Gay Haubner’s memoir about growing up in Duluth during the 1960s has been running as a weekly serial in The Saturday Evening Post since May 24, 2017. It’s at 36 chapters and counting, indexed on the page linked below.
Two longtime Twin Ports stores will soon close. Fox 21 reports the West Duluth Video Vision store will close this week. The Duluth News Tribune reports Younkers in Superior’s Mariner Mall will close within 12 weeks.
Duluth’s Dan Vander Ark took first place in the Nature category of Lake Superior Magazine‘s 23rd Annual Photo Contest. His photo, “The Turtles Four,” was shot near Iron River. Galleries of all the winning photos and runners up can be seen on lakesuperior.com. The winners were featured in the magazine’s February/March issue, which also marked the publication’s 40th anniversary.
A 2011 alum of the College of St. Scholastica will appear on TV’s Jeopardy! game show on Tuesday, Jan. 30. The program airs at 5 p.m. in Duluth on the CBS affiliate KBJR channel 6.2.
Emily Lewis graduated from St. Scholastica with three majors — mathematics, economics and finance. She currently lives in San Diego, where she works as a merchandise planner for Petco.
Jeopardy! is a pre-recorded program and the Jan. 30 episode has already been shot, but Lewis isn’t allowed to share any details about her appearance before the air date.
Duluth’s Parks and Recreation Division is requesting public comment on the Lower Chester Park Mini-Master Plan draft until Jan. 31. There is also a supplementary survey for the plan that members of the public are encouraged to complete.
Following the public comment period, a final draft of the plan will be reviewed and voted on by the Duluth Parks Commission on Feb. 14 at 5 p.m. in Duluth City Hall, Council Chambers. For more information about the plans, visit the Parks Planning webpage at duluthmn.gov.
One of Duluth’s first four parks, Chester Park spans approximately 131 acres between 13th and 15th avenues east and stretches from Kenwood Avenue to Fourth Street, where Chester Creek runs under the street and, a few blocks later, disappears underground before emerging near Leif Erikson Park, where it empties into Lake Superior. Lower Chester Park, specifically, is located at 15th Avenue East and East Fifth Street and is about two acres in size.
Creative Minnesota has released its second biennial economic report. The effort is a collaboration of arts and culture funders in partnership with Minnesota Citizens for the Arts with the goal is to “create solid, hard data about the arts sector.” The data is collected for “analysis, education and advocacy.”
The nine-page Lower Spirit Mountain Riverfront Park Site Plan was presented to the Duluth Parks Commission on Jan. 10 and the city’s Parks and Recreation Division is seeking public comment on it until Jan. 31. A final draft of the plan will be presented and voted on at the Feb. 14 Parks Commission meeting.
The site sits below the BNSF Railroad, opposite Tallus Island in Duluth’s Riverside neighborhood, and has approximately 1,500 ft. of shoreline to the St. Louis River.
The Duluth City Council adopted the Irving Fairmount Brownfields Revitalization Plan on Dec. 11. Irving and Fairmount are sub-neighborhoods of West Duluth.
The video above shows clips from a gathering on Oct. 18 at Loll Designs headquarters marking the completion of the plan.
The planning effort focused on redevelopment of post-industrial sites, infrastructure improvements, creating better connections to the Spirit Valley commercial area and increasing walkability.
It started as a Twitter feud between Mt. St. Helens and Lake Superior, then Duluth band Low got involved. Soon Glacier Peak, Mt. Baker, Cahaba River and the Grand Canyon were in on the action.
The Winter 2017 issue of Rain Taxi, a Minneapolis-based book review and literary magazine, features artwork by Duluth’s Chris Monroe.
WDIO Eyewitness News reports the Vanilla Bean restaurant will open a Duluth location in the Mount Royal Shopping Center on Feb. 1. The space has been occupied by Northern Waters Restaurant since February 2016; Northern Waters’ owners announced earlier this month they will close their eatery on Dec. 31.
The original Vanilla Bean, in Two Harbors, opened in 1998.
“The Duluth location will serve Vanilla Bean’s popular signature dishes including oven-baked omelets, Swedish pancakes with lingonberries, Norwegian crepes, pasties, soups, sandwiches, and burgers,” the Eyewitness News story notes. “It will also have full liquor, beer and wine service.”
Island Lake Inn, a bar and grill about 12 miles north of Duluth in the Gnesen Township, has closed.
Duluth appeared briefly on CBS This Morning‘s story “Heavy snow and winds wreak havoc for holiday travelers.” At the 1:46 mark in the video above, Duluth is shown as reporter DeMarco Morgan notes “Minnesota had windchills as cold as 35 degrees below zero.” (CBS forces a commercial at the front of the video; PDD apologizes for it.)
Duluth’s Emma Deaner is featured in The Growler‘s list of “25 Trailblazers of 2017.” Deaner is associate events manager at Glensheen Mansion and drummer for the band Superior Siren.
Trailblazers 2017: Emma Deaner of Superior Siren
“It’s going to be a busy year for Deaner,” the article notes. “She’s involved with a TBA project at the soon-to-reopen NorShor Theatre, and Superior Siren are launching their new album with a series of shows in January. What’s more, Deaner’s joining the Minnesota Music Coalition board of directors with the hope to ‘help bridge the gap between the metro and the North Shore.'”
The Growler is a monthly craft-culture magazine published out of St. Paul.
A post on photographer Dan Turner’s Substreet website takes a peek at Superior’s old East End Milling District.
“Daisy was the last of the flour mills to close in the Twin Ports,” Turner writes. “It closed in the 1970s when Peavey moved its durum operations to a new mill in Hastings, Minnesota. Today the mill is unused, though a company uses the silos.”
