Exploring Nordeast with Larry Millett—A Sample Tour

Northeast Minneapolis
Separated from most of Minneapolis by the Mississippi River, Northeast has long been perceived as having a unique character because of its largely blue-collar population and its ethnic mix, which once included thousands of immigrants from Eastern Europe.  Today, however, the neighborhood is rapidly changing. Immigrants now come mostly from Africa, Asia, the Mideast, or Latin America. Artists have also poured in, drawn to the neighborhood’s old industrial buildings; there’s even a city-designated Northeast Arts District. More recently, upscale condominiums have infiltrated some of the neighborhood’s traditional working-class haunts.

Architecturally, what makes Northeast unique in Minneapolis is its intimate tangle of housing and industry. This is especially true in the neighborhood’s older sections, where you may find houses on one side of the street and a grain elevator or factory on the other. Such casual commingling of disparate uses is frowned upon by modern zoning codes—the first of which was enacted in Minneapolis in 1924, well after most of Northeast developed—but it’s always been a vital feature of the neighborhood’s identity. Northeast also has many bars and restaurants, a circumstance stemming in part from an 1884 ordinance that limited where saloons could operate in Minneapolis. As it turned out, a good chunk of Northeast was left open to the temptation of alcohol, and the neighborhood thus became a prime destination for the city’s thirsty multitudes.

A portion of Northeast across from downtown lies within the St. Anthony Falls Historic District and was originally part of the town of St. Anthony. Founded before Minneapolis, the town sprang up in the 1840s on the east side of St. Anthony Falls. Industry—especially sawmilling—fueled St. Anthony’s growth until it merged into Minneapolis in 1872. Railroads, which arrived in the 1860s, also shaped Northeast’s destiny. By 1900, the tracks of four rail lines angled through the neighborhood. The Soo Line was especially important, once employing 1,000 workers at its Shoreham Yards near 28th and Central Avenues. The trains also brought industry. Factories along the tracks turned out everything from coffins to bottles to locomotives, and they made Northeast the most heavily industrialized section of the city.

Northeast’s architectural environment is varied not only because of its industrial history but also because it developed over a long period. In the northern reaches of the neighborhood, areas like Waite Park didn’t fill with housing until the 1950s. Elsewhere, in the historic St. Anthony East and West communities, there are redeveloped tracts of modern housing built in the 1960s and later. The area around Lowry and Central Avenues, originally called New Boston, is especially diverse. Here you’ll find Victorians interspersed among early twentieth-century houses, churches, clusters of brick industrial buildings, and a shopping strip along Central. Farther to the north and east, ranged along hills that rise near Johnson Street, are newer residential neighborhoods from the 1920s and 1930s. To this day, most of Northeast’s housing stock is modest and often displays the rough-and-tumble handiwork of do-it-yourself remodelers.

Hennepin Avenue East
A continuation of the historic downtown–to–lake district artery, this street has gone by a variety of names over the years, including Bay, Central, and Division. Today, it remains an important dividing line. Above it, streets and avenues have a northeast directional suffix; below, they’re all southeast. The most historic portion of East Hennepin is along a four-block stretch between the Mississippi River and Central Avenue. Here you’ll find many small commercial buildings, the oldest dating to the 1870s. Those east of University Avenue are also within the St. Anthony Falls Historic District.

Nye’s Bar and Polonaise Room
(Minneapolis Brewing Co. Tavern, harness shop)
112 Hennepin Ave. East
Includes tavern building, Boehme and Cordella, 1907 / harness shop, Ernest Haley, 1905 / Polonaise Room, 1964

A Minneapolis institution since 1949, known for its Polish cuisine, piano bar, polka band, and ineffably kitschy decor. It consists of two old buildings—a tavern and a harness shop—linked by a 1960s addition dominated by a sign depicting a pianist beneath a candelabra.

Melrose Flats
13–21 Fifth St. Northeast
Charles S. Sedgwick, 1892

A full-bodied Victorian extravaganza. Brickwork in a dazzling variety of patterns, white marble and brownstone trim, fish scale shingles on the bay windows, and multicolored glass transoms all combine to create the kind of rich and busy façade Victorians loved.

Village at St. Anthony Falls
Along First Ave. between Main St. and University Ave. Northeast
ESG Architects, 2001–5

A multiblock project that includes a new retail-apartment building, shops and offices in a renovated 1902 fire barn, a townhouse complex with 48 units, two mid-rise condominium buildings, and a row of luxury “brownstones” along Main St. Overall, the development follows the nostalgic lines dictated by “new urbanist” principles, and it’s almost too tidy for its own good: you wonder if you’re in a real city or in someone’s dream of what a real city should be.

The Falls and Pinnacle
20 Second St. Northeast
Miller, Hanson, Westerbeck and Bell, 1984

Though their busy postmodern styling already seems a bit dated, these high-rise buildings have more panache than many of the newer condominiums along the riverfront.

