The Coe Mansion at 17th St. and 3rd Avenue S. in Stevens Square is creaking back to life as the Minnesota African American Museum hopes for a May 2012 debut, Corey Mitchell reports. Three years after the project was launched, founder Roxanne Givens hopes to raise $6 million for a much-delayed museum that will "create a space for continual education and appreciation of Minnesota," especially the 270,000 Minnestoans of African descent.
Though it had no license to operate, the after-hours club at 3318 E. Lake St. featured male dancers, booze and plenty of loud and obnoxious behavior, Matt McKinney reports. The city is heeding neighbors' demand for relief by sending inspectors and cops to the place. In June, cops shut down another wild and illegal club not far away, at 3019 27th Av. S., that operated a mere block from the Third Precinct station house.
The corporate titan of Minneapolis is assembling a real estate empire in downtown, Janet Moore reports. Target hasn't said what it wants to do with the vacant commercial buildings, which create a void in an otherwise vibrant stretch of Nicollet Mall. The seller is hanging on to another property on the same block, the old Handicraft Guild, a charmingly decrepit brick structure that happens to be one of my favorite places downtown. It's the kind of building that Minneapolis has rushed to demolish whenever someone wants to build a gleaming office tower or parking ramp.
The Minneapolis school board agreed to spend millions to expand two elementary schools and explore the expansion of a third, Corey Mitchell reports.
Hennepin County's proposed budget would eliminate 127 jobs and keep the overall property tax levy virtually unchanged, although state tax changes mean that the homeowners may still see property taxes increase, Kevin Duchschere reports.
One day in July, someone went for a bite to eat at a Minneapolis restaurant and left a laptop in the car. A thief snatched the laptop, and now two hospitals are warning 16,000 patients that their private information could be vulnerable to identity thieves, Maura Lerner and Tony Kennedy report. We're still trying to find out where the fateful meal was eaten.
In other public safety news: police have received two reports of attempted abductions of teenagers in the past month, most recently on Monday by a South High School walking home from school, and a city school bus driver is charged with sexually assaulting a 5-year-old.
