Photo By John Hoff
When Realtor Connie Nompelis (No-bell-iss) bought her house in the Historic Farview Park cluster of antique homes, her earnest money check was equivalent to the list price: $7,900.
This kind of real estate transaction should be against the law: GRAND THEFT HOUSE! Connie's new home actually faces Farview Park, and from the back yard you can see the skyline of Minneapolis.
(Let those who have eyes to read heed this: a house in NoMi listed at $16,000 will go for as little as $7,900. Do not wait for the market to "bottom out" or so-called "investors" to snap up all the good deals! ROLL TOGETHER WHAT YOU'VE GOT AND MAKE AN OFFER!)
Party preparations went almost to the last minute, and due to the nature of the house some rather extraordinary steps had to be taken to get things ready, such as finding a crack pipe under a living room radiator and proudly putting the little war trophy on display for the scores of wine-sipping guests including State Senator Linda Higgins, (pictured above, to the right) DFL stalwart Brian Bushay, and numerous members of the Hawthorne and Jordan neighborhood boards...
And speaking of boards! Connie took the gray "Castrejon" boards that had been nailed over apertures of the house and used their flat, nail-scared surfaces for candies and places to set wine glasses. "Shabby chic," indeed! Rubble from the backyard kept the boards steady, and the shape of the hunks of cinderblock made Connie's candles appear oddly votive-like.
If there is a deity of revitalization (Juno, goddess of the hearth?) it appeared an alter had been erected, right there at the $7,900 house. An ornamental Bible verse--one of the few things left at the house by the former occupants--sat next to stuff found under the radiator: metal crack pipe, large marble, half of a pair of red dice, and an empty envelope postmarked August of 2006, mailed from a "Kenneth Wilson" to some former resident of the house.
Myself and DFL "political operative" Michael Guest ripped out carpet staples and those nail-studded boards used to tack down carpet at the edges, making the living room floor as perfect as it could be under the circumstances with no WATER at the house, no working outlet to plug in a vacuum. Connie must have put four dozen candles all around, but fortunately our Hawthorne Housing director, Jeff Skrenes, showed up with a fire extinguisher right about the time we built a post-apocalyptic bonfire in the back yard using, among other things, pieces of the house itself; namely the nail-studded carpet boards.
In regard to the danger of fire, Connie said, "I have faith." Of course, she also had people there like myself, Jeff Skrenes, Peter Teachout, and Anderson Mitchell, all unflinching soldiers of revitalization who would put out a fire WITH OUR BARE HANDS if that was necessary. Despite the building being condemned, everybody was, as the expression goes, "Safe as houses."
The refreshment table was full of items like smoked fish, and 99 cent goat cheese from the ever-more-popular So Low! Food Store at Emerson Ave. N. and Lowry Ave. N. One lady who came to the party said she'd heard about So Low! from this blog, and now shopped there all the time. Connie Nompelis herself now shops there more than I do, and I was the one who told HER about this hidden treasure of frugal luxury in the heart of NoMi.
State Senator Linda Higgins and Brian Bushay brought homemade bread, and a dip made from olives. There was much wine at the house, and most of it was consumed before the end of the night, along with a minor amount of beer. Connie purchased a few dozen brands of beer, saying she "didn't want to leave anybody out." I even saw a can of Old English, though I didn't see anybody actually DRINK it. Wine priced at under $10 a bottle appears to be the chosen drink of neighborhood revitalization forces, the wine mostly purchased from Broadway Liquor Outlet. (They couldn't take the store out of the hood, so they took the hood out of the store)
(Unlike SOME North Minneapolis liquor stores)
Our always-sober Hawthorne neighborhood Chairman Peter Teachout drank cola the whole night, as I did, too.
(Well, mostly)
No, this wasn't a "smoke crack and shoot dice" party, unlike, well...probably the LAST party thrown at the house, judging by objects found under the living room radiator.
An old Judeo-Christian ritual goes something like this: BREAD, so this house will never know hunger. WINE, so this house will know joy. SALT, so life at this house will have flavor. However, as far as I could tell, we had bread and wine, but no salt. And that's fine...god knows there had been enough "flavor" at that house when people were SMOKING CRACK there.
By lucky accident, smoked fish was substituted in the ancient ritual instead, like so:
FISH, that this house may be a key in making neighborhood miracles happen. SMOKED fish, because what was once smoked here will be SMOKED HERE NO LONGER.
Connie's delightful mother and stepfather made a brief appearance, and were--I think--rather unhappy by the sight of the crack pipe but, not to worry, Connie's stepfather was packing a gun in his hip pocket. (Which he managed to snag on Connie's nylons as she brushed too close in her elegant black cocktail dress!)
I pointed out to Connie's slightly-concerned parents that there was a distinction between a house where crack had been smoked, from time to time, versus a "crack house," per se. Connie's parents spoke, in hopeful comparison and retrospect, about the first property Connie ever purchased, at the tender age of 21, a duplex with cloth-covered electrical wiring running through gas pipes and PIGEONS living upstairs. That house was so much worse than THIS house, and yet Connie had made good money off that OTHER house.
They didn't say it in so many words, but they had faith in their daughter.
