| Cedar-Riverside | |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s): West Bank | |
| Location of Cedar-Riverside within the U.S. city of Minneapolis | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Minnesota |
| County | Hennepin |
| City | Minneapolis |
| Community | University |
| Population (2000)[1][2] | |
| • City | 7,545 |
| • Urban | 387,970 |
| • Metro | 3,502,891 |
| Time zone | CST (UTC-6) |
| • Summer (DST) | CDT (UTC-5) |
| ZIP code | 55454 |
| Area code(s) | 612 |
| Historical populations | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Census | Pop. | %± | |
| 1980 | 6,728 |
|
|
| 1990 | 6,368 | −5.4% | |
| 2000 | 7,545 | 18.5% | |
| 2010 | 8,094 | 7.3% | |
The Cedar-Riverside, also referred to as the West Bank, is a neighborhood within Minneapolis, Minnesota. The boundaries of the neighborhood are the Mississippi River to the north and east, Interstate 94 to the south, and Hiawatha Avenue and Interstate 35W to the west. Cedar-Riverside is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the Twin Cities—in close proximity, there are urban poor of diverse ethnic backgrounds, college students, and middle-class urbanites.
The neighborhood is part of the University community, and is dominated by the West Bank campus of the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis campus, which includes the Law School, Carlson School of Management, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs Humphrey Institute and West Bank Arts Quarter. The two halves of the U of M are connected by the Washington Avenue Bridge. The acquisition of a number of residential blocks by the University for expansion of the West Bank campus was controversial in the 1960s.
The neighborhood also features Augsburg College, a private liberal arts college and the College of St. Catherine’s Minneapolis campus.
Cedar-Riverside is ethnically diverse, due in large part to the presence of the Riverside Plaza and its 1,300 units. The Riverside Plaza is home to between 2,500 and 3,500 people, many of whom are immigrants. Currently, most immigrants in the neighborhood come from Northeast Africa. The high number of Somali immigrants, in particular, has earned the neighborhood the nickname of "Little Somalia" or "Little Mogadishu." Northeast Africans are the latest wave of foreign-born residents, following the Europeans of a century earlier, and the Vietnamese and other Asians of just twenty years back.
According to census data for 2000 from the City of Minneapolis, over 50% of the families in the neighborhood are considered very low income, and over 60% are low income. Residents of Cedar-Riverside are transitional; out of the 2,838 occupied housing units in the neighborhood, 2,547 are occupied by renters.
Many maps identify the area as the West Bank Theater District because of the many theaters in the area. The neighborhood is well known for its contingent of activists - from the housing co-op organizing in the 60's, anti-Vietnam war organizing, and the worker-owned co-op organizing from the 70's until today.
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The neighborhood has been a port of entry for immigrants since Swedes, Germans, and Bohemians began arriving in large numbers during the late 19th century. The neighborhood has long struggled with poverty and crime and was home base to local hippies, protesters, and other counterculture phenomena of the 1960s and early 1970s. During those days, the neighborhood was known as the “Haight-Ashbury of the Midwest.”
The apartment complex at Riverside Plaza was built in the early 1970s. The tall buildings with their signature colored panels are a Minneapolis landmark. Many of the businesses that started during that time — Martha’s Antiques, The Whale Leather Shop, The Five Corners Saloon, Richter’s Drug Store and Smith’s Leather Shop — have gone out of business, but The Depth of Field remains.
The neighborhood’s past still has an influence in the present. Some of the businesses in the area hark back to an earlier time, like the now closed worker-controlled North Country Food Co-op and the punk hangout, Hard Times Café. In fact some of the businesses, specifically in the Seven Corners district, use the history to promote their own business, such as the "Legend of the Seven Switch-men...."
In the 1940s Cedar-Riverside was heavily Scandinavian. Postwar immigrants from all over Eastern Europe then settled in the area. The junction of Washington Avenue, Cedar Avenue, and 19th Avenue was known as Seven Corners. The Cedar-Riverside area had been known as "Snoose Boulevard" (Snusgatan) because so many Scandinavians lived there. [3]
Cedar Avenue became a hub of the Minneapolis Scandinavian community in the late 19th century. Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish were spoken in many of the businesses, and in the early days, stars of Swedish American vaudeville entertained at Dania Hall, Mozart Hall and the Southern Theater. Where men in the community once worked in small businesses, or as skilled tradesmen, and workers for the railroad, flour mills, and breweries, Cedar-Riverside declined as a core community in the 1920s due to the impact of Prohibition on the entertainment district.
