Back on the Street Again
It has been 5 years since Nicollet Open Streets last filled the Avenue with thousands of walkers, bikers and rollers of all kinds. Little did we realize, back in 2019, how much would change after that glorious afternoon of music, food and community building.
There was a 2020 version, sort of. Butter created its own "let's remember Open Streets" by setting up a patio stand the final weekend of September on the corner of 37th and Nicollet. Alongside our friends from Wildflyer, we served cold brew and treats and hosted "poetry on the spot." It was 2020, so we wore masks and did our best to keep up the community building efforts behind the event while keeping our distance. Even though we connected with several dozen people, it was a just a "sort of" Open Streets.
We have truly needed the opportunities for community building along Nicollet Avenue these past five years, however, city funding and priorities shifted. The City reduced the number of Open Streets events and then pushed the burden onto neighborhood organizations to make the events happen. Unfortunately, with reduced support from the city to neighborhood associations recently, it has made large-scale events like these even more difficult to pull off. So, I am so excited this year and so very grateful to Sarah Linnes-Robinson and the Lyndale Neighborhood Association for taking on the challenge to bring this event back to the streets!
Our first Open Streets Nicollet was a 2013 celebration of the rebuilding of Nicollet Avenue. What a long, difficult summer that was for us along Nicollet, as detours, construction challenges, and ever-changing schedules for completion kept shops like ours inaccessible from April through September. The October event that year was a big sigh of relief that we had survived. This year's road construction work along Hennepin Avenue brings back many memories from 2013 and my heart goes out to all the businesses trying to just hang on until access is returned.
Over the following years (from 2014 to 2019), we enjoyed the final weekend of September with Open Streets Nicollet of ever-growing sizes. We had the opportunity to showcase local musicians on a stage at 37th and Nicollet. We came up with a borrowed tent each year to help serve butter treats on the street - and for two of the years we shared the space with guest chefs to offer bao buns one year and paella another. Despite the headaches of setting up a stand that the health department will find acceptable, it's been quite fun to hand out cookies and bars while out on the street.
Music of all kinds has filled the corner of 37th Street over the years. We've leaned on regular musicians who we knew very well, and also just provided open mic time for anyone who wanted to perform. We even had vinyl record spinning. We have had a few returning bands who have also looked forward to this event just like us. This year a couple of the groups will indeed be ones who were on stage here in 2015 and 2016. We'll also be leaning on a long-time relationship with KFAI radio for our stage this year.
Each Open Streets, despite my thorough planning, I mostly have found myself running from inside to outside and back inside again, trying to keep all the plates spinning and all the pieces of tape holding. And yes, literally trying to keep the tent from blowing away as well. Through it all though would be many brief encounters, with person after person, and the connections and greetings and shared joy for the time to celebrate our neighborhood with each other would overflow. Just watching the mass of people moving up and down the street has been such fun - it's like having the state fair right outside the cafe. It is certainly a difficult day "as staff" because of the volume of activity and yet it feels like such an achievement to get through it. By the end of the day, I am always exhausted, but in a way that feels like so much has happened.
I've missed it. Dearly.
The year of social distancing. The time we spent without anyone allowed to dine inside our cafe space. The fears and anxiety from civil unrest. The need for justice to reform our systems. The slow rebuilding and the fits and starts of our local economy, and then inflationary pressures. All of these have really taken a toll on businesses throughout our city and especially along Nicollet Avenue. Events like Nicollet Open Streets bring such joy and life to a community - just what we need to remind ourselves of the beauty of being together with a shared purpose.
This year, I'm hoping to celebrate that particular element of our cafe - the joy of community and how just being neighbors does build community. So, I'd like to highlight some very regular neighbors who use our cafe to knit, read, meet, tutor, solve climate challenges, play games, write, garden, do crafts, and more, all in the simple desire to bring people together. Will you join us to share your connections? How do you build community? What simple tasks connect you to your neighbors? What might you share?
As we walk this green path together, we can be confident that just walking with each other is a gift of community building also.
May we walk an Open Street with joy!