Burning Down the House
Duluth’s Jean Kirwan compiled this montage of “catastrophe, calamity and chaos from classic comedies.”
Duluth Broadcast Television Station Guide
The Duluth market has seven broadcast television stations producing 29 channels of digital programming. Here’s a look at what’s available to those willing to jostle an antenna. (more…)
Tour of Superior’s Roosevelt Terrace offered Nov. 18
The Superior Telegram reports that a tour of three of the historic townhouses that make up Roosevelt Terrace in Superior will be held on Nov. 18. The event is a fundraiser for the Douglas County Historical Society and a school project for two Glenwood City High School students.
Roosevelt Terrace was designed by Carl Wirth and built in 1890.
Ripped at Keyport Lounge in 2003
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to Keyport Lounge in Superior and composed this article for the Nov. 12, 2003 issue of the Ripsaw newspaper.]
It’s Vikings vs. Packers, and the place where I want to be is the Keyport Lounge. It’s right at the foot of the Bong Bridge, so you know it’s where all the cheapskate Viking fans are gonna be, swilling Wisconsin-priced booze and risking life and limb among the inbred Packer Backers.
Sure enough, when I walk in, the amount of purple and green in the room is enough to violate some kind of health code. At least it should.
Anyway, this is a big night for me, because I like watching Viking and Packer fans interact. Personally, I don’t care who wins the game. Drink specials and free food at halftime make us all winners (at least in a loser sort of way). See, I’m a natural-born border straddler. My mother is a Viking fan who lives in Wisconsin. My stepfather is a Packer fan who actually worked as a meat packer years ago. My real father didn’t watch football at all, but he acted a lot like a Viking. You can see how it’s hard for me to develop a clear allegiance. (more…)
A lot of work to do before I can find joy on Thursday
I want to take a second to talk about an event some friends of mine are putting together. It’s being done entirely on volunteer energy (except for some food provided by UMD catering), it includes music and writing and community discussion, and I’ve never been so excited for an event that I think will make me sad. (more…)
Postcard from West Superior Street
This undated postcard, published by W. G. MacFarlane, shows Superior Street in Downtown Duluth with the Lyceum Theatre at left and Spalding Hotel at right marking the intersection of Fifth Avenue West. The Maurices headquarters and Ordean building and plaza occupy those corners today. (more…)
Arty Duluth Concert Ticket Stubs
In general, concert tickets are not attractively designed. These days people show up at the gate with a computer printout as evidence of admission purchased online, or more often just hold up their phone to display a code. When there are physical tickets involved, they tend to be nothing more than a faded Ticketmaster logo with the show details in grey, all-caps print. And that’s just in the case of mainstream traveling artists.
When it comes to shows featuring local bands, there often are no tickets involved at all. Admission is frequently free or it’s a cash-at-the-door affair. But there are a few occasions where tickets to local shows get arty. (more…)
Duluth sidewalk collapses under weight of boom lift
A building maintenance worker on a telescoping boom lift was pinned to the exterior of the Winthrop Building at 325 W. First St. in Downtown Duluth today. The brick sidewalk in front of the building collapsed under two of the boom lift’s four tires, causing the boom to shift, pinning the worker to the building under the weight of the boom. The lift tipped into a vault that extends under the sidewalk. (more…)
Selective Focus: Maelo Cruz’s Comics and Paintings
Photo by Jess Morgan
A few years after moving to Minnesota, Maelo Cruz self-published a 64-page comic called “Part Timer,” about a character who “dreams of being a full time artist while working a regular job that sucks the life right out of them.” His artwork is primarily autobiographical and self-reflective, giving viewers a glimpse of his experience living and growing up in Puerto Rico and fatherhood. View and learn more about his comics, below. (more…)
MN Moder – “Shooting Star”
The latest from Duluth-based hip-hop artist MN Moder is for all the dreamers. The video was produced by Montclair Media.
Duluth 2023 General Election Sample Ballot
Duluth’s Municipal General Election is on Tuesday, Nov. 7. The sample ballot above includes races in Aurora and the Town of White, along with school district races in Mountain Iron-Buhl (ISD #712) and Nett Lake (ISD #707). Duluthians won’t see those races on their ballots, and the city council and school board races on Duluth ballots vary by precinct. (more…)
PDD Quiz: October 2023
Test your knowledge of October 2023 headlines with this edition of the PDD quiz.
Batten down the hatches for next month’s maritime-themed PDD quiz, which is set to make port on Nov. 12. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at aklawite@d.umn.edu by Nov. 8. (more…)
River City Records & Books open in Lincoln Park
Chris Huppert shops for phonograph albums Saturday at the newly opened River City Records & Books in Duluth. Huppert had list of 10 hard-to-find albums he was searching for.
