Uptown, Minneapolis

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Uptown is a popular commercial district in southwestern Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Calhoun Square, at Lake and Hennepin, in the heart of Uptown
Calhoun Square, at Lake and Hennepin, in the heart of Uptown

Contents

[edit] Location

The area is centered at 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.

The Uptown Theater
The Uptown Theater

[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 Uptown Art Fair, during the first full weekend of August. Local, national, and world artists converge to exhibit and sell their fine art. Art media include paintings, sculptures, clothing, pottery, jewelry, glass, and mixed media. Art cost ranges from $6 (USD), for prints, and up into the hundreds or thousands of USD for paintings. The Art Fair SourceBook has rated the Uptown Art Fair highly in past years for fine art festivals.

[edit] Prince

In 1980, Minneapolis musician Prince released his seminal recording Dirty Mind, which contained his paean to the artistic center of Minneapolis, appropriately titled "Uptown". In the 1990s, Prince owned a store at 1408 West Lake Street called New Power Generation. Prince is also a resident of a Minneapolis suburb, hence his association with the city.

[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.[1] Due to recent gentrification, some artists now see Northeast, Minneapolis as the city's new Uptown equivalent, as a place with cheaper rents for artists.[2]

[edit] Business and Public Buildings

Businesses in Uptown include many restaurants, bars (such as the Uptown Bar and Cafe), 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 Avenue. It is denoted by large metal letters: "L-I-B-R-A-R-Y".

Walker Library letters
Walker Library letters

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).

[edit] References

  1. ^ MPR: Minneapolis losing affordable housing to condo conversions
  2. ^ MPR: Getting a handle on gentrification in Nordeast

[edit] External links