News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Friday December 19th 2025
Amen Corner One Year Anniversary
“Ventura” means happiness and Good Luck to you! Buena Ventura
Participating Sponsors ”“
Ventura Village, MAD DADS,
KFAI Radio, Diversity Alive
The Amen Corner open microphone community listening sessions were created by VV one year ago July 23, 2011 and are held every Thurs. and Fri. at Touchstone “Thrones” Plaza of Peavey Park.
Whatever the weather or season, we bring our microphones, food and drink to engage people, to hear what people think about our neighborhood and to document voices, to report their visions and concerns back to our neighborhood organization for action.
We have created a culture of tolerance, safety, recovery and intermingling of youth and elders at Peavey Park and the Chicago/Franklin intersection.
We acted on suggestions that VVN change the Membership Section of our ByLaws to make it easier for all residents to participate in VV activities.
2323 Eleventh Avenue South ”“ Mpls. MN 55404 P.O. Box 580757 Mpls. MN 55757””612-874-9070
Amen Corner Notes:Â
The Amen Corner concept of an open microphone to our community comes from a play by James Baldwin, the famed African American Author, featuring people who had to confront and act on truths they discovered about themselves.… Read the rest “Amen Corner One Year Anniversary”
Gettysburg infantryman, James Francis Towner, Remembered and Honored 147 years later
By Sue Hunter Weir
In April 1932, members of the Minneapolis Cemetery Protective Association (MCPA) ordered a military marker for James F. Tower, a man they believed to have been a Civil War vet. When the marker arrived they had it set on the grave of a man named John K. Tower where it has been ever since. No one, it seems, noticed that the first name on the marker was James, not John. Private James Francis Towner (not Tower), the man that the MCPA thought that they were honoring, has been buried in an unmarked grave in a different section of the cemetery since 1865.… Read the rest “Gettysburg infantryman, James Francis Towner, Remembered and Honored 147 years later”
Needed: Thousands of Running Wolves!
By Jake (Richard) Jacobi
Shortly after Running Wolf Fitness Center opened last fall in the Phillips Community Center, I and my neighbor joined. I”'d never exercised in a gym, and I”'m pushing 70 years. My neighbor”'s about my age.
We found Running Wolf through our diabetes support group, A-POD (A Partnership of Diabetics). A-POD moved into rooms in the same newly reopened Phillips Community Center.
In my prime, I was a pretty good walker, and I swam in lakes in the summers and irregularly swam laps in a club in the winters. Just the same, I developed longstanding ankle issues and let myself get too big. In 2009, five years into my retirement, I ran into my own personal buzzsaw: a torn hamstring from doing the splits on sidewalk ice, renewed ankle pain on both sides from favoring the hamstring and in August of that year, a diagnosis of Type Two diabetes with peripheral neuropathy of the feet, which makes me slightly balance-impaired.
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