Used to sit in the window of my friend's second floor "studio space" observing the activity up and down Superior St. Many fond memories of that hallway (with fuzz covering quite a few of them). Thanks for the post.
Melinda lived first door on right had big floor loom set up.Then I think it went to Kevin Taylor. Oddio Nib had a very nice art suppy store about where the picture was taken from. A lot of people lived here in that ten years or so.
2nd floor hallway of the Hayes building- now condos across from the Tech Center. The Hayes building was named after Rutherford B. Hayes, an early investor in the natural resource exploitation of NE Minnesota (also the only other president besides Bush II to be elected without a public majority, but with an Electoral College majority). It was the first masonry structure on Superior St. and was thus responsible for the orientation of streets and avenues in downtown Duluth.
I think it would be correct to say that this building's occupants had a lot to do with Old Downtown becoming the arts and enertainment district of Duluth. Some of the best potters, painter's, sculptors, fabric art, poets, musicians, jewerly maker's,live art, lived here at one time or other. Simon Grey, Ben Effinger, Richard Grucchala, Peter Weisenager, John Steffel, Todd Brown , Pat Joyle, Joy Kops, . Used to be home of Zenith City arts, Bulleye. Many more. and more than one party.
The Corner of the Lake Building was made up of two old buildings that were joined together. The second floor hallway shown in the photo is from the section that was the Wieland Block. The Hayes Block was the two-story section directly east.
The Hayes Block was indeed financed and owned by Rutherford B. Hayes in 1870, seven years before he became U.S. president. The building was rebuilt in the early 1900s and at some point was connected to the Wieland Block.
The H. P. Wieland Block was originally a furniture store, built in 1889. It was designed by Oliver Traphagen, whose portfolio in Duluth was astounding.
Since the renovation by A&L Properties, both old buildings -- along with a new one to the west -- have been called the Weiland Block.
Ah, yes. I remember that hallway. You'd go into the little rooms and put a fiver through the slot for a 2-minute dance. Oh, wait... right block, wrong building.
I'm sad to say I've been to the Rutherford Hayes Presidential Center. When they learned I was from Duluth, they dragged out a set of preliminary plans for the incline railway--interesting that that project had been so long in gestation.
[On a way-out tangent, there have been 13 other presidents elected without a majority of the popular vote (though only GWB and Benjamin Harrison failed to win a plurality of the popular vote). 1876 was novel because the Republicans so blatantly used their control of the three remaining Republican state governments in the South to throw those states to Hayes--some of them argued this was nowhere near as bad as the terrorism, intimidation, and abuse that Southern Democrats used to drastically reduce the black vote that had carried the former Confederacy for the Republicans since 1868. Enough pedantry for now though.]
@bret, that's my question...I'm afraid that gentrification has taken over old downtown. Maybe some of the hulking empty buildings on 1st street. Cheap studio space is an arts incubator.
The Hayes was originally 30-38 E. Superior, the Wieland 26 E. Superior St. The Hayes & Wieland were most likely joined in 1906, when the Hayes was remodeled by architect William A. Hunt. So the Hallway was technically in the Wieland. (Is that a Simon Gray paint job on those walls?)
Minor correction, Tim: Branch's Hall at 416 East Superior Street was Duluth's first brick building, constructed in 1870 (owner William Branch was director of Jay Cooke's LS&M railroad, whose Elevator A and a depot were located behind Branch's Hall). The Hayes, built later that same year, was the largest for quite some time. (But since it was the second, it puts a spin on the street orientation aspect of your comment; I'd like to find out more about that).
One reason Hayes had interests in Duluth: Friends of his from Ohio, like Branch, had moved here. Haye's old Ohio friend William K. Rogers was instrumental in developing Duluth's Park System. His was the idea of "pearls on a string": "vertical" parks placed along our creeks and rivers connected at the top by Boulevard Drive (Skyline Parkway, once "Roger's Boulevard") and Lake Shore Park (now Leif Erikson Park), originally designed to extend to the corner of the lake. Haye's also invested in Roger's Duluth Street Railway Company, who built the Duluth Incline Railway with it's grand pavilion (another Traphagen design, Paul) at the top along the parkway--so his idea for Boulevard Drive may have been a bit selfish!
My information is based upon personal experience (yes, that was my future wife down the hall) and the oral tradition of my relatives and (older) friends. I am not a professional historian and am too lazy to look up stuff that Grandpa told me 35+ years ago. History is fuzzy around the edges when you leave it up to me. As with any subject, you have to take my claims with a grain of salt....
Tim, I hope you didn't think I was criticizing your comment! Just being ever vigilant to keep the record straight: I want every one in town to have as much historic Duluth knowledge as Paul L., and hey, often enough those oral histories have it right and the "official" sources have it wrong.
So please keep adding your historic tidbits whenever you have one!
Wasn't Simon. I remember Simon dragging scraps of sheetrock up to the third floor and practising that style of painting for about a year. next thing you know he's painting the rotunda in the state capital in one of the Dakotas .I hope that is right, but Simon was a painter, the guy that did that hallway was a woodworker.
The Bob Dylan fetishists should make like Duluth skateboarders.
I though their new idea was "student housing." Guess that Condo Hotel thing didn't quite pan out.
Yeah, that gentrification plan didnt work out so well. (I think the entire floor is vacant)Maybe we could get our studio space back at the same price? Its about time for Fat Hens second record anyway. If we could just get Baby Judy back..
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