Traffic was brisk at River City Records & Books on Saturday. The new store at 1814 W. Superior St. in Duluth’s Lincoln Park Craft District opened on Friday at 3 p.m. (more…)
I Was Left for Dead at Nopeming Sanatorium in the 1918 Fire
(Excerpts from Scions of Cloquet by Jean-Michel Cloquet, 1946, out of print)
I was left for dead at Nopeming sanatorium in 1918, as the Cloquet-Duluth-Moose Lake fire combined with World War I, tuberculosis, and the influenza pandemic just hitting the northland. I’d brought my tuberculosis home with me from the filthy trenches of the Somme. There wouldn’t be an armistice for a month. Reaching Duluth, I was trucked on the dirt road to Nopeming with other infected veterans, fresh off the hospital ship. There we met citizens suffering from the homegrown TB outbreak traced to sewage in Lake Superior. That’s the Duluth I returned to. I’d barely survived overseas, evading German flamethrowers. Some of my trench-mates weren’t so lucky. Now I was barely surviving even though I was stateside, too sick to be properly shell-shocked from the omnipresent global crisis. So they tucked us away 10 miles outside of town in the forest sanatorium. Its name is Ojibwe for “in the woods.” The woods that burned. (more…)
What is the future of Ordean Plaza?
A recent Duluth News Tribune story about plans to convert the top five floors of the Ordean Building into rental housing included a brief mention of the city selling the small park next to it.
This particular little postage stamp of parkland is called Ordean Plaza, a public square across from the Duluth Public Library. It’s part of the larger Fifth Avenue Mall, a late-1960s and early-1970s effort to beautify Fifth Avenue West. (more…)
Selective Focus: Kathryne Ford’s Paintings, Prints and Visual Art
Photo by Nia Sayler.
Duluthians who love the local music scene may have stumbled across Kathryne Ford dancing with her acrylics while live painting. Ford performs most Tuesdays at the Rathskeller with jazz group the Hot Club of Duluth. A collection of Ford’s work called “See the Bloom” is on display at Wussow’s Concert Cafe through the end of October. Below is a recent interview and some snapshots of her artwork. (more…)
Summer Vignettes of Minnesota Wildlife
This montage of trail camera footage from Voyageurs National Park includes a bobcat and her kittens, a black bear, a deer, a coyote and several moose.
The camera was set up by the Voyageurs Wolf Project, which is focused on understanding the summer ecology of wolves in the park. This particular camera has been removed because the area is kind of swampy and there were no wolves traveling on the trail all summer.
Apartment complex planned for West Duluth
The Duluth News Tribune reports an 80-unit apartment complex called the Residence is being planned on the former Holiday Stationstore location at 3401 Grand Ave. The 1.9-acre site is between the Wheeler Athletic Complex and the ore docks in West Duluth. Merge Urban Development Group, headquartered in Cedar Falls, Iowa, purchased the land from the Duluth Economic Development Authority in 2022.
Postcard from the Proposed Court House Group in Duluth
This undated postcard depicts plans for the Duluth Civic Center, a cluster of government buildings that includes the St. Louis County Courthouse (1909), Duluth City Hall (1928), Gerald W. Heaney Federal Building (1930), St. Louis County Jail (1923) and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1919). (more…)
Zombie Media: Honey West, the Girl from Uncle and More
I’m still amazed at the media I am finding around town — especially since Best Buy announced it will no longer sell movies or TV shows on DVD or Blu Ray. Will we see a resurgence in the medium in ten years, as vinyl and even cassettes have come back lately? (more…)
Spookin’ at the Irvin: An Inside Look at the Duluth Haunted Ship
All photos by Erik Poffenberger
Most Duluthians can say they have taken the Duluth Haunted Ship tour, but how many have been on the other side? Every year this haunted attraction reaches out to invite volunteers to participate in the spooking instead of being spooked. I was able to get behind the scenes, uncover the creepiness and see how organizers of this historically haunted attraction keep things afloat (get it?) throughout the season. (more…)
Beyondbliss – “Try Tomorrow”
Beyondbliss is joined by Slug and Jaze on this track from his new album Born Deaf. The visualizer was made with an artificial intelligence program.
What happens every time Kip uses his view camera in public
“No. Seriously. Every time,” Duluth photographer Kip Praslowicz insists.
New Collections, Projects and Ideas for Publishing Mentorships
As a teacher of writing at the University of Minnesota Duluth, I’m both concerned with how students learn to express themselves and how they position themselves for lives and careers after graduation. Of late, I’ve been trying to develop coursework and experiences for students that prepare them for careers in publishing. This includes learning about BookTok, developing materials to explain the difference between an editor and an agent, and more. (more…)
Climate>Duluth: Julie Etterson and Jonna Korpi
Climate>Duluth host Tone Lanzillo interviews Julie Etterson and Jonna Korpi ahead of the upcoming University of Minnesota Duluth climate change conference, Our Climate Futures: Equity & Inclusion at the Center, to be held Oct. 23-24.