My Very Own Bed, a non-profit providing new beds for kids who are leaving shelters, hosted its Second Annual Steps for Sleep on Saturday, April 30 at DeLaSalle High School.

Plant devotees will find plenty to love at Planty Queens, 2807 Johnson Street NE. The store is an outgrowth of an online business started two years ago by Maya Harris and Lillie Rosen and is dedicated to house plants, or as they term it, “indoor landscaping.”

Dan Spriggs is St. Anthony Villager of the Year 2022 and Steele & Hops is the Business of the Year in St. Anthony, awarded by the St. Anthony Area Chamber of Commerce May 12.

It was the end of World War II. Flour City Ornamental Iron, a south Minneapolis company known for creating beautiful architectural metalwork and fancy elevator cages, had shifted its production capabilities, at the government’s request, to aluminum. But now, there was no longer a need for aluminum bridge pontoons and aircraft parts. Yet, Flour City had the machinery, the metal and the metal-bending know-how. What to do?

Harry J. Neils, company president, had an idea. Why not make aluminum fishing boats? With that, the Alumacraft boat division of Flour City was born.

When Mayor Amáda Marquez Simula of Columbia Heights pointed out her “No Mow May” lawn last year, we didn’t realize it was an international movement to save and increase the pollinator population. Columbia Heights City Council this year formally adopted a perpetual No Mow May resolution. While the other cities in the Northeaster’s area haven’t done so, some people are thinking about it.

Columbia Heights City Council Member Kt Jacobs is a former airline flight attendant. She’s come to expect surprises when traveling. Still, nothing could prepare her for what she witnessed during a recent trip to Poland.

Jacobs and her husband, Jake, set off for the Czech Republic and Poland in mid-April; it was a vacation twice delayed by COVID 19. Although she wasn’t traveling in an official capacity, before leaving Minnesota, Kt contacted the Sister City program to make arrangements to visit with the mayors of Warsaw and of Columbia Heights’ sister city, Łomianki, as well as the mayor of Prague.

With the Ukrainian American Community Center sitting right in the heart of the St. Anthony West neighborhood, and a huge population of Ukrainian Americans living in Northeast, Russia’s invasion hits close to home for a lot of people in our community, whether they are of Ukrainian descent or not.

The 230-acre train and trucking facility in Northeast, Shoreham Yards, has become the exposé piece of Minneapolis artist, Gudrun Lock, who wanted to discover what more there is to the depot than its current aged state. Her research of over two and a half years is being showcased at Weisman Art Museum, 333 E. River Parkway, through May 15.

The grand opening of Tare Market in Northeast occurred on Earth Day, Friday April 22nd. At 945 Broadway St. NE this is Tare Market’s second location. Owner Amber Haukedahl opened her first Tare Market three years ago in south Minneapolis and chose Earth Day as a launch day for both locations. She finds Northeast “a community filled with sustainable-minded people and families who are open thinkers and a natural fit for our market”.

A conversation with St. Paul artist Ta-coumba T. Aiken is a lot like taking in one of his paintings: Many layers and winding threads lead to findings that might shift as you further consider them. There’s a playfulness that also can manifest itself in his work.