PDD News Sieve
Missing Person: Julie Huntington
The Duluth Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance in locating a missing person. Julie Marie Huntington was last seen on the 300 block of South Lake Avenue in Duluth’s Canal Park district on Sept. 1 at approximately 7 p.m. She is described as a 34-year-old Caucasian female, 5-foot 7-inches tall, 300 lbs., blue eyes and blonde hair. Huntington was last seen wearing a grey tank top, black hooded sweatshirt and black leggings. The DPD would like to check the health and welfare of Huntington along with getting her home. Anyone who knows of her whereabouts is asked to contact the Duluth Police Department by calling 911.
Portion of Chester Park Trail washed out
A segment of the hiking trail in Chester Park on the east side of the creek, between Skyline Parkway and the Eighth Street bridge, washed out during recent heavy rainfall. Trail closure signs are in place leading up to and around the area, along with orange fencing.
Duluth’s Parks and Recreation Division requests hikers avoid the washed-out area and instead use the trail on the west side of Chester Creek. The pedestrian bridge near Eighth Street is open for trail users to safely cross the creek to the west side.
Lyric Kitchen and Bar will replace Porter’s
Holiday Inn & Suites-Duluth and Lion Hotel Group announced today the name and concept for their new restaurant — Lyric Kitchen and Bar. It will open in October, following four months of renovations to the space in the Holiday Center formerly occupied by Porter’s restaurant.
The name is a nod to Duluth’s past. The restaurant is located at 205 W. Superior St. on the historic Lyric block in Duluth, which was once home to grand theaters and touring opera companies. (more…)
What She Said! Short Play Festival Submission Call
The Underground theater is planning an event featuring short plays and monologues written by women playwrights celebrating women and what they have to say. The What She Said! Short Play Festival will be staged May 24-26. In the meantime, scripts for short plays and monologues written by women and people identifying as women, are being sought. (more…)
Jansen preparing to close the Main Club in Superior
Fox 21 reports the Main Club, Superior’s first openly gay bar, is closing after 34 years in business. Owner Bob Jansen told reporter Joey Nelson his last day of business will be shortly after the Duluth-Superior Pride Festival, which concludes with a drag show at the Main on Sept. 3.
Jansen said the bar has struggled in recent years because younger people feel less of a need for gay-specific bars.
“The younger crowd can go anywhere,” he told Fox 21. “So their support for some of the gay communities — institutions — have fallen by the wayside.” (more…)
Duluth 2017 Primary Election Sample Ballot
There are a mere two races on Duluth’s citywide Primary Election ballot for 2017 — city council at large and school board at large. Voters in District Four, the area highlighted on the map below, can also vote to whittle down the choices for that council seat. (more…)
Inside Duluth’s Armory
Photographer Dan Turner’s latest adventure on his Substreet website shows off the gritty and crumbling Duluth Armory, including a basement shooting range. (more…)
Missing Person: Edward Lepage
The Duluth Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance in locating Edward Lepage. He was reported missing on Aug. 2 and was last seen at the 5800 block of N. Pike Lake Road on July 31.
Lepage is homeless and often travels between Duluth and Superior. He is described as a 63-year-old white male, 6-foot 1-inch tall, 200 lbs., and walks with a distinctive limp. He is possibly driving a 2002 tan Dodge Intrepid with Minnesota plate 125WKH. Both Lepage and his vehicle have been entered into National Crime Information Center as missing and endangered due to a medical condition. The DPD is continuing to investigate the case. Anyone who knows where Lepage is or has heard from him is urged to call 911.
Port Town Trolley drops 50-cent fee; free service starts Aug. 4
Effective Friday the Duluth Transit Authority will discontinue the collection of all passenger fares on the Port Town Trolley service. The free rides are being offered to encourage use of the trolley service to and from Canal Park, particularly for those parking at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center and downtown parking ramps. (more…)
Girl from the North Country reviews are in
The Stage, a weekly British newspaper and website covering the entertainment industry, has compiled reviews of the new Bob Dylan-inspired play set in 1930’s Duluth. Girl from the North Country, written and directed by Conor McPherson, opened earlier this month at the Vic Theater in London.
