Drinking a Cherry Coke and reading the comics at Leng’s Fountain in Grand Marais.
Visiting the horses at the Lee & Rose Warner Coliseum at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.
Eating mango pancakes at Victor’s 1959 Cafe in Minneapolis just before the pandemic shut everything down.
These are some of the Minnesota places and spaces — and memories — shared with the North Star Story Map, a public initiative launched by the American Institute of Architects Minnesota in collaboration with the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) and funded by an MNHS Legacy Partnership.
What place — past or present — would you add to the map, Minnesota?
AIA Minnesota is asking the public to engage with the initiative by sharing their own stories of the “built spaces” in Minnesota that hold meaning for them.
The stories — they can be one sentence or many paragraphs, an anecdote or a bit of history — along with photos or illustrations can be submitted at northstarstorymap.org.
Over time, the goal is to create a people’s history of Minnesota, as told through its buildings, perhaps even redefining what we consider the most “significant” places in our state.
What Minnesota places have shaped your life?
This initiative encompasses more than a website: AIA Minnesota has partnered with organizations across the state, including historical societies and museums, to inspire storytelling of places through activities, booths and exhibits. This includes the upcoming Little Africa Festival at Hamline Park in St. Paul on Aug. 3.
A collaboration between AIA Minnesota, Mill City Museum and the Minnesota Historical Society, it’s administered by the Minnesota Historical Society and made possible by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on Nov. 4, 2008.
The public engagement for this story map started recently, but it’s been brewing for awhile.
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“We were talking about the idea of engaging people with significant buildings in the state and what that could look like,” says Ann Mayhew, public outreach manager for AIA Minnesota. “Because, of course, as the American Institute of Architects, some of what we do is not just supporting architects, but helping people connect to their built environment.
“But while design might be part of what makes someone think a building is important or meaningful, I think for a lot of people, it’s actually what happens in that building, what they’ve done there and how it makes them feel, if they have good memories in there or not.”
When you consider your own memories, moments that have shaped your life, do you consider the buildings where they took place?
That question is at the heart of this project.
A cafe in St. Paul, a lake place in Aitkin
Mickey’s Diner, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, shines like a gem in downtown St. Paul on June 14, 1999. (Joe Oden / Pioneer Press)
In St. Paul, there are many special places, from the State Capitol to Mickey’s Diner to the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory at Como Park. But some spaces, well known or not, are special to individuals for the particular memories they spark.
Like Nina’s Coffee Cafe, the familiar favorite on the corner of Selby and Western Avenues in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood of St. Paul.
“Where I wrote my first screenplay — and have had some of the best conversations there,” wrote a visitor at AIA Minnesota’s STEM Day at the Fair Booth.
While we don’t know how the screenplay turned out, the unknown writer sketched out a drawing to go with their memory, a cafe table with two steaming cups and the title, “Nina’s,” that is now included on the North Star Story Map’s website.
The places don’t have to be public spaces, but they might represent our shared experiences of life in this land of 10,000 lakes, as shared by another Minnesota State Fair visitor in a sketch titled, “Aitkin, Minn.”
“Parents lake place growing up,” they wrote with a drawing of a boat. “We spent a lot of time there in the water. Lots of fun!”
Built places can also be significant due to the time periods connected to them — like when “MJ” ate those mango pancakes in March 2020 at Victor’s 1959 Cafe at 3756 Grand Ave. S. in Minneapolis.
“It’s a notable memory,” MJ wrote, “because it was the last place we visited before Covid became a strong factor in public life and our workplaces closed. We had heard about the illness, but in other places. We didn’t yet know how much everyone’s lives would change due to the pandemic. Victor’s is the place I associate with carefree times and feeling relaxed before this major shift in our lives.”
Questions to ponder
The soda fountain at St. Paul Corner Drug on Aug. 6, 2020. (Nancy Ngo / Pioneer Press)
If you’re stuck on what to share, here are some questions AIA Minnesota suggests pondering:
What place has shaped your life? What place do you miss? Where do you feel free to be yourself? What building inspires you? Where do you feel alive? What place gives you a feeling of belonging?
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Some of the places on the Story Map — there are only about 50 so far — include the Giant Slide at the Minnesota State Fair, the cousins’ cabin (whereabouts unknown) and the soda fountain at St. Paul Corner Drug.
“As a kid back in the 90s,” wrote Lauren Breitbarth of Minneapolis, “my mom used to walk with me and my siblings down to St. Paul Corner Drug (then Sunberg’s Pharmacy) to get 25 cent ice cream cones at their old fashioned soda fountain. Adults would get 10 cent coffee. The soda fountain is still intact today, although prices may have gone up just a little since!”
Actually, St. Paul Corner Drug, located at the corner of Snelling and St. Clair avenues, officially “retired” its soda fountain recently. When we told Breitbarth the news, she was surprised.
“That’s so sad!” she replied.
The store’s old-fashioned soda fountain is preserved, at least, in Breitbarth’s memory — and on the story map.
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