News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Saturday March 15th 2025
We Want Your Ideas For Health Improvement! Backyard Initiative Update
The Backyard Initiative is a community partnership to improve the health and health care of the community. The Alley Newspaper will be publishing a special insert on the Backyard Initiative in the May edition. We invite you to join us for a special event to meet your neighbors and distribute the insert throughout the Backyard*. Thursday, May 6 5 to 7 p.m. Midtown Global Market Food and brief program before distribution begins Thank you incentives for all volunteers To RSVP: Please call the Cultural Wellness Center at 612-721-5745 *
by Janice Barbee, Cultural Wellness Center & Paula Fynboh, Allina Health System
Join a BYI Citizen Health Action Team (CHAT)
The Backyard Initiative has moved to a new phase. Community residents who live in the Backyard area (the Phillips neighborhoods, Central, Powderhorn Park, and Corcoran) are now meeting twice a month to develop projects that improve the health of residents. We want to involve more community residents in this work. If you have an interest in working with your neighbors on a health-improvement project, and/or if you have a great idea to bring to the dialogue, please join us.
CHATs now meeting:
1. Rebirthing Community: Bringing Elders and Youth Together: Focused on bringing elders and youth together for a “rebirthing” of community.… Read the rest “We Want Your Ideas For Health Improvement! Backyard Initiative Update”
“Going the extra mile”¦beauty is an essential element in one”'s life.”
by Michael Simms
I”'ve always believed that having beauty in one”'s life was an essential element for my own happiness. When we started rehabbing properties in Minneapolis, we had many discussions with various contractors whose mindset was “Just do what”'s absolutely necessary” to rent, and we”'ve insisted on going the extra mile to make our buildings more liveable and to try and instill some pride in the people who live there. We ultimately believe it will extend the life of the property and,”¦ it”'s also the right thing to do.
Whether it”'s restoring a magnificent porch, or keeping or restoring hard wood floors that have been covered up by cheap carpet, or keeping beautiful built-in buffets and wainscoting that dramatically add beauty to a property, we”'ve always insisted on going the extra mile to attract renters who want a sense of beauty in their living accommodations. Of course, we also make sure that they are even more structurally sound than originally. We do new electric, furnaces, plumbing, leveling of floors, and whatever else it takes to meet our standards.
2704 has beautiful built-in woodwork and oak, hard wood floors we just discovered that we”'re bringing back to their original beauty. We put crown molding in other properties, have utilized exposed brickwork to help beautify another property, and in general, are always looking for a way to make a building stand out.… Read the rest ““Going the extra mile”¦beauty is an essential element in one”'s life.””
KUDOS HOMES AND GARDENS-April
Kudos Homes and Gardens
By Harvey Winje
The Alley occasionally features aproject in the Community that has accomplished an improvement project that adds to the view on the street, is pleasing to the occupants, and deserves special attention so that everyone knows that others care and appreciate it. The Kudos this month go to the work on 2704 16th Avenue by Tahoe Holdings and SafeHaven Development.
If you know of a small or large project you enjoy seeing, let us know so we can feature it here.
An Ode to Porches
Porches are more than an amenity. Porches have historic and architecture value that adds to the livability of a house, complementing the house as they beautify the streetscape. Some suburbs have begun building porches on new developments calling them one feature of a “New Urbanism” referring back to the folksiness of people enjoying a summer”'s evening on the porch in plain enough view to greet the neighbors and passersby.
Porches in this area usually didn”'t have frost footings—a stone or concrete pad beneath the supporting members deep enough at a minimum of 42” locally to withstand the heaving of the earth during freeze/thaw cycles. Because of the lack of such footings as houses usually (but not always on older houses) have, porches would start to lean away from the houses from the changes and also from deterioration of lumber underground.… Read the rest “KUDOS HOMES AND GARDENS-April”
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