Longfellow Whatever is a reader-funded news project focused on the fine-grained details of life in the Longfellow communities of Minneapolis (Longfellow, Cooper, Howe, and Hiawatha).
Subscribers get frequent, brief updates delivered to their inbox in a tone somewhere between a local newspaper and dispatches from a plugged-in friend: How’s construction coming along on that new restaurant? What does that business in the tiny corner space actually do? What's the plan for that vacant building? Who's behind that iconic holiday lights display or landscaping oddity? How’s business lately at your favorite cafe, movie theater, grocer, or auto shop?
More about how it works: Frequently asked questions.
🎨 Weekend paint-a-thon will complete transformation of 36th Ave Bridge
A unique partnership of students, artists, and neighbors have led the transformation.
🛏 What's up at Elsa's House of Sleep?
Tracing the fitful progress at the building that has sat vacant at 36th and Lake since 2019.
🚔 What we know about this morning's active shooter incident inside a Minnehaha Ave apartment building
A chaotic situation involving an active shooter inside an apartment building at 40th and Minnehaha Avenue ended with police shooting the suspect around 4:30 this morning.
🥬 Farm to sidewalk: 35th Ave's little free produce library
Becky Franklin's family can only eat so much asparagus and bok choy. So, every Friday morning after picking up her CSA produce haul, she plucks out what she thinks they'll use and leaves the rest in a cooler outside her house on the 3400 block of
🏗 New plan in motion for Dragon City site
A look at plans for development on the site, which has sat vacant since 2018.
💼 New LCC director joins group at time of existential crossroads
The plum funding that brought neighborhood groups to prominence in the 90s and 2000s has dried up, leaving many facing consolidation, austerity, or dissolution.
🗓 Whatever Whenever: September events calendar
A roundup of hundreds of events in Longfellow this month.
👗 Audrey Rose Vintage brings retail flair to sleepy Snelling Ave
A look at the newly-relocated Audrey Rose Vintage, Snelling Avenue's only retail shop.
🎡 A fresh limbo for the Cooper School playground
A new wrinkle in the effort to save the vacant school's play area.
🎡 What happened to the Longfellow School playground?
Most of the playground, which has served as the immediate area's de facto play area for more than 100 years, was quietly removed last summer.
🍽 Lynette is open
The highly anticipated cafe-by-day-restaurant-by-night opened for real this morning, after a week of short-notice soft open events.
🏭 Smith Foundry closes this week. What's up with Acme?
A look at the history and future of the mysterious pink building at the corner of 32nd and Hiawatha.
🗑 Plogging the river gorge with Andy Lambert
He's kept up the near-daily ritual of picking up river litter as he jogs for three years, and is hosting a neighborhood group jog to celebrate.
🍔 "Francis" vegan burger joint is coming to the old Peppers and Fries building
No animals were harmed in the making of this scoop.
Longfellow Whatever Newsletter
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