Besides, what did it matter? The house, the block, the surrounding area is being "de-crackified" even as I type these words, partially by Connie's mere presence as a new home buyer at the place she calls the "Hawthorne Princess." (It's a Queen Anne style house, only smaller)
Connie believes in NoMi, and she just put her money where her mouth is...even if the cash in question is only slightly more than "ashtray change." Sunny estimates being thrown around said the house could be fixed for a mere $20k. On the bright side, the house has at least SOME non-copper plumbing elements, though metal thieves had (for cripe's sake!) made chopped off half the kitchen faucet. I hope there is chrome to mine in Purgatory, and Purgatory is short on labor.
Contractor and self-made-man Anderson Mitchell arrived with his lovely wife, Lisa Mitchell, and their two children. One of the children picked up a tire iron found on the rear porch--apparently where it had once been used to pry on a board over the back door--and used the tire iron (like an alter boy) to snuff out candles. Connie promptly lit the candles again. Episodes like this were captured on videotape by Gabe from 612 Authentic and, who knows, this stuff might surface later.
Walking around on the front porch, Anderson Mitchell said he was dying to rip off the vinyl siding and get a good look at what the actual siding of the house looked like underneath. Many present agreed the front porch was the secret to Connie's "grand theft house." The porch looks SO CRAPPY that many curbside real estate browsers probably assumed the house was a waterlogged wreck inside. But that wasn't the case at all. Leaded glass, glorious woodwork, and hardwood floors in excellent condition were revealed. Connie was particularly pleased with the floors, since their condition hadn't been obvious under the well-tracked gray carpet. (Well, we THINK the original color was gray)
Luckily, our Housing Director, Jeff Skrenes, is literally the "boy next door" and many of us have taken it upon ourselves to patrol Connie's new property with frequency, including "Patty Cake" from the Eco Village, who hasn't even MET Connie yet, but has kept a watch on Connie's property when driving past. Guests who needed to use "the facilities" made the trek across the alley to Jeff's apartment in a rare and historic block house, some pausing to gaze upon Jeff's "Geek-O-Topia" shrine featuring, inter alia, the bounty hunters from Star Wars lined up in the actual order they appear in the movie.
Upstairs at Connie's house, many paused in wonder at the sight of The Glorious Rainbow Ceiling Fan, for it was A Sign and A Wonder. Here in NoMi is where you can bring your rainbow of dreams and house those dreams in an affordable centuries-old home with character, buying in for "five figures," not six, and the lower part of five figures at THAT.
Seventy-nine hundred for a house, baby, with hardwood floors!!!! George W. Bush, I've got your "ownership society" RIGHT HERE, BABY!!!!
When it came time for that most magic moment--the lighting of the bonfire in the back yard, the first "hearth" of the house under Connie's ownership--Connie insisted on doing the deed herself, and took the flaming piece of paper shopping bag from my hand. She set ablaze old pieces of wood trim and some dried flowers that turned up from who-knows-where, but made a nice fire.
Then came a fiery bacchanalian animal sacrifice: scores of Peeps marshmallow candies, shaped like Easter bunnies, were impaled alive and roasted in the bonfire. Some were lost, dripping into the glowing coals like flaming napalm, (only more delicious) true sacrifices. I thought I could hear little rabbit screaming sounds coming from the toasting Peeps.
I love the smell of burning Peeps in the evening. It smells like...VICTORY.
Stories were told around the flickering fire, stories of the sacrifices made to revitalize this neighborhood. Individuals attending the party who were house-hunting learned first hand of the hard, gritty progress we had made, the invaluable social networks created, and how we have come too far to turn back now despite slashed tires, a torched truck, broken windows, a recent rock to the head of an elderly resident sitting in her own house.
These ugly, thankfully infrequent incidents only make us MAD. These things only encourage us to blog harder, to call 311 and 911 with greater frequency, to lobby our public officials for yet more progress.
BUT WE WHO HAVE BEEN FIGHTING THIS REVITALIZATION BATTLE IN EARNEST DO NOT EXPECT OR DEMAND SUCH SACRIFICES OF THE NEW RESIDENTS THAT WE ARE TRYING TO CONVINCE TO BUY HOUSES. On the contrary, we are carving out "corridors of safety" so new home buyers, new residents, new CITIZENS of Hawthorne, Jordan, Willard-Hay will feel comfortable moving into places that used to be rough, but--as of lately!--are rough no longer.
For example, the "Eco Village," once called "Ground Zero" in North Minneapolis drug crime, recently experienced a two month period with NO REPORTED CRIME. We are not only winning, we are KICKING ASS.
My 11-year-old son was with me this weekend, but being watched over elsewhere during the party. Undoubtedly he was playing too much Runescape in my absence. So I left the party early, pausing long enough to receive juicy information about Kenya McKnight getting her political head served up to her on a platter in Ward 5.
While I was in front of Connie's house in the dark--saying goodbye to a couple of South Minneapolis residents and reminding them about the opportunities to buy dirt-cheap homes in NoMi--a police car pulled up at the intersection and shined a spotlight on me. I stepped back from the car window, and put my empty hands up. The officer took in the sight of my blue silk-like shirt, black slacks, army-issue dress shoes, empty hands held aloft...and immediately drove on.
Whatever I was doing at that car window, the officer apparently decided, it WASN'T a drug deal. It's too bad no officers stopped b the party. They would have been offered crackers, cheese, coffee, and thanks for their dedication. Keep up the great work, men and women of the Fourth Precinct.
The $7,900 House Party was truly the "social event of the season" but who knows? Maybe tomorrow somebody will buy a house for $6,000 and serve wine that costs more than $10 a bottle! If so, I hope I'm invited or--at the very least--somebody will forward me the pictures and stories!
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