Artist Jan Kather, who teaches photography and video art at Elmira College in Elmira, N.Y., recently produced this video memoriam for worshippers killed in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.
Local relevance: An image from the 1920 Duluth lynchings is included.
Fifty years ago — Aug. 6, 1965 — the DNT reports the Duluth City Council is reviewing a proposal for the development of a $1 million mall at Fifth Avenue West in the area where the Radisson Hotel and Duluth Public Library were later built. The context of the story seems to indicate the discussion is not about a shopping mall, but instead something like the decorative median with trees that stands in the middle of the avenue today.
Spirit Valley Days are underway in West Duluth. Here are a four observed changes in the neighborhood in recent days:
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.
Fifty years ago — Aug. 5, 1965 — the DNT reports of Norwegian seamen giving the Twin Ports soccer team “an hour of stiff competition … with the local booters squeaking out a 1-0 victory.”
Place matters. It is our soil for sinking roots. Each contribution—150 years of them in Duluth—has been like individual leaves falling to the ground, gradually producing a rich, alluvial-like cultural soil.
We are all responsible for conserving culture, while simultaneously adding to its richness.
Economy and culture in the Twin Ports, though the two need not be distinguished, is increasingly based on neighborliness rather than on a cutthroat sense of competition.
Read the full column for some simple suggestions to spur us on:
Fifty years ago — Aug. 4, 1965 — the DNT reports a bronze statue of Daniel de Gresolon, the Sieur Duluth, is on a ship at Leghorn, Italy, and due to arrive in Duluth in about three weeks. It will be installed in the courtyard at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
According to the results of Duluth’s annual National Citizen Survey, conducted by the National Research Center, 76 percent of Duluth residents believe the city’s overall reputation has improved in the past ten years.
From the news release:
“This decade of successes is really only the beginning stages of a renaissance in Duluth,” says Mayor Don Ness. “Our sustained sense of confidence in Duluth is the key to turning our recent wave of accomplishments into long-term stability and vibrancy.”
Based on this year’s NCS and the compelling story of the recent surge in Duluth development and redevelopment, Duluth received the honor of the Voice of the People Award for Transformation in Built Environment by the NRC. The award is only given to cities that best use the survey responses to help drive community improvement. Duluth residents reported the most notable improvement in satisfaction with built environment compared with all other participating jurisdictions — another indicator of the national significance of Duluth’s story.
Ones and Sixes, the new album by Duluth band Low, is scheduled for worldwide release on Sept. 11.
Local tween entrepreneur on KARE-11 in the Twin Cities, in “12-year-old entrepreneur is pedaling profits.”
(Auto-starting embedded video after the jump.)
Saturday night we were enjoying a picnic dinner on the gravel bar on Lake Superior at the mouth of the Lester River, when along come three guys on fat bikes. They rode on the gravel bars and through the water. They entertained and we cheered.
Fifty years ago — Aug. 3, 1965 — the DNT reports on the ongoing Portorama Festival, with the crowning of Miss Seaway VI LaVonne Rae Englund. The “19-year-old hazel-eyed brunette” won the pageant held at Denfeld High School. Runners up were Laurel Josephine Cahill and Joyce Diane Hietalati.
Here’s a bit of what you’ll find on this week’s PDD Calendar:
A cheery celebration of the music of misery lands at Bayfront Festival Park for the 27th time: the three-day Bayfront Blues Festival takes place, this weekend.
Also happening: John Cusack hoists his boombox of love, Brandi Carlile hits the Big Top, the National Night Out is city-wide on Tuesday, Spirit Valley Days are afoot in West Duluth on Wednesday through Sunday, there’s a talk about baseball at Karpeles Manuscript Museum to go with their current exhibit and Eastland: A New Musical sets sail at Teatro Zuccone.
Beers and the symphony orchestra meld together at Great Lakes Aquarium, the Two Harbors Kayak Festival is happening up northways, the Superior Downtown Summerfest is taking over Tower Avenue, the St. Louis River Alliance is holding their annual canoe and kayak tour and you don’t have to be an animal to run like one at the Lake Superior Zoo.
Fifty years ago — Aug. 2, 1965 — the DNT reports of a bomb explosion at a house trailer used by Ryan Construction of Janesville, Wis., on a dredging project at Rice’s Point. No one was injured.
Fifty years ago — Aug. 1, 1965 — the DNT reports of a gambling raid in Superior that was “one of the largest mass gambling arrests in Superior that detectives could recall.” Another article, at the mid-right of the page, will raise eyebrows for its racially offensive headline, though such a thing was sadly common at the time. It is a story out of Americus, Ga., by the way, and not Duluth.
