West Duluth
Denfeld Senior Graduation Video 2016
A shot-by-shot re-make of Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feelin’!” produced by Denfeld High School’s graduating class of 2016.
Video Archive: Charlie’s Club Fire of 2006
On the evening of May 22 and into the morning of May 23, 2006 — Charlie’s Club in West Duluth was destroyed by fire. (more…)
Woodblind & Big Wave Dave and the Ripples – “Kom-on-Inn”
Woodblind joins forces with Big Wave Dave and the Ripples on the new song “Kom-on-Inn.” With the help of Myke Dixon and crew, the hospitality of the Kom-on-Inn staff and the participation from friends and fans this video was created. It was shot on Jan. 17, and after a few months of editing it was released on April 5 with performances by both bands and video premiere at the Kom-on-Inn. (more…)
Commerce on the River: Loll Designs
In a manufacturing facility a few hundred feet from Stryker Bay in West Duluth, Greg Benson leads a company dedicated to making outdoor furniture “for the modern lollygagger.” Before launching Loll Designs, however, Benson built skateboard ramps. He started out in his neighbor’s garage and eventually worked with municipalities to design and implement custom skate parks. The excess materials turned out to make attractive and durable Adirondack-style chairs, and a new business was born.
“A lot of people assume that I must have been a skater, but really I enjoy hiking, kayaking, camping and being outdoors much more,” Benson says. He and his brother Dave, both University of Minnesota Duluth graduates, along with Tony Ciardelli , founded both Loll and Epicurean, a company that makes cutting boards and other kitchen products. They sold TrueRide in 2008 to a California company and took what they had learned and ran with it. (more…)
Denfeld Lip Dub 2016: “We Run this Town”
UPDATE: As is plainly visible, a copyright claim on the music used in this video resulted in it being pulled from YouTube after one day. Follow this link to see an updated version without the Jay Z track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euwPRIJcASc
Denfeld High School 2016 lip dub project. Full disclosure, I work at Denfeld as some kind of educator. The third annual all-school lip dub dropped today, something students and educators worked on closely for the past couple of months. It’s a mash up of Beyoncé and Jay Z’s “Crazy in Love” and “We Run this Town.”
If this is the future of Duluth, I think we can all be very hopeful and proud. Particularly noteworthy for me is the way that we see strong, confident and successful women portrayed prominently in the video.
Mysterious Masonic building seeks new owner
Real Estate agent Jim Aird in the balcony of the old Euclid Masonic Lodge in West Duluth. Aird’s grandfather was a member of the fraternity and had a room named after him in the building.
An historic and mysterious West Duluth building has stood abandoned for a decade after an ancient fraternal organization sold the property to a developer who died before initiating a renovation.
Euclid Lodge 198 erected the boxy, brick and largely windowless building at 611 N. Central Avenue in 1909, a period of great growth for the centuries-old, international fraternity of Masons. During its almost 100 years in operation, some of the most prominent West Duluth businessmen and civic leaders of the time participated in secretive ceremonies, jovial fellowship and benevolent works inside its walls. (more…)
Whole Foods Co-op – Denfeld set to open March 16
Duluth’s second Whole Foods Co-op store will open March 16 at 4426 Grand Ave., a few hundred feet from Denfeld High School on the site of the former Jefferson Lines bus station.
Those familiar with shopping at the co-op’s Hillside location at 610 E. Fourth St. can expect similar whole, organic, local and regional food offerings at the West Duluth store, plus an expanded deli area with hot and cold grab-and-go foods. (more…)
Old Eighth Street Market building’s days are numbered
The former Eighth Street Market building at 5702 W. Eighth St. is slated for demolition. (more…)
Updated concept plan for Lake Superior Zoo
Click the image to view a PDF of the full plan.
The latest concept plan for improvements to Fairmount Park and the Lake Superior Zoo was presented by a consultant last night at the Duluth Parks Commission meeting. The concept envisions a renewed zoo in a roughly 10-acre footprint that includes ADA accessible pathways, renewed and repurposed exhibits damaged by the 2012 flood, enhanced visitor services, and converts a portion of the existing zoo into public park space. The plan is estimated at $15 million and has $2.7 million of half-and-half funding allotted to it.
Comments can be submitted to Duluth’s Parks and Recreation Division until Feb. 15 to allow the consultants to analyze them for the upcoming Feb. 22 presentation and public hearing at 5:15 p.m. in the Duluth City Council Chambers, to be followed by a Parks Commission public hearing in room 303.
Sunshine Café reopening after owner’s recovery from injury
Sunshine Café, a 30-year-old West Duluth restaurant known for its affordable, tasty breakfasts and cheery atmosphere, will reopen Thursday after a five-month hiatus.
