Eric Roper's story about the artsy development boom on Hennepin Avenue downtown has already unleashed a spirited discussion about how cities become cool. Some wonder whether this plan will truly bring back Hennepin's glory days, or join other well-intentioned but otherwise unsuccessful street-focused revitalization plans. Throughout the discussion about Hennepin's past and future, one thing keeps coming up: Moby Dick's, that notorious dive bar bulldozed into oblivion in 1988.
Some parents are walking their children to school, instead of allowing them to go on their own, while police say the three attempted abductions over the past two weeks are not connected, Matt McKinney reports. They have identified a suspect in the most recent attempt, in which a 16-year-old fought off her abductor in north Minneapolis.
The U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis dropped in on the city Thursday to tout President Obama's jobs plan. The administration likes to use deteriorating bridges as backdrops, so Solis chose the 10th Avenue Bridge, the immediate neighbor to the collapsed 35W bridge, and one in which she apparently "noticed the bare rebar... exposed on the underside of the bridge," Dee DePass reports. I don't know yet whether Solis's observation will prompt a visit from a bridge inspector.
Former employees are suing Ameriprise Financial, saying the MInneapolis-based investment company botched their 401(k) investments, Steve Alexander reports.
In a preview of Saturday's Twin Cities Day of Dignity, a music festival and community service fair in north Minneapolis, Muslim albino rapper Brother Ali tells Chris Riemenschneider more about why the venue, Masjid An-Nur, is the city's hippest mosque. Giving us a jump on Halloween, nightlife reporter Tom Horgen provides a preview for would-be screamers who dare to descend into the bowels of the Soap Factory art galley on 2nd St. SE for its annual, artist-designed haunted basement. It sounds like a spattering experience.
