Posts Tagged ‘history’
2615 Park Avenue: Celebrating 75 Years of Cooperative Living
2615 Park Avenue in the 1950s / Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society By Becky Gazca, Walt Weaver, and Lou Tiffany Welter How many of you have driven by this building on the corner of Park Avenue and 26th Street and wondered what it was? In front of the American Swedish Institute, “2615 Park” was built in 1929-1930 filling an empty spot in the neighborhood landscape. It was the dream of our founders and builders, Carl Anderson, Gustav Nelson, Andrew Rydell and Gustav Rydell, to build the most luxurious and elegant apartment building in this neighborhood. “Financing for the construction of 2615 was obtained by the financial skin of our teeth in 1929. The architect most often credited for creating the plans was Martin G. Lindquist. The construction firm was the Anderson-Nelson Company, owned by Carl Anton “C.A.” Anderson and Gustav “Gus” Nelson, both recent Swedish immigrants. Originally designed to be ten stories high, plans were scaled back to six stories [...]
Tales from the Cemetery: FAQs
The fish were biting at Cedar and Lake. Twenty-first century kids had the opportunity to play 19th-century games. Photo credit: Tim McCall By SUE HUNTER WEIR Frequently Asked Questions The answers to most, if not all of these questions have appeared in one of the Cemetery Tales that have been published over the last almost-20 years. Here they are all in one place. When was the first burial? Who was it? The first burial took place in September 1853. The funeral was for 10-month old Carlton Keith Cressey. His father was the minister of the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis. Who owned the cemetery? The cemetery was privately owned by Martin and Elizabeth Layman, transplanted New Yorkers. They arrived in Minnesota in the 1850s and built the sixth house in what would become Minneapolis. They had 13 children, all of whom survived to adulthood. Although the cemetery was commonly referred to as “Layman’s Cemetery,” its legal name in its early days was [...]
Tales from the Cemetery August ’22
by Sue Hunter Weir Pictures courtesy Gretchen Pederson, cemetery caretaker. The good news and the bad news...The bad news: Several large tree branches have come down in recent storms and either have been or will be removed by the Park Board. On the Fourth of July, a stolen van loaded with fireworks crashed into the fence near the Cedar-Lake bus stop. The good news: The trim on the caretaker’s cottage has a fresh coat of paint, and the 50-foot-tall flagpole has also been repainted. Elizabeth Avenue, the cemetery’s only road has been seal coated. On July 8th, three new markers, all for infants, were placed. Architects from Miller- Dunwiddie have been surveying the limestone pillars and restoration will begin soon. When a street in South Minneapolis was renamed to honor John Cheatham, Minneapolis’ first Black firefighter, it was a big news story. It was picked up by all of the local television stations, by Minneapolis Public Radio and by the Atlanta Black Star and [...]
