Guest post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman
The Lowry Avenue reconstruction and beautification had already finished well ahead of schedule. Following in this trend of getting things done much faster than anticipated, winter showed up on October 10th. Everything in NoMi seems to be happening at an accelerating pace.
Despite the bitter cold and snow (snow! On October TENTH!) active neighborhood residents and a veritable who's-who list of NoMi movers and shakers was on hand. Pictured above is...
Our Hennepin County commissioner, Mark Stenglein. He christened the road by breaking a ceremonial bottle of champagne on the baby payloader - symbolism I just LOVED. "May God bless this road and all who travel on it." Well said. I noticed Mayor R.T. Rybak, Senator Linda Higgins, Representative Keith Ellison, County Commissioners Gail Dorfman and Peter McLaughlin, Minneapolis Councilmembers Diane Hofstede, Barb Johnson, and Don Samuels, and Representative Joe Mullery.
There was also a choral group, although (sarcasm font broken, notifying reader manually) because of the bitter cold, this was the only song they could sing in (click here) celebration of the ch-ch-changes happening in NoMi.
Ty Jaramillo was there from Jordan, and he took the pictures of the ribbon-cutting. One of the touching grass-roots aspects of that part of the dedication was that they had representatives of each of the neighborhoods that Lowry passes through participate in cutting the ribbon. Having that many participants meant that coordinating a simultaneous cutting was pretty much out of the question. So here's my participation:
It also appeared that the Hawthorne Hawkman might have some competition:
And somehow an uncensored Kenya McKnight flier seemed to have made its way onto a monster truck. Scary.
What was perhaps even more disturbing was this costume, although I have to admit it DID look like a good way to keep warm:
And finally, like so much in NoMi, this event was just a launching pad for even more revitalization efforts. Pictured below are two area residents, John and Laura Kosowski if I'm not mistaken, who are looking at starting a community garden in the area. If you want to be a part of that, call them at 612-529-8628. Yes, even on a surprisingly cold day, NoMi residents are organizing to make sure our community keeps on growing.
Hey John. May I copy the ribbon cutting pics to my Facebook page please?
ReplyDeletelinda higgins
lhiggins@nmpls.com
Tyrone Jaramillo took the pictures with Jeff Skrenes' camera, and then Jeff downloaded all the pics for my usage.
ReplyDeleteBut it's my understanding that, between the three of us, it's just fine! But photo credit should actually go to Tyrone Jaramillo.
Also, Jeff Skrenes says he will email you the photos he has. Apparently, he has a few he didn't use on the blog, too. Send him a tickler email if you don't hear back in a day or two...
Thanks for the credit Jeff and John, I was just more than happy to piont and shoot. Do what you do JNS.
ReplyDeleteT Jaramillo
OMG, did you notice the Entrepreneurial Squirrel on the head of the Park & Rec Board tree? What was HE up to I wonder?
ReplyDelete@JNS Reader, that is Chipper the Entrepreneurial Squirrel.
ReplyDeleteHe is just doing what he does best, finding a cheap and easy way to fill his needs - he needed to get out in the community and attend a community event to do his campaigning, since really not that many 5th Ward voters even KNOW who he is, so he always finds a way to 'piggy-back' around to community events, especially those events held by more well known community people that draw a crowd, since Chipper can't draw a crowd himself.
He isn't the only 5th ward candidate that has to piggy-back around to community events.
They kind of remind me of those small birds that ride on the backs of elephants, eating the bugs off the elephants.