Tag Archives: minneapolis 1999

My Minneapolis Apartment, 1999-2001

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In January, I posted about finding my notes from apartment hunting in Minneapolis. Since then, I’ve been thinking about some of the high(low) lights of living in the apartment that was the result of that search.

Noise
The apartment was located above an establishment called Bryant Lake Bowl. Establishing shot:

Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis.
Usual reaction from people: “You lived above a bowling alley? Wow, that must have been noisy.” Yes! But not because of the obvious reason. There is a small theater space connected to the restaurant/bowling lanes and, when I lived there, the person who booked the space had a predilection for hip hop.

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Apartment Hunting, 1999

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I came across some notes I made in 1999, when I was still fairly new to Minneapolis and looking for an apartment to live in on my own. I’d spent the first 6 months in town living with my sister and brother-in-law, and patience on all of our parts was wearing thin, so I was looking for some Single Gal Freedom.

Here is a transcript of my notes. If you live at any of the addresses I insult below, I’m sorry you have to live in such a terrible place.

Oh, I almost forgot a very important detail. These notes are in a spiral-bound notebook with a black-and-white photo of a cat on the front. Well, rather than describing it, I’ll show it to you:

The only thing worse than using this notebook then is that I recently found it in a drawer, realized it had a lot of paper left  in it and started using it again.

The notes:

$10 month/cat [Note: I had a cat named Ella. A very bad cat.]
$30 application fee
$510 security dep. (one month rent)
Alarm systems installed.
Grand Lake Apt.

[Note: Interestingly enough, I drove by this building with my sister and she forbade me to actually look at the apartment, declaring it unfit for a single woman living alone. She meant that it seemed sketchy. About eight years later some friends of ours moved in to this same building and my husband helped them move a piano up two flights of stairs. They did not seem to be aware that people are in the business of moving musical instruments of this size professionally.]

2 1/2 story, 10 unit    $460
1828 Columbus Ave S
All-brick building
Secured entrance
Extra large 800 sq. feet
Maple floors
3 arched openings, 2 china hutches
panel mahogany doors
floor to ceiling
shower (!!?)
cable

[Note from 2012 self: when can I move in?]

Grand Avenue 1 block
323 W 31st Street
1/2 mile to Lake Calhoun [might as well be 20 miles]
$700 1BR
20x
shower
$510
sewer, water, trash, heat, laundry

[Yes, again with this apartment. I don’t know why it is written down twice. It must have been like forbidden fruit to me.]

3404 Emerson $500 MAYBE
3236 Garfield $559 NASTY
2621 Pleasant $535 BRICK BUILDING NOT BAD

2621 Pillsbury *** OK
19xx Ridgewood Ave South $550 ADDRESS??? COULDN’T FIND
Aldrich & Franklin 1 BR $475 NO SHOWER
James & 31st small 1 BR NICE STREET/HOUSES/LAKE

Final note: I did not live in any of these places. No, I opted to move into an apartment directly above Bryant Lake Bowl. Yes, this was a huge mistake. Yes, I thought I was being incredibly urban and hip.

I may be urban (but the older I get the more I suspect I’m not; I was raised in the country and it seems that, at some point, I will make my return) but I have never been hip.

To give you an idea of my lameness: there was a video store on the corner of Lake & Bryant at the time, which I  also lived directly above. I rented videos there. I would have to pass their door everyday in order to go anywhere and yet I racked up so steep a late fee on rented videos that I was no longer able to rent there unless I paid it off. I felt I could not afford to do so. I was no longer able to rent videos at the store right beneath me.

This was before Netflix.