Paulucci complex sold for $7 million
Business North is reporting, via Finance & Commerce, the Paulucci Building at 525 S. Lake Ave. in Canal Park was sold in November for $6 million.
The buyer: Star PB LLC
The seller: Etor Properties LLC
The story notes that “in a second related transaction, Star PB LLC paid $1 million to Buckeye Corp., another private investment entity, for a 16,000-square-foot retail and office building next door, at 501 Lake Ave. S.”
The Paulucci Building is named for the late Duluth businessman Jeno Paulucci. It was built in 1915 by Gowan-Lenning-Brown, a wholesale grocery firm. The neighboring structure was built in 1909 as the Buckeye Building for National Biscuit.
Vikre Distillery is the most prominent business operating out of the two buildings.
Selective Focus: Ivy Vainio
Ivy Vainio is a self-taught photographer and this week she talks about how she got started, how her photography has grown, and where she would like to take it.
I.V.: I started taking photographs in about 2001 when the office that I work in got a Olympus SLR camera to help document our programs and events. With time, I became better at taking photographs and started to have a yearning to try this art form outside of the University. My husband surprised me, in 2011, and bought me a Canon Rebel camera from a local pawn shop in Duluth one day and that is all I needed to fuel my passion for digital photography. I took that camera out in our woods, and played around with it. It was in the summer of 2011 when I got my big break. I was at a powwow with my camera and I got a call from Jana Peterson of the Pine Journal newspaper in Cloquet. She heard that I was at the powwow and she asked if I would take a couple photographs for the newspaper. I told her yes and I have been taking photographs ever since with more intent of getting the perfect shot.
(more…)
South Shore Brewery expands into Washburn
After a 102-year absence, the steam plume from a brewery has returned to the Washburn skyline. On Nov. 30, South Shore Brewery’s kettle fired up its inaugural batch of Nut Brown Ale, which will be bottled on Solstice Wednesday, Dec. 21.
South Shore Brewery was founded in May 1995 with brewing facilities in the basement of the Deep Water Grille in Ashland. It was northwestern Wisconsin’s first microbrewery and the state’s seventh. Bo Bélanger, South Shore’s original brew master and president, bought the business in 2004.
In February he expanded operations into Washburn, opening the Lake Superior Tap House, a satellite tasting room and retail outlet. The recent move of the brewing facilities to the Washburn operation was done with the goal to make the brewery more efficient and competitive while increasing output.
In addition to the expanded brewing facility, the Lake Superior Tap House features a tasting room with a variety of South Shore beers on tap, windows that look into the brewery, and a shuffleboard table handcrafted from a piece of bowling lane preserved from the old Super Bowl Lanes, which previously occupied the building.
Downtown eatery supports aviation education
Lark o’ the Lake Café is an eatery with an unusual secondary purpose: to promote aviation education. “The Lark,” as it’s more commonly known, celebrated a year in business last month.
Sandra Ettestad, Mark Marino and Don Monaco own the restaurant at 231 E. Superior St. in the Greysolon Plaza. All three are trustees of the Duluth Aviation Institute and founders of its Gilruth Continuum Path to Aviation program. (more…)
Great Lakes Trader arrives coated in ice
The ice-coated Great Lakes Trader floated steamed into Duluth at 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 13 to load iron pellets. Video by Dennis O’Hara.
Duluth, you’re terrific!
This old plastic grocery bag from the Denfeld Super Valu asserts Duluth is terrific. The grocery store at 4501 Grand Ave. closed in 2001 and was replaced with a Walgreens.
Superior record store announces closing, huge inventory for sale
Vinyl Cave owners Tom Johnson, left, and Tom Unterberger will close the Superior record store Dec. 31. They hope to sell the store inventory to a single buyer.
The largest used record store in the region will go out of business this month after owners struggled to meet the demands of younger music lovers buying and selling collectible vinyl on the Internet.
