Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis
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The Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota is commonly referred to as the West Bank. Many maps identify the area as the West Bank Theater District, because of the many theaters in the area, and because it is on the West side of the river from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. The neighborhood is well known for its contingent of activists - from the housing co-op organizing in the 60's, anti-Vietnam war organizing, and the worker-owned co-op organizing from the 70's until today.
Cedar-Riverside is home to a rich arts culture. There are several playhouses and theatre groups in the area (like the Mixed Blood Theatre Company, Theatre in the Round, and the Southern Theatre). There is also a hot music scene, with bands frequenting local bars like the 400 Bar, the Red Sea, the Triple Rock Social Club, and the Cedar Cultural Center. The arts flavor of the area is enhanced by the presence of the University of Minnesota’s West Bank Arts Quarter, which is home to the University’s arts programs. In fact, the University is the only in the nation with all of its arts disciplines located together in a single district.
Besides the presence of the University of Minnesota’s West Bank Arts Quarter, the neighborhood is home to the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, Augsburg College, and the College of St. Catherine’s Minneapolis Campus. The presence of these campuses brings a progressive flavor to the neighborhood. However, many of the students avoid Cedar-Riverside, opting instead for other neighborhoods surrounding the University, because of the gritty feel of Cedar-Riverside.
According to census data for 2000 from the City of Minneapolis, over 50% of the families in the neighborhood are considered very low income, and over 60% are low income. Residents of Cedar-Riverside are transitional; out of the 2,838 occupied housing units in the neighborhood, 2,547 are occupied by renters.
Cedar-Riverside is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the Twin Cities—in close proximity, there are urban poor of diverse ethnic backgrounds, college students, and middle-class urbanites.
Cedar-Riverside is ethnically diverse, due in large part to the presence of the Riverside Plaza and its 1,300 units. The Riverside Plaza is home to between 2,500 and 3,500 people, many of which are immigrants and refugees. Currently, most immigrants in the neighborhood come from East Africa. The high number of Somali refugees in particular has earned the neighborhood the nickname “Little Somalia” or “Little Mogadishu.” East Africans are the latest wave of foreign-born residents, following the Europeans of a century and more ago and the Vietnamese and other Asians of just twenty years back.
The buildings in the Riverside Plaza were built in the early 70s to be mixed income housing. The towers of the Riverside Plaza—with their signature colored panels—are a familiar landmark in Minneapolis.
The neighborhood has been a port of entry for immigrants since Swedes, Germans, and Bohemians began arriving in large numbers during the late 1800s. The neighborhood has long struggled with poverty and crime and was home base to local hippies, protesters, and other counterculture phenomena of the sixties and early seventies. During those days, the neighborhood was known as the “Haight-Ashbury of the Midwest.”
The neighborhood’s past still has an influence in the present. Some of the businesses in the area hark back to an earlier time, like the worker-controlled North Country Food Co-op and the punk hangout, Hard Times Café.
Notable establishments located in the West Bank neighborhood include:
Mayday Books http://www.maydaybookstore.org/Home.html
North Country Coop http://www.northcountrycoop.com/
Riverside Plaza http://www.riversideplaza.net/
KFAI Radio http://www.kfai.org/
West Bank School of Music http://www.westbankmusic.org/
Fairview University Medical Center http://www.fairview-university.fairview.org/index.asp
400 Bar http://www.400bar.com/
The Red Sea Club http://www.redseaclub.com/
Triple Rock Social Club http://www.triplerocksocialclub.com/
Kiefer Court Foods http://www.me.umn.edu/~woo/bakery.html
Global Village http://globalvillageimporters.com/
Bedlam Theatre http://www.bedlamtheatre.org/
Cedar Cultural Center http://www.thecedar.org/
The Mixed Blood Theatre http://www.mixedblood.com/
Southern Theatre http://www.southerntheater.org/
Brian Coyle Community Center http://www.puc-mn.org/html/sites/bccc.html
Theatre in the Round http://www.theatreintheround.org/
External links
- [Cedar-Riverside Neighborhood Association]
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