Dinkytown, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Encyclopedia
Dinkytown, USA is an area within the Marcy Holmes neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota
. Centered at 14th Avenue Southeast and 4th Street Southeast, the district contains several city blocks occupied by various small businesses, restaurants, food courts, bars, and the like, and apartment buildings mostly housing university students. Dinkytown is along the north side of the University of Minnesota
Twin Cities East Bank campus.
Notable landmarks include the Dinky Dome (a former theological seminary converted to a food court), the Loring Pasta Bar (formerly Gray's Drug and also the building where Bob Dylan
lived in Minneapolis), and Al's Breakfast
(arguably the city's smallest restaurant).
Several landmarks are considered historic including Vescio's Italian restaurant, which opened in the 1950s, and the House of Hanson grocery store. The former Marshall-University High School on the corner of 14th Avenue and 5th street was closed in 1982 due to low enrollment and was purchased and converted into the University Technology Enterprise Center (UTEC) for startups. The Chateau co-op built their brutalist-style 22-story apartment co-op in 1973 at 13th Avenue Southeast and 5th Street Southeast.
Stories regarding the origin of the name include
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. Centered at 14th Avenue Southeast and 4th Street Southeast, the district contains several city blocks occupied by various small businesses, restaurants, food courts, bars, and the like, and apartment buildings mostly housing university students. Dinkytown is along the north side of the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
Twin Cities East Bank campus.
Notable landmarks include the Dinky Dome (a former theological seminary converted to a food court), the Loring Pasta Bar (formerly Gray's Drug and also the building where Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
lived in Minneapolis), and Al's Breakfast
Al's Breakfast
At a width of ten feet , Al's Breakfast is reportedly the narrowest restaurant in the city of Minneapolis. Al's Breakfast is crammed into a former alleyway between two much larger buildings and is located in the city's Dinkytown neighborhood near the University of Minnesota...
(arguably the city's smallest restaurant).
Several landmarks are considered historic including Vescio's Italian restaurant, which opened in the 1950s, and the House of Hanson grocery store. The former Marshall-University High School on the corner of 14th Avenue and 5th street was closed in 1982 due to low enrollment and was purchased and converted into the University Technology Enterprise Center (UTEC) for startups. The Chateau co-op built their brutalist-style 22-story apartment co-op in 1973 at 13th Avenue Southeast and 5th Street Southeast.
History
The name Dinkytown is of uncertain origin, although it was in definite use by 1948, when the Dinkytown Business Association formed.Stories regarding the origin of the name include
- The streetcars, called Dinkys, that used to provide transit throughout the area.
- Similarly, the tenders at the nearby railyard were called Dinkys
- The theatre in Dinkytown had only four rows of seats, and for years was known as "The Dinky"
- It's a small town-like area, with everything within walking distance.
- The Loring Pasta Bar, previously Gray's Drug on 14th Ave. SE and 4th St. SE has the name of an early owner carved in cement over the doorway: "Grodnik," meaning a small (or dinky) town. The name of the early owner was Louis Grodnik. He owned a habidashery at that location and built the building. His brother, Hela Grodnik, always claimed that he was the one who named the area when he said that "This is getting to be a real 'Dinky Town'". Nobody in the family believed that though. Louis had other brothers, Jacob, who owned a jewelry store for many years at 7th and Hennepin. Other siblings were George, Fanny Levitan and Lena Bank.
- Then-Gopher football player Frank "Dinky" Rog, whose large group of friends spent much time down here in the late 1940's and early 1950's.
External links
- Official Dinkytown Website Your guide and resource to the Dinkytown community.
- Lileks.com -- University of Minnesota pages -- contains information and reminiscence about Dinkytown, by Star TribuneStar TribuneThe Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is published seven days each week in an edition for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. A statewide version is also available across Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The...
columnist James LileksJames LileksJames Lileks is an American journalist, columnist, and blogger living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.- Career :Lileks has had a wide-ranging career as a columnist, radio personality, author, and prominent blogger.... - Former Marshall High School
- The Dinkytown Project