St. Paul neighborhoods
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Saint Paul, Minnesota is noted for its neighborhoods; the city has been called "fifteen small towns with one mayor", owing to the neighborhood-based life of much of the city.
A series of District Councils contribute to discussions of individual neighborhood issues in Saint Paul.
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[edit] Saint Anthony Park
Saint Anthony Park [1] is a tree-shaded, upscale, middle-to-upper-income neighborhood adjacent to the University of Minnesota Saint Paul campus, bordering Northeast Minneapolis on the west and the Minnesota State Fairgrounds on the east. It was the home to three Minnesota governors (William Marshall, 1866-70; Andrew McGill, 1887-1889; and Elmer L. Andersen, 1961-63). Originally set out as estates for the wealthy of Minneapolis in the late 1800s, it has become a neighborhood of college professors, professionals, international students and ordinary working people. It is centrally located in the Twin Cities, providing a quaint, pedestrian-friendly business district that contains many services - including many independently owned shops and restaurants. A Carnegie Library, with an excellent new addition for its children's collection, and the top-rated St. Anthony Park Elementary School are the focal points of the neighborhood. St. Anthony Park, known to residents as SAP, is home to two colleges, the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota and the Luther Seminary, and thus home to graduate students from across the world. The largest area park is named for former St. Anthony Park resident Nathaniel P. Langford, who was responsible for the world's first national park (Yellowstone). Langford's most famous book, The Discovery of Yellowstone Park [2] was published in 1905.
[edit] Merriam Park
Merriam Park [3] is a well-to-do residential neighborhood featuring a large stock of early 20th-century housing, boutique-dominated commercial strips on Selby, Cretin and Cleveland avenues, and spectacular views of the Mississippi River, the neighborhood's western border.
[edit] Macalester-Groveland
Macalester-Groveland [4] is a wealthy neighborhood with two post-secondary institutions (Macalester College and the University of Saint Thomas), with scenic East River Parkway and a gorgeous view of the Mississippi River as its western border. The neighborhood's western border, East River Parkway (and West River Road, on the Minneapolis side) is public park land, and features walking and biking paths atop the 100-foot-tall bluffs that make up the riverbank. These roads are residentially zoned and have very high property values due to the view of the river.
[edit] Highland Park
Another wealthy neighborhood. Highland Park [5] became the city's primary Jewish neighborhood after most of the Jewish population moved from the Summit-University neighborhood in the mid-1900s, and it is home to most of the city's synagogues. This neighborhood is also home to the College of Saint Catherine as well as two, major, private schools, Cretin-Derham Hall High School [6] and St. Paul Academy and Summit School [7]. The neighborhood also currently hosts the Ford Motor Company Twin Cities Assembly Plant where the Ford Ranger and Mazda B-Series pickup trucks are produced. In April 2006, Ford announced the closure of the plant in 2007, and what will become of the ¼ square mile of prime real estate along the Mississippi is yet to be decided.
[edit] Midway
Midway [8] is a middle-class neighborhood which derives its name from being midway between the downtowns of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Includes the city's primary warehouse district, passenger rail terminal, Hamline University and Concordia University, as well as "Midway Center", one of inner-city Saint Paul's key shopping districts. Famous Midway natives include Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schultz.
[edit] Como Park
Como Park [9] is a cozy upper-middle-class neighborhood situated around Lake Como, the city's main recreational lake. The Como Park neighborhood has many recreational facilities, including a golf course, bike path, various open fields, a pavilion, a municipal pool, and the Como Zoo, the only zoo in the city of Saint Paul. The Como area is also home to many of the city's gingko trees. There are several schools in Como Park, the public schools in the area being the well-regarded Chelsea Heights Elementary School and the Como Park Elementary School, the only school in the city to have its own planetarium. The primary secondary school in Como Park is Como Park Senior High School, one of the highest rated schools in the state according to Newsweek.[citation needed]
[edit] North End
North End [10] is a traditionally blue-collar neighborhood based on the Rice Street corridor, a long, straight street that has many fast-food restaurants, bars and clubs (and, until recently, junk yards and auto-wrecking lots). The State Capitol is also at the southern edge of the neighborhood, between Cedar and Rice Streets on University Avenue.
[edit] Thomas-Dale
Dominated by University Avenue, Thomas-Dale is traditionally (and more commonly) known as "Frogtown" to the locals, and has been regarded as a neighborhood in transition for decades. Frogtown experienced massive problems as the center of Saint Paul's drug and prostitution trades in the 1980s and 1990s. Notorious 1930s gangster and John Dillinger gang member Homer Van Meter met his end in this neighborhood, during a police shootout at a University Avenue intersection. See the neighborhood web site.
[edit] Summit-University
Another neighborhood in transition, "Summit-Uni" is the heart of the local Hmong community as well as the city's other Asian communities, of whom Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians are represented in large numbers. Summit-University also includes the historic and gentrifying Cathedral Hill neighborhood, as well as what remains of old "Rondo" - once a full-fledged neighborhood of the city in its own right. Lower Rondo (known to the locals as "Cornbread Valley") served as the center of St. Paul's tiny but thriving African-American community dating back to the Civil War, but was nearly obliterated by the construction of Interstate 94 in the late 1950s. Lesser-known Upper Rondo (aka "Oatmeal Hill"), a once largely middle-class Jewish neighborhood, still remains intact to this day, although the old name is largely forgotten, and the demographics are entirely different. Famous Summit-University natives include baseball great Dave Winfield. Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald was actually born in this neighborhood, although he's more commonly associated with more prestigious Summit Hill. Neighborhood website
[edit] Summit Hill
Summit Hill [11], also called "Crocus Hill" by locals, the neighborhood's focal point is Summit Avenue, the traditional home of the city's Robber Baron aristocracy; the boulevard was originally conceived as a broad, Gilded Age showcase street, and is lined with the mansions named after Saint Paul's "old money", most notably that of railroad tycoon James J. Hill. At Summit's east end, overlooking Downtown, is the massive Cathedral of Saint Paul, home of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Summit's terminus, several miles to the west, is at the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River valley. With its vistas of downtown and the Mississippi River, Summit Hill is among the priciest neighborhoods in the Twin Cities, and is considered to be a prime candidate for the longest stretch of preserved Victorian mansions in North America. It has been home to artists as diverse as F. Scott Fitzgerald (who once quipped that Summit Avenue's gaudy estates collectively were "a museum of American architectural failures"), his wife Zelda, Sinclair Lewis, August Wilson and, currently, Garrison Keillor. More notorious residents have included 1930s-era gangsters such as John Dillinger and members of the Barker-Karpis Gang.