The Vinyl Cave, 1717 Belknap Street in Superior, will close its doors Dec. 31. Owners Tom Unterberger and Tom Johnson hope to find a single buyer for an inventory that includes more than 10,000 albums, 300,000 singles, rock memorabilia and vintage stereo equipment. (more…)
Max Wolpoff thinks he’s Chad Salmela
Max Wolpoff, a Boston University student announcer working the Terriers women’s hockey game against the Gophers this past weekend, was almost as excitable as Duluthian Chad Salmela working the Sochi Olympics in 2014. (more…)
The Event of the Century: Standing Strong for Our Precious Water
The Standing Strong for Our Precious Water Art Exhibit and Concert Benefit for Standing Rock took place this past Friday at AICHO Galleries and was an amazing success. 400+ people showed up, raising a preliminary estimate of above $7,000 for Standing Rock water protectors and Honor the Earth (and that number continues to rise as more artwork is purchased over the course of the next month). The evening featured artwork by roughly 100 different visual artists, with musical performances by Annie Humphrey, Keith Secola, Jamie Labrador, #theindianheadband, Oshkii Giizhik Singers, Jake Vainio, and Richie Townsend. (more…)
The parking meters in Hartford vs. Duluth
A few weeks back PDD reported a Duluth reference in a new episode of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, prompting vague assertions that Duluth had been mentioned in an episode of the original run of Gilmore Girls.
Well, a more specific tip finally came in.
Duluth was name dropped in season 2, episode 3, “Red Light on the Wedding Night.” Lorelai’s fiance Max has his bachelor party cut short because his brother leap frogged a parking meter and didn’t make it, resulting in a hospital visit. According to Max, his brother “claims he wasn’t drunk. He’s saying that the parking meters in Hartford are taller than the parking meters in Duluth, so he just miscalculated.”
The episode originally aired Oct. 16, 2001. The Duluth reference is just after the 18-minute mark of the full episode; the bootleg clip above isolates the reference.
Duluth Square Dance Association Shindig 1975
From the Sept. 7, 1975, Duluth News Tribune; photos by Charles Curtis.
This is how some of more than 1,000 square dancers looked from the top of the scoreboard in the Duluth Arena Saturday. The terpsichoreans, from a five-state region and Canada, are here through today for Shindig ’75, sponsored by the Duluth Square Dance Association.
Forget the Nobel Prize ceremony, this place is more important
Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan’s parents, Beatrice and Abram Zimmerman, are buried at Tifereth Israel Cemetery in Duluth.
I didn’t get an invitation to the Nobel Prize award ceremony for Bob Dylan in Sweden yesterday. Instead, I visited a memorial to the most important people in his life: His parents.
Abram and Beatrice Zimmerman are both buried in Duluth; the same city they brought Bob Dylan into this world more than 75 years ago. The same city where I live.
So on a bright blue, wonderfully cold day, I stepped into my pick-up truck, dropped a Duane Eddy CD into the player and drove 15 minutes to Tifereth Israel Cemetery. Somehow it seemed more important than anything happening in Stockholm.
Read all about it here.
Price Check: Poinsettia
While some may still be recovering from food comatose, the rest of us must prepare for rounds two and three: food on Christmas Eve and presents on Christmas Day.
What if you cannot think of what to bring for Grandma’s Christmas Dinner? Bring her a poinsettia. It is the appropriate response to both a table decoration near the ham and a gift to warm her heart.
As I explained this price check to a coworker and she said, “my grandma puts like 20 of those around her house for Christmas.” I laughed because it happened to be my exact memory of poinsettias.
The red and green foliage is perfect for Christmas display. These plants can be found in all types of sizes, but for the purposes of this price check, the prices below reflect 6-inch or 6.5-inch poinsettias. (more…)
Adam Ruins Everything references Duluth
Adam Ruins Everything is at least the fifth television series to reference Duluth in 2016. Episode 23, which aired Dec. 6 on the cable network TruTV, features Adam Conover discussing “how deep Facebook’s tentacles really go,” with an example of a man who bought a “bacon double heart-attack burger” in Duluth after seeing an ad targeted through his Facebook likes.
Other shows that have referenced Duluth in 2016 include Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Robot Chicken, Vinyl and Lady Dynamite.
Sixteen Years on the Superior Hiking Trail: Silver Bay to Split Rock State Park
The fall colors in 2009 received mixed reviews. I thought they were outstanding.