There was Samuelsen’s confectionery and soda shop, Hagen's appliance store, Moberg’s Norwegian deli, and a host of other Scandinavian-owned businesses. On Cedar Avenue was Dania hall where the Danish community would meet. An eclectic mix of Gothic and classical styles, the building included a dining hall and kitchen in the basement, commercial space on the first floor, offices for the Society of Dania plus billiard and reading rooms on the second floor. A theater/assembly hall on the third and fourth floors featured Scandinavian vaudeville acts and weekend dances. On the corner next to Dania Hall was the Breezy Point Tavern owned by Oscar Carlsen, a Norwegian immigrant from the turn of the 20th century. Oscar had come to Minnesota working in the lumber camps.
The West Bank, with the locally infamous Seven Corners district, mouldered into a skid row scene in the 1950s, setting the stage for its next phase: in the mid-to-late 1960s, the area became the center of the University-oriented counterculture and antiwar movement. A community of hippies — and numerous students and hangers-on who emulated the hippie lifestyle (at least on weekends) — lived in old rental houses in the area and congregated at coffeehouses, such as the Extemporé, The Scholar and the Broken Drum, and at bars, such as the Triangle Bar, the Viking, Caesar's, The Mixers and the Music Bar. (The latter burned down the night Robert Kennedy was assassinated, and eventually was replaced by a "people's park"). The Triangle often featured performers and recording artists Dave Ray, Tony Glover and John Koerner, who had associated to some degree with Bob Dylan during Dylan's brief Minneapolis sojourn.
The West Bank also was home to McCosh's secondhand book store, a center for Beat and Hippie left-leaning bookworms, and later Things, probably the first 'head' shop in the Twin Cities, which sold counterculture curios, antiwar buttons and posters, incense and drug paraphernalia. Marijuana, hashish and LSD were readily available from 'dealers' in the area after about 1967.
Fairview Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital figured prominently in the neighborhood, being only a few blocks away. Fairview and St. Mary's, which merged in 1986, later merged with the University of Minnesota Hospitals, forming a major medical complex straddling the Mississippi River. The organization is now known as University of Minnesota Medical Center.
Cedar-Riverside is home to a rich arts culture. There are several playhouses and theatre groups in the area (like the Mixed Blood Theatre Company, Bedlam Theater, Theatre in the Round, and the Southern Theater). There is also a hot music scene, with bands frequenting current local bars like the 400 Bar, the Red Sea, The Acadia Cafe, Palmer's, the Triple Rock Social Club, and the Cedar Cultural Center.
The West Bank music scene is also known as a catalyst for major musicians such as Bonnie Raitt, Leo Kottke, Butch Thompson (Jazz Originals), Peter Ostroushko (Prairie Home Companion), Dave "Snaker" Ray (Koerner, Ray & Glover), Erik Anderson (The Wallets), Sean Blackburn (Prairie Home Companion), Bill Hinkley (Minnesota Music Hall of Fame), and Karen Mueller (Autoharp Hall of Fame).
Many of these musicians also taught, performed and/or jammed at West Bank School of Music, a West Bank legacy since 1970. The Cedar Cultural Center, Cafe Extempore, Scholar Coffeehouse, Riverside Cafe, Viking Bar, 400 Bar, 7 Corners, Whisky Junction, Cabooze and also Cedarfest have all been popular music venues in their time. KFAI community radio (started in 1978) has also been a mainstay at Cedar-Riverside in the Bailey building since 1991.
The arts flavor of the area is enhanced by the presence of the University of Minnesota’s West Bank Arts Quarter, which is home to the University’s arts programs. In fact, the University is the only in the nation with all of its arts disciplines located together in a single district.
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| Downtown East | Marcy-Holmes | |||
| Elliot Park | University | |||
| Cedar-Riverside | ||||
| Ventura Village | Seward |