West Duluth Archives - Page 7 of 156

Updated concept plan for Lake Superior Zoo

Feb 11, 2016 2 Comments

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.

News and Current Affairs Fairmount Park, Lake Superior Zoo, West Duluth

Sunshine Café reopening after owner’s recovery from injury

Jan 27, 2016 2 Comments

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.

Duluth ups its caffeination with opening of Grand World Coffee

Jan 14, 2016 No Comments

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.

Fremont Spurm

Dec 19, 2015 No Comments

Photos Graffiti, West Duluth

Jade Fountain closed; Gannucci’s expansion planned

Nov 11, 2015 10 Comments

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.

Gannucci’s Italian Market on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives

Nov 01, 2015 2 Comments

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.)

Restaurants, Videos Diners Drive-ins and Dives, Gannucci's Italian Market, West Duluth

Four recent changes in West Duluth

Aug 05, 2015 8 Comments

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.

News and Current Affairs West Duluth

Custom Cheetos Speedboat

Jul 29, 2015 4 Comments

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?

Photos Weird, West Duluth

Postcards from the Arrowhead Bridge

Jul 26, 2015 5 Comments

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

Jun 27, 2015 4 Comments

Perhaps someone can explain.

Photos Queries, West Duluth

Is this bear poop on my front lawn?

Jun 21, 2015 5 Comments

These droppings were six feet from my front door this morning on North 42nd Avenue West in West Duluth.

News and Current Affairs, Outdoors Bears, Poop, West Duluth

Select Images from the 1930 Denfeld Oracle

Jun 04, 2015 No Comments

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.

I hadn’t heard there was a boulevard scavenger hunt going on in West Duluth, but clearly I am the winner

Jun 03, 2015 2 Comments

Photos Weird, West Duluth

Old Klearflax warehouse is a-comin’ down

May 13, 2015 14 Comments

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.

PhTSD

Mar 29, 2015 6 Comments

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?

News and Current Affairs Queries, West Duluth

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