[edit] West Seventh
West Seventh [12] is officially known as the Fort Road area due to its location on old Native American and fur trader paths along the Mississippi from downtown to Fort Snelling. Known as "The West End" by locals (as distinguished from "the West Side", more on that below), the West Seventh neighborhood is a traditional immigrant neighborhood located below Summit Hill and along the western bluffs of the Mississippi River, spanning the entire length of West Seventh St.(Old Fort Rd.) The West End is the historical center of the Twin Cities' Irish, German, Polish, Italian and Bohemian immigrant communities, and is currently the center of Saint Paul's Russian immigrant population.
[edit] Downtown
Downtown Saint Paul [13] for the most part is a ghost town after 4 PM. Its glory days were in the 1940s, and the neighborhood - always overshadowed by Downtown Minneapolis - is constantly trying to regain jobs and prestige. Home to Xcel Energy Center, home of the Minnesota Wild hockey team, Galtier Plaza, McNally Smith College of Music and the Minnesota World Trade Center. When the Wild are playing or there is some other event, downtown can become brimming with people but generally people are scarce and sidewalks are clear.
[edit] West Side
West Side's [14] name is somewhat confusing to newcomers, as the neighborhood is actually somewhat east of the line bisecting the city; it's the neighborhood across the Mississippi River to the south of Downtown, but technically on the west bank of the predominantly north-south river. It is the home to the largest Hispanic neighborhood in the Twin Cities, based along César Chávez Boulevard and adjacent to the suburban cities of South St. Paul and West St. Paul.
[edit] Payne-Phalen
Payne-Phalen [15] ranges from a toughish, blue-collar area to the south, to a solid middle-class area north of Maryland Avenue, and includes some fairly upscale real estate around scenic Lake Phalen.
[edit] Dayton's Bluff
Dayton's Bluff [16] is another highly-transitional neighborhood. At the base of the bluff was a little hardscrabble neighborhood called "Swede Hollow." Although razed in the 1950's, the Hollow was a longtime neighborhood famous as an immigrant hub, and infamous for the squalor of its residences. The area around the Bluffs in general have been home, sequentially, to most of the Twin Cities' immigrant communities, from Swedes and Germans in the mid-1800s, through waves of Italians, Eastern Europeans, African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and now Somali and Eritrean immigrants. Near the Mississippi River is the Indian Mounds Park.
[edit] Greater East Side
Greater East Side is a largely middle-class neighborhood which borders on (and traditionally supplied much of the workforce for) neighboring 3M Corporation, one of Minnesota's biggest employers, whose corporate headquarters is just across McKnight Road from the Greater East Side in the suburb of Maplewood. Outsiders tend to think of the East Side of Saint Paul, Minnesota as one big neighborhood, but the East Side comprises at least 26 neighborhoods east of Interstate 35E — more than a third of St. Paul's population and geographic land mass.
St. Paul's earliest history begins there, at places like Carver's Cave and Swede Hollow. And it is there that the city has worked doubly hard (as many cities have) to shake off dusty industrial roots that in St. Paul's case gave birth to world-famous sandpaper (3M), refrigerators (Seeger nee Whirlpool) and beer (Hamm's nee Stroh's).
It is in the East Side where one of Minnesota's only heron rookeries happily coexists side-by-side with one of the state's most-polluted (if defunct) city dumps. The heron rookery is on the south side of Pig's Eye Lake, while the old city dump is to the north of the lake and still referred to as Pig's Eye Dump.
One of the Minnesota's oldest surviving historic main streets, Payne Avenue, is on the East Side. It is being reborn for at least the third time as another thriving immigrant community takes root. Host at one time to Italians and Swedes, now it's home to Hmong and Latino immigrants.
The East Side fiercely lays claim to hometown heroes like Herb Brooks, Warren Burger and Wendell Anderson. The East Side is served by Johnson High School and Harding High School.
The neighborhoods of the East Side include:
- Arlington Heights
- Battle Creek
- Beaver Lake
- Conway
- Duluth-Case
- Frost Lake
- East Consolidated
- East Phalen
- Eastview
- Hayden Heights
- Hazel Park
- Highwood
- Hillcrest
- Lafayette Park
- Lincoln Park
- Mounds Park
- Parkway
- Payne-Arcade
- Phalen Heights
- Phalen Village
- Pig's Eye
- Prosperity
- Railroad Island
- Rivoli Bluff
- Upper Swede Hollow
- Wheelock Park
- Williams Hill
[edit] Battle Creek
A large, middle-class neighborhood on the southeast side of the city, featuring some spectacular views of the Mississippi River and Downtown Saint Paul. Traditionally a bedroom community for 3M, it's become much more diverse in the past 30 years.
