Features
May 1, 2022 | COVID-19 News, Features, Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News, Lowertown Food & Drink News, Lowertown News, Lowertown.info Announcements, News, Podcasts
Lowertown.info was launched in 2014 as an online visitor’s guide, news magazine, and community information portal serving the arts neighborhood of Lowertown, Saint Paul, Minnesota. The site also served as a place of record of the changes Lowertown went through in the last decade. The site created special archives relating to the gentrification of the neighborhood—the JAX Wake, Domination Corporation, interviews with Lowertown pioneers, the pandemic on top of the existing struggles of an artistic community—for those interested in what happened to Lowertown. This project and its associated Twitter feeds will be wrapping up by 1 May 2022. I can’t thank enough the people who supported this project over the years—artists, individual community members, galleries, and local performing collectives…. Thank you so much.
February 18, 2022 | COVID-19 News, Features, Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News, Lowertown Food & Drink News, Lowertown News, Podcasts
Welcome to the second episode of “This Is #Lowertown”, a podcast created by Lowertown.info—an online visitor’s guide, news magazine, and community information portal serving the arts neighborhood of Lowertown, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Hosted by the editor of Lowertown.info, Nigel Parry, this show was recorded on 18th February, 2022. This podcast has been relaunched with a music focus to support Lowertown’s performing artists, which has the added bonus of also making it easier to produce regular episodes. Our main news feature looks at the closing of the Black Dog Café and music from Lowertown musicians and bands, including Eric Carranza and Jest, Steve Kenny, Goodnight Ritual, Jerry Kosak, and Pocket of Resistance.
May 20, 2020 | Features, Lowertown News
This special section offers key local, national, and international COVID-19 informational and preparedness resources, together with Lowertown-specific COVID-19 updates.
April 14, 2020 | COVID-19 News, Features, Lowertown News, Podcasts
Welcome to the first episode of “This Is #Lowertown”, a podcast created by Lowertown.info—an online visitor’s guide, news magazine, and community information portal serving the arts neighborhood of Lowertown, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Hosted by Lowertown.info editor Nigel Parry, this show was recorded on the Easter weekend of 12th and 13th of April, 2020. Our main news feature explores how the cancellation of the Saint Paul Art Crawl due to the Coronavirus Crisis has impacted local artists • Hear music from Lowertown musicians Eric Carranza and Jerry Kosak from our GREEN LINE TRACKS playlist • Desdamona presents THE LAST INKLING—Spoken Word In The Time Of COVID, to keep your brain occupied and inspire you to create • Learn more about one of Lowertown’s art hubs—THE SHOW GALLERY • Saint Paul’s Queen of Jazz, Pippi Ardennia takes the stress out of songs-stress in a segment called DROP DEM PEARLS • Pick up some new dog care and training tips from local ‘dog-spert’ Tessa Anderson in her segment, PICK IT UP! • And we’ll hear more about news & events in the Lowertown neighborhood…
August 28, 2017 | Features, Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News
Northern Spark’s third annual all-night arts festival took place on June 10th, 2017 a locations in the vicinity of Metro Transit’s Green Line light rail stations, between Saint Paul and Minneapolis, including in Lowertown, home to the Union Depot light rail stop. This year’s festival featured an interactive installation created by the Lowertown community, titled “Domination Corporation: Proudly Homogenizing America since 1984”, to create a conversation about gentrification. Archive created by Nigel Parry.
May 11, 2016 | Features, Lowertown News
THE JAX, 39, of Lowertown Saint Paul passed away on April 30, 2016 after being fatally purchased for redevelopment. With great sadness, the St. Paul art community mourns the passing of a beloved art space that played an integral role in the Lowertown art scene for 39 years. Located at 253 E 4th Street in the historic warehouse that once housed Michaud Wholesale Grocers and The Jane Garrott Candy Company, The Jax provided affordable studios to artists and micro-businesses from 1977 until her passing.
May 10, 2016 | Features, Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News, Lowertown News
A short documentary film by Dave Bellmont of Kinostadt Films chronicling the redevelopment of the Arts district in Lowertown, Saint Paul, Minnesota. The sale of a key art studio building causes the sudden displacement of more than eighty career artists. After calling the JAX building their home for almost forty years, the community mourns the loss and wonders about the artists’ place in the changing neighborhood. (13 minute version)
March 10, 2011 | Features, Lowertown News
Twin Cities PBS’s documentary about the development of Lowertown. It was the birthplace of St. Paul and the focal point of the railroad industry built by the like of James J. Hill that made Saint Paul and Minnesota a key hub in America’s rail system. Then it fell into decay and abandonment. How did Lowertown return to vibrancy in the last few decades of the twentieth century? (56 minutes, 40 seconds)