Proposed route of Interstate 335
Along Third Ave. Northeast east of Main St.
ca. 1960s (right-of-way cleared)

Townhomes and other infill projects occupy a swath of land here that was cleared to make way for proposed Interstate 335, which was intended to complete a high-speed loop around downtown. Fierce opposition from local residents finally killed the highway, and in the 1980s the right-of-way was turned over to the city for redevelopment.

LeBlanc House Bed and Breakfast (William LeBlanc House)
302 University Ave. Northeast
William LeBlanc (builder), 1896

A late Victorian house, more or less Colonial Revival in style. It was built by William LeBlanc, an engineer who worked for the nearby sawmills. The house’s most endearing feature is a flaring dormer—topped by a jolly elf’s-hat roof—that crowds up against the front gable.

Webster Open Elementary School
425 Fifth St. Northeast
Frederick Benz–Milo Thompson and Associates, 1974

Once much praised for its multiple-level, open plan, this school—like others of its kind from the 1970s —never worked very well, forcing teachers to create partitions out of filing cabinets, bookcases, and anything else at hand so as to have clearly defined classrooms.

St. Boniface Catholic Church
629 Second St. Northeast
1899 (foundation) / Charles A. Hausler, 1929

Established for German immigrants, this is the second-oldest Catholic parish in Minneapolis, dating to 1858. The church is a blend of styles, but the overall character is Byzantine Revival. It features a triple-arched entry, an ornate rose window, and a sculptural program that includes St. Boniface as well as the twelve apostles.Boom Island Park
700 Sibley St. Northeast
Minneapolis Park Board, 1987

Like Harriet Island in St. Paul, Boom Island is now a misnomer. There was an island here, but the channel separating it from the Mississippi’s eastern shore was filled in during a century of industrial use. The island took its name in the 1850s when it became the site of booms used to sort logs being floated downstream to the mills at St. Anthony Falls. After the 1893 fire, the Wisconsin Central Railroad built large yards and a roundhouse here. The iron truss bridge connecting the park to Nicollet Island is a remnant of that rail use.

LOST 1 Beneath the Plymouth Avenue Bridge, a small island formed by sand and sawmill debris was once home to the Gerber Baths, named after a local alderman who paid for a bathhouse and playground in 1906. Although the Mississippi’s water quality in those days cannot have been stellar, the baths survived until 1929, when fire destroyed the bathhouse. The island itself is now gone as well.

St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church
813 Main St. Northeast
Robert Alden, 1868 / remodeled, 1898 / remodeled, 1948

The oldest Catholic parish in Minneapolis, and one of the oldest churches as well. The parish was established in 1849 on land donated by Pierre Bottineau, one of 50 or so métis (people of mixed French Canadian and Native American heritage) who settled near St. Anthony Falls. Portions of this Gothic Revival–style church’s limestone walls date to 1868, but the tower and front are the product of a 1948 remodeling. The shaded grounds, among the loveliest in the city, are home to the Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, dedicated in 1947.

Minneapolis Brewing Co. Historic District
Two-block area around Marshall St. and 13th Ave. Northeast

Pierre Bottineau Community Library (Minneapolis Brewing Co. wagon shed and shops)
55 Broadway St. Northeast
1893 (wagon shed) / 1913 (shops) / renovated, RSP Architects, 2003

Minneapolis Brewing Co. Office Building
1215 Marshall St. Northeast
Carl F. Struck, 1893 / addition, 1910 / renovated, RSP Architects, 2002

RSP Architects (Minneapolis Brewing Co., later Grain Belt Brewery brew house)
1220 Marshall St. Northeast
Wolff and Lehle (Chicago), 1892 / addition (malt elevator), H. Peter Henshein (Chicago), 1904 / renovated, RSP Architects, 2002

Grain Belt Studios (bottling house and warehouse)
77 and 79 13th Ave. Northeast
Boehme and Cordella, 1906 (bottling house), 1910 (warehouse) / additions, 1949 and 1957 (warehouse), 1969 (bottling house)

Grain Belt Premium Lofts (proposed)
13th Ave. and Marshall St. Northeast (next to office building)
ESG Architects, 2006

The block-long brew house that dominates this small historic district is Northeast’s greatest architectural monument—a Victorian storybook of a building that erupts at the roofline into a dance of towers, domes, and cupolas. Long vacant after the brewery closed in 1975, its loss would have been unthinkable, and its rebirth serves as a testament to the value of preservation.

The first brewery here (and just the second to be established in Minnesota) was built by John Orth in 1850. Forty years later, as competition led to consolidations in the brewing industry, Orth and three other brewers combined to form the Minneapolis Brewing and Malting Co. Two Chicago specialists in brewery work, Frederick W. Wolff and William L. Lehle, then designed this brew house for the new company. Largely Romanesque Revival in style, it features four distinct sections along Marshall, a visual representation of the merger that created the brewery. Although the sections vary in height and wear different architectural hats, they are tied together by the use of the same wall materials—limestone and cream-colored Milwaukee brick. A malt elevator was tacked on to one end of the brew house in 1904, disrupting its four-part harmony.

