
- Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce
- Minneapolis Convention and Visitors Bureau
- Minnesota Festivals and Events Association
- ‘’Uptown Minneapolis’’, a book by Thatcher Imboden and Cedar Imboden Phillips