Critic Fergus Morgan notes the show “boasts a large, diverse cast, and 20 Dylan songs from across his career, pared down and rearranged for the stage by Simon Hale and performed by a live, onstage band.” The setting is described as “a run-down Minnesota guesthouse during the Great Depression. We’re in Duluth, Dylan’s place of birth, seven years before the singer-songwriter entered the world.” (more…)
Missing Persons: Ronald and Mary Tarnowski
Update: On Aug. 5 at approximately 3:44 Ronald and Mary Tarnowski were found deceased. Their vehicle was discovered in a remote location west of Highway 2 in the Brookston area by a U.S. Border Patrol helicopter. The family has been notified. The investigation into their deaths continues, but foul play is not suspected. The death investigation is being handled by the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office. (more…)
Bent Paddle buys its brewing plant; plans expansion
Bent Paddle Brewing announced in a news release today it has purchased its brewing facility at 1912 W. Michigan St. in Duluth’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. The $942,500 sale was completed in June. Bent Paddle had leased the 10,600-square-foot warehouse space since 2013.
The news release also mentions “yet to be disclosed plans” for the nearby building at 1832 W. Michigan St., which Bent Paddle has used as an office space for the past year. The Duluth News Tribune reported on Monday that “documents submitted to the city planning commission show a re-imagined home for the city’s largest brewery.” The paper published a schematic design that shows “a new partly covered patio” and notes “Bent Paddle is applying for a concurrent use permit for the deck.” The design suggests a possible move of Bent Paddle’s taproom to the current office building.
Wheel of Duluth
We don’t have a video clip, and the specific air date isn’t known, but at some point in mid-July 2007 — ten years ago — Duluth was the answer to a final puzzle on Wheel of Fortune.
A post in the PDD archives notes the clue was “on the map.” The contestant had just two letters to guess with, making it pretty much impossible, but anyone from Duluth could figure it out instantly.
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Missing Person: Kenneth Gordon
The Duluth Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance in locating Kenneth Jay Gordon. He was last seen on July 18 at approximately 9 p.m. in a small red or brown vehicle leaving the area of the 2500 block of Rice Lake Road in Duluth’s Kenwood neighborhood.
Gordon is described as a 63-year-old Native American male, 5-foot 10-inches tall, 180 lbs., black hair in a pony-tail, facial hair and no teeth. He has a tattoo on his left forearm, uses a two-handed silver walker, and was last seen wearing a cream-colored long-sleeve shirt, grey sweatpants and a worn out baseball cap.
The Duluth Police Department would like to check Gordon’S health and welfare based upon medical health concerns. Anyone having information as to his whereabouts is asked to contact the Duluth Police Department by calling 911.
Duluth 2017 Primary Election Primer
Below are the offices up for grabs this fall and the names of those who filed to run before the July 18 deadline. The Primary Election will be held Sept. 12. The General Election is Nov. 7. (more…)
City Girl Coffee in Forbes
Duluth’s City Girl Coffee was featured yesterday in the online version of nationally circulated business magazine Forbes. In the Q-and-A article, City Girl founder Alyza Bohbot shares how her coffee business aims to source from women-owned and managed farms while working to raise consumer awareness of gender inequality in the world’s coffee-producing communities. She also details how she approaches the challenges of small business ownership and explains why social missions should be more than just a marketing tool.
Article link: Small Company, Mighty Mission
Three Downtown Duluth avenues will switch to two-way traffic
Three avenues in Downtown Duluth will convert from one-way to two-way traffic as part of the city’s plans to improve transit and access to businesses. The changes will be made to First, Second and Third avenues west from Superior Street to Fourth Street and intersections between Lake Avenue and Fourth Avenue West. (more…)
Trophy Café open on Commonwealth Avenue
Fox 21 News reports a new café has opened in the former Vietnamese Lotus Inn location at 1314 Commonwealth Ave. in Duluth’s Gary neighborhood. The Trophy Café is owned by Mont du Lac Resort and managed by Mike Ohara.
