News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Sunday December 21st 2025
Franklin Library News January ’25
By ARI BAUM-HOMMES
All information listed here is accurate as of December 12th, 2024. For the most recent information, check out the library website at www.hclib.org.
FRANKLIN LIBRARY HOURS
Monday 9 AM to 5 PM Tuesday 12 PM to 8 PM Wednesday 12 PM to 8 PM Thursday 12 PM to 8 PM Friday 9 AM to 5 PM Saturday 9 AM to 5 PM Sunday 12 PM to 5 PM
PROGRAMS FOR YOUTH
Homework Help
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30-7:30 PM
Saturdays, 1-5 PM
Find homework resources for K-12 students online and at all our libraries: history, language arts, math, science and more.
STEAM Activities for Youth (ages 8+)
Wednesdays, 5-6 PM
Drop in for fun and creative STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) experiments and projects! Materials provided. Led by Franklin Library’s Teen Tech Squad.
PROGRAMS FOR ADULTS
Movie Matinee
Every Tuesday, 1:30-3:30 PM
Watch popular films every week with your Franklin Library friends and neighbors! In honor of National Native Heritage Month, we will be screening Indigenous films throughout the month of November. The movie series will continue through March. This program is funded with money from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Sponsor: Friends of the Hennepin County Library
Coffee & Conversation
Second Wednesday of the month, 12:30-2 PM
Join Franklin Library staff for free coffee & conversations with neighbors.… Read the rest “Franklin Library News January ’25”
A Correction to Last Month’s Article on Air Quality
30 Seconds at State Legislature Stopped Promised 5.7 M
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Thank you to Kaylee Miron and Maddie Young for last month’s excellent article about air quality in Phillips Neighborhood. However, although as stated in the last paragraph, EPNI and the City of Minneapolis did agree in Sept. 2024 to a one year extension to the purchase agreement for the Roof Depot site, the need for the extension was not that activists failed to raise their $3.7 million portion of the agreement. It was the $5.7 million that the state legislature had agreed to provide that failed to pass when the vote on the bill containing our funding went 30 seconds beyond the constitutionally mandated midnight deadline at the chaotic end of the 2024 State Legislative session. That is what necessitated the extension. EPNI is working with the Minneapolis delegation to secure the necessary funding in the upcoming 2025 session.
Thank you to the alley and journalists for covering these issues for our community!
Steve Sandberg
Phillips resident and EPNI board member.
Related Images:
Hester Patterson: Freedom Seeker
from the series Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery…
By SUE HUNTER WEIR
230th in a Series
Hester Patterson was a remarkable woman with a remarkable story. 150 years after she died, her story, and those of a handful of others, earned the Minneapolis Pioneers & Soldiers Memorial Cemetery a place on the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. The cemetery is one of two listings in the State of Minnesota.
There are many gaps in her story, but in some ways, it’s amazing that we know as much about her as we do. There is little formal documentation about her—no birth certificate or census information, the types of documentation that are commonly used in genealogical research. But there is something even better: a memoir written by Dr. William E. Leonard, who was eight years old when Hester joined his household.
Hester was born in Mississippi in the early 1800s and was enslaved on a cotton plantation until she was about 60 years old. During the Siege of Vicksburg in 1863, in an uncommon act of bravery, she ran away and found her way to the camp of the 5th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. There, she was befriended by company surgeon Dr.… Read the rest “Hester Patterson: Freedom Seeker”
Keep citizen journalism alive!
