Part 1 can be found here.
In the Longfellow neighborhood I parked near the second of two places I had lived, an apartment building that was once the Infant Incubator Institute (also called Wonderland Incubator Hospital) at the long-gone Wonderland Amusement Park. A post for another day?
When I lived there, Walgreens was on the south side of Lake Street (which runs east-west) east of 32nd St, but they had since relocated to just west of 32nd. That new location is one of the many buildings in the neighborhood that was burned:
Kitty-corner across the street is a McDonalds that’s boarded up but with a functioning drive-thru:
There was a boarded-up Car-X auto parts store just down from the Walgreens spray painted asking that the black-owned house next door not be burned:
Not sure which next door house it was referring to, but the house across the alley was unscathed.
This small commercial building just beyond it was not so lucky and I think that the small structure attached to the back of it may have been an apartment. If so, it was the only residential unit I saw that had been gutted by fire. Not sure what business had occupied the building most recently. When I lived in the neighborhood the tenants changed several times and included a drop-in center for homeless youth run by an anarchist collective:
Just to the west of it, the library was boarded up but seemed to have sustained no damage:
The pawn shop across the street was not so lucky:
Not much left to see here. Looks like most of the debris from the old IOOF building that had been there has been cleared away:
Across the street, what was recently called the Coliseum but had long been the Podany Building. Way back when, a furniture store. More recently a Denny’s and a Mexican restaurant on the ground floor. Not sure if offices or apartments were above. Once upon a time, long before I lived in the neighborhood, I danced, danced, danced at a Suicide Commandos show in the basement that must have violated every fire code on the books. Didn’t burn then, did burn now:
Over the 21 years I was in the neighborhood, I bought more beer at Minnehaha Liquors than my liver would care to admit:
It may not be obvious in this pic, but there was still a bit of smoke coming from among those Bud Lights:
Across the street from the liquor store and kitty-corner from the Coliseum/Podany, Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct. It’s a brick and concrete bunker-type building. Still standing, but with extensive fire damage:
More pics of the neighborhood will follow in a third post, but I’m in serious need of sleep right now so it will have to be tomorrow.