“I’m sorry, but the colors were TERRIBLE this year,” one Perfect Duluth Day reader wrote at the time. “Very disappointed.” Another agreed. “They’ve been very dim up the shore.” One advised that it was important to “get off the shore 5 miles inland” to see the colors at their best.
It’s human nature, I suppose, to consider all things in relation to whatever else might be possible. Just this past week I was at Bent Paddle’s busy tap room and my wife quickly ordered two Harness IPAs, knowing it’s a beer I love. While that was happening, I was a few feet away looking at the beer options on the board and elated to see Barrel-aged Double Shot Double Black Ale was available. When a Harness landed in front of me I wanted to take that beer I generally love and pour it directly into a urinal to make a clear path for the Double Black—the only acceptable beer in the world at that moment.
So when I say the fall colors were excellent in 2009 and show a few pictures, it’s with the understanding that maybe they were the 974th-best fall colors of all time. (more…)
Doomtree – “Fresh New Trash”
PDD alum Kahla Statema directs this unofficial video for “Fresh New Trash” from Doomtree’s 2011 album No Kings. Rapper Andrew Sims is currently on tour, with stops planned at Papa Charlie’s in Lutsen on Feb. 4 and the Red Herring Lounge in Duluth on March 10.
Selective Focus: Chris Monroe
If Duluth has an official “look,” it’s a Chris Monroe cartoon. There is no possible way that you haven’t seen her art at some point. She has a show of new work opening Monday, Dec. 12, at in the Zeitgeist Arts Café. In this week’s “Selective Focus” she fills us in on some of the details.
C.M.: I work in several different mediums — gouache, pen and ink for the comics and other drawings, and oil pastel. My upcoming show is primarily oil pastel. It is the medium I often go to for fun. (more…)
Duluth Nordic Center Stop-motion Workshop Video
A compilation of stop-motion animations done by children at the Nordic Center on Nov. 20. Video by Falyn Oja.
Mystery Photo: Superior Street and Lake Avenue circa 1998
Where are you now, Danny Tanner? (more…)
History of Itasca: Part 1
Lilah Crowe, executive director at Itasca County Historical Society, talks about the rich native history of Itasca County in the first of a four-part presentation.
This short-form documentary was produced by A Plus B Productions as part of the Itasca Conversations series.
Dance Attic – “Startin’ a Fire with You”
Happy holidays! Jimi Cooper and Suzi Ludwig of Dance Attic bring the holiday cheer for this year’s PDD Christmas video. The song is from the band’s first album, tentatively scheduled for release in April. (more…)
Petitioning to Change Duluth in 2016
What do people want to change about Duluth? Well, according to change.org — as of 9 a.m. on Dec. 6 — 5,471 people want the University of Minnesota Duluth to save the American Indian grad program, 1,100 people want the city to stay the enforcement of parking violations targeting Duluth college students, 313 people want to stop harsh LED street lighting, 140 people want Duluth to pass a Homeless Person’s Bill of Rights, 13 people want a Trader Joe’s franchise to locate here and six people want to bring a Costco store to Duluth. (more…)
The year Joel Hodgson spent in Duluth
On the Halloween episode of The Dana Gould Hour, guest Joel Hodgson briefly mentions his family lived in Duluth for a year. The conversation had steered to small-town television shows and personalities, and Hodgson recalled “picturesque slides of lighthouses” and how it gave a “mood of where you were.”
Hodgson, of course, is best known as the creator of the hit television show Mystery Science Theater 3000. (more…)
ARCO Coffee celebrates 100 years
It’s remarkable for a family-owned business to withstand a century’s worth of cultural and economic changes, not to mention several generations of leaders. But Superior’s ARCO Coffee Company has reached this monumental achievement—100 years in business.
G.A. Andresen and W.J. Ryan founded the business in Duluth in 1916 as Andresen Ryan Coffee Company. Their names were later combined into the acronym ARCO. (more…)
Sarah Krueger – Northern Air 5-track EP
Duluth musician Sarah Krueger “holed up for a couple evenings in St. Paul” in November with her “good homie Jordan Taylor to record some holiday songs.” The result is the five-song EP Northern Air. Listen here for free, or name your price to download from Bandcamp.