New sign celebrates Snively Monument
A new informational sign will be installed at the recently refurbished Snively Monument on West Skyline Parkway. The Duluth Preservation Alliance will hold a sign dedication ceremony on Monday, Aug. 13, 3 p.m., at the Snively Monument, located just east of the Stewart Creek Bridge on the scenic roadway. (more…)
Nominees for Perfect Iron Range-area Restaurant Poll
Left: Photo by Sheldon Schwartz. Right: Google map manipulated by PDD.
It’s time the Iron Range got some credit. Summertime up north is spectacular. The abundant forests, lakes and trails offer the quintessential “up north” Minnesota experience. In past polls we’ve named the Perfect Duluth Restaurant, Perfect North Shore Restaurant and Perfect South Shore-area Restaurant. Now it’s time to look to the northwest and give some props to eateries in and around Minnesota’s Iron Range. (more…)
Lincoln Park School Store circa 1968
Left to right: Virginia Wingness, Steve Walli, Gary Logergren, Paul Town and Kathy Wilson.
Photo from The Times ’68, Lincoln Park Junior High School’s yearbook.
Lake Superior Road Trip
Dan Fourness put together this travelogue video of adventures in the Apostle Islands, Duluth, Sleeping Giant, Isle Royale and various places along the way.
Video Archive: Fred Tyson – “Free Man”
Circa 2007, Fred Tyson performs “I’m a Free Man” at the Red Lion Lounge … and forgets most of the words.
PDD Quiz: July 2018 in Review
As another month of summer comes to a close, we look back at the events that made headlines. Quiz on to test your knowledge of July happenings!
The next PDD Quiz, on Duluth murals, will be published on Aug. 12. Email question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Aug. 9. (more…)
My People
If I walk west there are mansions along my way, with lawns most green and lovely. As I cross a certain avenue things start to get shaggy, and if on a corner lot there’s a for-sale sign on a cairn of truck tires my diaphragm expands with the deep breath of belonging, and I think to myself — my people!
America, so it’s said, is the land of meritocracy, social mobility, and a playing field both level and just. Here any child can grow up to inherit a hundred million dollars, pump it through Manhattan real-estate, fluff it in the casinos of Atlantic City and Wall Street, and end up leveraged to the balls with the Russian mob.
But the most accurate predictor of where you’ll wind up socio-economically — in America more so than any other wealthy country — is where your parents wound up. Social mobility exists, and was expanded by the GI Bill after WW ll, and cheap (even free) college through the ’70s, but the ladders have been withdrawn over starter-castle walls, and rising stars belie the rule. (more…)
Urban Cabin
My spouse and I were sitting on the back porch of our big house on a small lot in south Minneapolis dreaming of buying a getaway out of the city. We are not, however, cabin people we decided. The thought of doing nothing for an entire weekend, while appealing to our parents, is depressing to us. It was then that we came up with the idea, what about an urban cabin? We have always loved Duluth, and what better lake to get a weekend place at than the largest fresh water lake in the world? So, a year ago we bought a place in Central Hillside and became part-time Duluth residents. Our companies agreed to let us work remotely on Fridays so we are able to spend half of each week in Duluth. (more…)
Selective Focus: Ashley Wereley
Tonight (Friday, July 27) is the opening of Peter Pan, Jr. at the Depot Family Theater, and next week, the Toxic Avenger opens at the Underground on Thursday, August 2. This week’s Selective Focus subject is the scenic designer for both productions.
AW: My name is Ashley, of Ashley Wereley Design, and I am a scenic designer, exhibit designer, scenic painter, exhibit painter, muralist and commissioned artist.
I stumbled into scenic painting while in art school when a friend at a local church asked me to paint some scenery they were building for a youth camp. I was immediately enthralled, and decided to stay on for a year at the Oaks Fellowship in Red Oak, Texas, as scenic charge and an assistant scenic designer. (more…)
Video Archive: Wabasha Books moves to First Street in 1998
It was July 1998 when Wabasha Books, longtime purveyor of adult paperbacks and other products, made plans to move from 13 E. Superior St. to 114 E. First St. (more…)
Duluth, Two Harbors and Silver Bay
Whitney Scott and friends cruise the North Shore of Lake Superior in this summer travelogue.
PDD Job Opening: Sell square boxes for fun and profit
Two seasoned professionals are about to leave the Perfect Duluth Day Media Empire. Brianna Hall-Nelson is moving to Denver to further her education; Brian Timm is giving up his PDD side-hustle to focus more on his work as a kitchen and bath designer.
That means Duluth’s Duluthiest website is looking for a new person to join its crew selling the advertisements that so handsomely stack on the right column of pages on this website (or in between the content if you are looking at PDD on a smartphone).
Click here to read the full job description and find out how to apply.
Brianna has been with PDD for three years, and Brian for eight. We’ll miss having them on the precipice of our tabernacle, tickling our 50 and sharing in other inside jokes that make no sense outside the PDD siblinghood. And we look forward to meeting the newbie and developing a whole new “slanguage.”
Kip’s Memory Card Dump #14
Duluth photographer Kip Praslowicz‘s latest memory-card dump video covers April 2017 to April 2018, minus the Homegrown Music Festival.
Saving the Brays
This past weekend I met Kym Garvey, who has been rescuing donkeys for about 10 years, now as part of the larger mission of Save the Brays Donkey Rescue. (more…)
Mystery Photo #69: Tall Ship
Based on fashions of the spectators, this photo appears to be circa the 1990s. Throngs have gathered to watch a tall ship sail into the Duluth Harbor. What is the name of the vessel? When precisely did this happen? (more…)
Squirrels
There are squirrels near downtown Duluth sitting cross-legged on alleyway tree limbs, picking their teeth with plastic shards carved out of trash bins.
There are squirrels in my neighborhood, Chester Park, who sit atop my garage roof and blithely stare below. Then they climb to the peak and play patty-cake.
I am seeing distinct packs of squirrels in the city as I walk from pocket to pocket. Those downtown squirrels are nothing to mess with. I imagine them waiting to pounce on any passive east side brethren that get lost and wind up sniffing around trash bins clearly marked for toughs. Each one has a squirrel-sized hole gnawed out of it. You don’t see that in the less dense, leafier neighborhoods.
And it’s not just the squirrels in alleyways from Fourth on down to Superior Street. Crows dive-bomb. Chipmunks clatter with menace. Skunk smells waft. Pigeons cluck disapprovingly. Even the flies are stickier. (more…)
Duluthians visit “Art and Healing”
It was nearly three hours from the Twin Ports to the Minneapolis Institute of Art in South Minneapolis to visit the opening of “Art and Healing: In the Moment.” But Duluth is participating in a national dialogue on race; it has for decades, since we started to acknowledge our own history of racial violence and our current racial inequalities. Participating in a national conversation means listening to what others have to say, about their experiences, too. (more…)
Selective Focus: #perfectduluthday
It’s time for a midsummer check on what makes a #perfectduluthday.
(more…)
Looking for a French tutor in Duluth
A group of Duluth-area senior women is looking for a fluent French speaker to help with language sessions. Two-hour sessions; twice monthly. The six ladies have advanced-beginner to intermediate levels of French. Willing to pay tutor. Merci bien!
Bijou Noir – “Do This to Me”
Former Duluthian Gus Watkins has released this new video under his band name, Bijou Noir. He’s returning to Duluth Aug. 10 for an album release show at Blush.
The video was shot this summer in pre-World Cup Croatia, where Watkins has been living off and on since 2017. Joseph Hyrkas is the director.
Duluth 2018 Primary Election Sample Ballot
Primary Election polls open Aug. 14 at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. (more…)