By Topic: Gentrification
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.
January 14, 2022 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News, Lowertown Food & Drink News, Lowertown News
Lowertown.info—At the beginning of the year, the Black Dog Coffee & Wine Bar in Lowertown posted a simple notice on its front doors announcing that the Lowertown, Saint Paul hub was closing permanently. The poster added a date for the cafe’s final goodbye to the neighborhood—on Saturday, January 15th—the last night of Steve Kenny’s popular “Saturday Night Jazz at the Black Dog” series at the 23-year-old community venue. Come down and say goodbye to the end of an era.
January 3, 2022 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News, Lowertown Food & Drink News, Lowertown News
Lowertown.info—On January 2nd, 2022, the Black Dog Coffee & Wine Bar in Lowertown posted a simple notice on its front doors announcing that the Lowertown, Saint Paul hub was closing permanently. It is hard to overstate the importance of the venue to artists, musicians, and the community over the last 20 years.
August 14, 2020 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News, Lowertown News
Nigel Parry, Downtown St. Paul Voice—Uncertainty, displacement and questions of affordability have dogged the Lowertown artist community for most of the last decade, primarily the result of an explosion of new residential development. Artists Barbara Evan, Tom McGregor and CeCeile Hartleib each were negatively affected yet have found a new home to continue to practice their craft.
February 10, 2020 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News, Lowertown News
By Nigel Parry, Downtown St. Paul Voice—When Lisa Mathieson moved to Lowertown a dozen years ago, she quickly became involved in the arts community and has since made her presence known. She has served as a community arts organizer and St. Paul Art Crawl liaison for the Tilsner Artists’ Cooperative, a board member of the St. Paul Art Collective, and co-organizer of the Lowertown Drawing Circle, now approaching the end of its first decade of weekly Sunday meetings.
January 26, 2020 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News, Lowertown News
Nigel Parry, Downtown St. Paul Voice—Even if you’ve never met Ta-coumba Aiken, you’ve most likely seen his artwork around the Twin Cities. He’s the creator behind the iconic 117-by-33-foot-high Lowertown “Be Nice!” mural that greets those stepping off the light rail at Union Depot, as well as the beautifully decorated fireplace on the fourth floor of the George Latimer Central Library and the ceramic tile mural on the parking ramp at 7th and Robert. It seems his work is everywhere. I had been a patron at Wells Fargo bank in Downtown for two decades before it dawned on me that the 80-by-21-foot mural behind the teller station was his handiwork.
October 30, 2019 | Lowertown Food & Drink News, Lowertown News
By Nigel Parry, Downtown St. Paul Voice—After opening in downtown at the end of 2017, Just/Us took the St. Paul restaurant scene by storm with a rolling series of creatively themed prix fixe tasting menus. Following the sale of the building they were located in, the team of Lowertowners are reopening in the former Golden’s space this November.
August 7, 2019 | Lowertown Food & Drink News, Lowertown News
KSTP—Downtown St. Paul is growing, but one neighborhood is facing some growing pains. The population of downtown has doubled over the last decade. Even with more people moving into the Lowertown neighborhood, several bars and restaurants have closed over the last year. World of Beer, a pub near Mears Park, shut down last month. The Saint Paul Downtown Alliance expects the population to double downtown over the next decade. KSTP’s Joe Mazan reports.
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.
June 1, 2017 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News
Nigel Parry, Downtown St. Paul Voice —“I want people to understand the history of this place and respect the people that came before,” she said. “When I came here the first thing I did was learn about what this neighborhood is, what it was, what it turned into, and who was responsible for it. It was very important for me to give props to the elders who came before me, who did all this groundwork, so that I can do what I want to do here in this space.”
January 24, 2017 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News, Lowertown News
Following an involuntary exodus from the JAX building, after it was purchased for market rate rentals as part of the ongoing gentrification of Lowertown, artists from the community poster-tagged the building in the dead of night. Tom Dunn sent these photos to lowertown.info. Tom Dunn Photography specializes in commercial, business and fine art photography. The readers of Woodbury Magazine voted TDP Best Photographer. Located at 308 Prince St., Studio 242 in the Northern Warehouse, Tom Dunn Photography is part of the vibrant Lowertown Arts District of Saint Paul, Minnesota.
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 11, 2016 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News
ROBERTA AVIDOR writes, “I’m an illustrator who’s lived in Lowertown for almost three years now. One of my specialties is creating illustrated maps, one of which is the Downtown and City of Saint Paul map for the Saint Paul Almanac. Working on that map and being involved with the Almanac was one of the factors that made it desirable to make the move from Minneapolis to Saint Paul. My husband, Ken, and I appreciate all the interesting events and people around here and strive to capture that vitality in our artwork.”
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)
May 10, 2016 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News
Rachel Wacker (a.k.a. Dolan Cyr) graduated with honors from the University of Notre Dame in 1999 with a B. A. in studio art and a concentration in philosophy and literature. Rachel now resides in the Lowertown Arts District where she is a full time artist, community art event designer, and emerging curator. She is an active member of the Saint Paul Art Collective, a coordinator for the Lowertown First Fridays Committee and the resident curator for 262 Studios’ public galleries.
May 10, 2016 | Lowertown News
Photos of the JAX Wake from Lowertown photographer Glen Jones.
May 7, 2016 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News
I found my place in Lowertown a dozen years ago. I found a place where my art and ideas and expressions were supported and appreciated, and this allowed me to feel known and understood in a way I have never been before. Even those closest to me got to know me better through my art, because I’m not the best at words and therefore painting is my best form of communication. I found a place where people take the time to ask curious questions, and who really listen, even if they don’t fully agree with everything I’m saying. Open-mindedness, that’s the word. Inclusiveness. Support.
May 6, 2016 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News
Two weeks ago I participated in my 33rd consecutive and final St Paul Art Crawl in Jax studio 306. Now, all of the artists have vacated the premises. It will be gutted and turned into upscale lofts as will the 262 Building across the street. I’m grateful for the 16 years I got to spend in that studio, the artist community I was able to be part of and the conversations I had with the homeless of Lowertown. My life is richer for it. Oh how I loved standing in the big north windows looking into the alley, but the view has changed.
May 6, 2016 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News
All because our view included the JAX – all of your faces – your art – your hearts – your inspiration – your courage and spirit! Just by existing in the space around us and holding tight and fast to a passion for art and for humanity, you have made this community thrive for all – all of the artists here and for all of the people who visit and love what we create. Seeing the JAX artists go is devastating to me. Seeing this view change is heartbreaking and it puts a cloud over the future.
May 6, 2016 | Lowertown News
Photography has always been important to Vaughan, particularly the potential for a good image to lift the human spirit. Landscapes and flowers are particularly good for uplifting the psyche and calming the soul in this way… think of it as ‘umami for the eyes’.
May 6, 2016 | Lowertown Art, Music & Culture News
Postcard advertising the JAX Wake, and the program handed out at the wake.