Owners Young-a and Steven Clement closed their café at 5719 Grand Avenue in August when Steven fell two stories from a ladder while cleaning the gutters on his home. He was in intensive care for a month and has been recovering ever since. He fractured ribs and vertebrae, damaged the orbital bone in his eye and sustained a nasty head wound. (more…)
Duluth ups its caffeination with opening of Grand World Coffee
West Duluth welcomed another neighborhood coffee shop on Jan. 4. Grand World Coffee opened in the former Subway sandwich shop space at 4918 Grand Ave., next to Vision-Pro Optical. (more…)
Jade Fountain closed; Gannucci’s expansion planned
Within six months of acquiring the Jade Fountain, Bill Kalligher locked the big red doors to the iconic Chinese restaurant. He reached the decision in September, fed up with a dirty kitchen he says he’s still trying to clean, alleged poor product quality from food suppliers and a box filled with bounced checks from customers. (more…)
Gannucci’s Italian Market on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives
[This post originally contained an embedded video that is no longer available at its source.]
Guy Fieri buzzed through Duluth and Superior in July 2014 to shoot four segments for Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. In this clip he visits Gannucci’s Italian Market in West Duluth. (A 30-second commercial precedes the segment.)
Four recent changes in West Duluth
Spirit Valley Days are underway in West Duluth. Here are a four observed changes in the neighborhood in recent days:
- Construction for the new Kwik Trip on Raleigh Street and Grand Avenue has kicked into high gear. The building went up late last week, making a fall opening seem likely.
- Around the same time the Kwik Trip went up, the former Auto Stop four blocks away was demolished. It had closed roughly five years ago. Materials for the Grand Avenue reconstruction are piled on part of the property at present.
- Wild West Liquor at 318 N. Central Ave. closed its doors at the end of July. There is a for-sale sign in the window. All four West Duluth liquor stores that operated before Super One Liquor opened in 2010 are now gone. Liberty Liquor closed when Super One acquired its building. The former Spirit Bottle Shoppe closed in 2012 and became Shake It, a nutritional protein shake and juice bar. The old Sportsman’s Liquor at 3904 Grand Ave. is now the Law Office of Jessica L. Sterle.
- Kosta’s Gyros abandoned its operation at the Minit Mart (formerly Little Store, still brandishing the Little Store name) on Central Avenue. Word has it there’s a new Kosta’s by Menards in Hermantown.
Also, the Duluth News Tribune reports that Community Action Duluth plans to build a greenhouse at the former Westminster Church location on Grand Avenue near Denfeld High School.
Custom Cheetos Speedboat
Is Custom Cab Co. in Duluth bringing their service to the lake with this tricked out Cheetos boat or is it secretly filled with an infinite amount of Cheetos?
Postcards from the Arrowhead Bridge
The Arrowhead Bridge connected West Duluth to Superior’s Billing’s Park neighborhood across the St. Louis River for 57 years. Built by the Arrowhead Bridge Co., it opened on March 15, 1927. The company charged a toll to cross the bridge until 1963, when Minnesota and Wisconsin state officials paid $200,000 to make it a toll-free public bridge.
The Arrowhead Bridge was dismantled in 1985 after the opening of the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge.
Vote Chocolate Ants
Perhaps someone can explain.
Is this bear poop on my front lawn?
These droppings were six feet from my front door this morning on North 42nd Avenue West in West Duluth.
Select Images from the 1930 Denfeld Oracle
With graduation ceremonies taking place this week, we look back 85 years ago to see what the Denfeld class of 1930 looked like. That year the school’s Oracle strove to inspire students “with a steadfast purpose to build well upon the foundations of the past,” and was dedicated to “the spirit of industry and progress which has existed in the hearts and minds of the citizens of Western Duluth.” The inside folds of the book feature a “Decorative Map of Western Duluth, with which we begin this post.
The senior class held two successful paper sales, a Christmas card sale and a class play to fund the yearbook in 1930. The organizations that typically funded the Oracle instead gave money to the pipe organ fund; Denfeld’s pipe organ had been purchased in 1926 for $25,000.
Old Klearflax warehouse is a-comin’ down
As previously reported on PDD, Walker Display has moved its operations out of West Duluth, and its former location on Grand Avenue is being demolished to make way for a Kwik Trip convenience store. The demolition process has revealed the former exterior of the building’s west side — a reminder that it once served as a warehouse for Klearflax Linen Rugs Co. (more…)
PhTSD
So I’m on the way home two weeks ago and sitting at the traffic light in on Central and Grand thinking I’m having some strange wish sandwich, déjà vu flashback episode. I know the post-traumatic Pizza Hut syndrome can be resurgent, but I swear they took the sign down months ago. Am I crazy?