A year after the brew house opened in 1892, the company introduced Golden Grain Belt Old Lager, later shortened to Grain Belt. By 1910 the brewery was the state’s second largest, behind only Hamm’s in St. Paul. After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the brewery began a long period of growth. By the 1960s, production exceeded a million barrels a year, but competition from national brewers proved too much. In 1975 a financier bought the ailing brewery and sold off the Grain Belt label. On Christmas Day of that year, the brewery closed for good. In 1989 the City of Minneapolis bought the building and began looking for someone to renovate it. Schemes of all kinds drifted in, but nothing happened until 1999, when the Ryan Companies put together a plan to redevelop the structure and lease it to RSP  Architects.

RSP did a superb job of turning a complicated, irregular old building into modern offices. The architects opened up an atrium, rebuilt wrought-iron staircases that were among the old brew house’s only ornamental features, created a conference room beneath the cupola, and brought light into the building. RSP also renovated the former brewery office building across Marshall St. In addition, the brewery’s former brick wagon shed and adjoining shops were renovated as a new home for the Pierre Bottineau Community Library. Another pair of brewery buildings—the bottling house and a warehouse—is now known as Grain Belt Studios and has attracted artists. By 2006, new condominiums were also beginning to spring up around the brewery, which has once again become the pride of Northeast.

Ritz Theater
345 13th Ave. Northeast
Liebenberg and Kaplan, 1926 / renovated, Baker Associates (John Baker), 2006

One of Northeast’s two historic movie theaters. It was designed by architects Jack Liebenberg and Seeman Kaplan just before they adopted the new art deco style. Much remodeled over the years, the theater was renovated in 2006 after being acquired by a foundation. Now home to the Ballet of the Dolls dance company, it’s also used for a variety of other performances.

Washington Street
Home to many immigrants, Northeast was thought by civic leaders to be in need of lessons in American history. Street names were one way to inculcate such worthwhile knowledge, and so it is that over 25 neighborhood streets commemorate U.S. presidents, beginning naturally with George Washington and then moving in chronological order. Thus, if you’re one of those rare souls with unerring command of presidential history, you’ll know that Taylor St. must lie between Polk and Fillmore. In a few cases, middle names were used to avoid duplication.

McMillan-Lacy-Bros House and carriage house
677 13th Ave. Northeast
C. W. Lunquist (builder), 1886 / addition, 1916

This Queen Anne house was built by an investor named Putnam McMillan in hopes that it would attract wealthy residents to the neighborhood. The first owner was a lumberman named Phineas Lacy, who sold it to William Bros. Later, the mansion was subdivided into 13 apartments. In 1994, new owners renovated the house and returned it to single-family use.

FOUR CHURCHES
Block bounded by 13th and 15th Aves. Northeast and Madison and Monroe Sts. Northeast

Elim Baptist Church
685 13th Ave. Northeast
A. G. Wass, 1904 / renovated, Armstrong and Schlicting, 1960 / addition (Centennial Hall), Bruce Knutson Architects, 1986

Emanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church
697 13th Ave. Northeast
Omeyer and Thori, 1899

Strong Tower Parish (Immanuel Lutheran Church)
1424 Monroe St. Northeast
1911

Church building (St. Peter’s Lutheran)
1429 Madison St. Northeast
1905

This block, avers the Guinness Book of World Records, is the only one in the world that’s home to four churches. The largest of the sacred foursome is Emanuel Lutheran, a two-towered Gothic Revival church overlooking Logan Park. It was built in 1899 for a congregation of mostly Swedish immigrants. Elim Baptist next door was constructed at about the same time, but has the broad proportions of the Romanesque Revival style. The other two churches, at the north end of the block, were originally built for what appear to have been dueling Norwegian Lutheran congregations. Strong Tower Parish is the only one of the four that doesn’t occupy a corner lot.

Bottineau Lofts (North East Neighborhood House)
1929 Second St. Northeast
Kenyon and Maine, 1919 / addition, 1927 / renovated, Sjoquist Architects, 2003

This Georgian Revival–style building was originally home to the North East Neighborhood House, a settlement house established in 1915 to serve immigrants. The building was converted to housing in 2003 as part of a project that included construction of new apartments.

California Building
2205 California St. Northeast
1915 and later / renovated, 1991 and later

This brick building served as a bottle factory, grain mill, and manufacturing plant before a new group of users—including artists, small businesses, and even the Fraternal Order of Eagles—began to colonize it in the 1970s. Renovated in the 1990s, it’s now an arts center.