St. Louis County records show Matt Gregg is the owner of the building. He purchased it from Steven D. and Cuc T. Allen one year ago for $40,000. The Allens were proprietors of the Lotus Inn, which they operated from 2003 to 2013, and briefly reopened in 2015 under the name VN Coffeehouse. (more…)
Missing Person: Leah Buehring
The Duluth Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance in locating a missing person. Leah Buehring was last seen July 1 in the area of 4000 W. Ninth St. in West Duluth. She is a 17-year-old light-skinned white female, 5’7″ tall, 180 lbs., with brown hair and hazel/brown eyes. She is possibly wearing a knee brace on her right knee. Buehring may also use the name “Angel Faith James.”
Anyone with information pertaining to Buehring’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Duluth Police Department by calling 911, or Duluth Police Department Investigations at 218-730-5560 during business hours or 218-625-3581 at any time.
Pressroom Podcast: PDD on the DNT
Click the lil’ triangle above to hear a 37-minute podcast about Perfect Duluth Day on the eve of its 14th anniversary.
Duluth News Tribune Pressroom Podcast hosts Christa Lawler and Brady Slater talk with PDD grand poobah Paul Lundgren, food and drink reporter Lissa Maki, and PDD co-founder Barrett Chase (who left PDD in 2015 to become a web editor at the DNT).
Perfect Duluth Day’s 14th birthday party is Thursday, June 29, from 5-7 p.m. at Sir Benedict’s Tavern on the Lake. Free coleslaw while supplies last!
Sinclair Lewis’ Perfect Duluth Day
Excerpt of a letter from Sinclair Lewis to Marcella Powers, included in the book Minnesota Diaries:
What a day — the first in Duluth this year completely of the type known to meteorologists as a p.d., or “absolutely perfect day” — cool, the air sweet, sky ringing blue except for lovely lazy clouds, as idyllic and indolent as a Grecian glade, yet full of energy for people from Chicago … the lake a mirror of many kinds of blue and gray glass, some sleek, some delicately wrinkled … (more…)
Dylan musical set in Duluth
Perfect Duluth Day reported in early May that a new musical play written and directed by Conor McPherson with music and lyrics by Bob Dylan was scheduled to open at the Vic Theater in London in July. What wasn’t known at the time is the play is set in Duluth.
Audio clips of two tracks recorded as part of a workshop for Girl from the North Country can be heard in the PDD post from May. Three reports verifying the setting of the play are listed below.
From the BBC New story “Bob Dylan: Conor McPherson on writing the musical“:
Conor McPherson has set the play in a guesthouse in Dylan’s birthplace of Duluth in Minnesota. It is called Girl from the North Country, after a track Dylan wrote in 1963.
“Colder than the surface of Mars”
Poet Dora Malech gets all Duluthy in a poem published in the May 29 issue of The New Yorker. It’s more that a reference — the poem is basically set in Duluth.
The text of “I Now Pronounce You” is available online, along with an audio track of the poet reading it.
Malech grew up in Bethesda, Md., and now lives in Baltimore. Her connection to Duluth is unknown, unless it’s as simple as the first line of the poem: “Our friends are getting married in Duluth.”
Reflection, refraction, dispersion: Duluth rainbow pics
Sun showers produced a Father’s Day rainbow in Duluth. Click the thumbnails to view the images at full size.
Photographers: Jamie Merideth (Duluth Harbor), Eric Dubnicka (Old Central High School), Tim Mlodozyniec (Denfeld clock tower) and Erin Anderson (Lake Superior).
Duluth artist Russell Gran dead at 81
Russell V. Gran, a Duluth native best known for his acrylic paintings and role as the unofficial “patriarch” of the Washington Studios Artist Cooperative, died June 14 of an apparent heart attack. He was 81.
“Endlessly curious and driven to create, his curmudgeonly exterior was merely a facade for a wonderfully humorous, sensitive and loving being,” fellow artist and friend Eric Dubnicka wrote on Facebook. (more…)