Late Summer Slow Roll Series #4 - Culture Club Minneapolis
About this Event
Long before Minneapolis was "the North," it was a landing place — a city built, block by block, by people who arrived here speaking Swedish and Polish and Ukrainian and German, and made a home along the river. Tonight we ride through their neighborhoods, past the churches and halls and breweries they raised, and we ask a quiet question along the way: how did all these very different "old country" communities eventually become one thing called "white"?
This is a slow roll, not a race. We ride together, we stop together, and we finish together. Come as you are, on whatever you've got.
**Four stops, one story:**
**1 · Cedar-Riverside — "Snoose Boulevard."** We start at the great immigrant doorway of the West Bank, once so Scandinavian that Cedar Avenue was nicknamed for the snuff tobacco in everyone's lip. We'll stand where Dania Hall and the dance halls once roared — and notice that the same doorway now welcomes a new generation of newcomers.
**2 · Our Lady of Lourdes.** We cross into old St. Anthony, the town that came before Minneapolis, to the oldest continuously used church in the city — a building raised by New England Protestants and then handed to French-Canadian Catholics. One church, and the whole story of who was here first and who came next.
**3 · The churches of Nordeast.** Into the dense, working-class heart of immigrant Minneapolis, where Polish, Ukrainian, Slovak, Italian, and Lebanese families packed in near the mills and built a church for every homeland — Holy Cross, the onion domes of St. Michael's, and more, all within a few blocks. This is where "the old country" survived in Minnesota.
**4 · Grain Belt Brewery.** We finish with the Germans — the biggest, most established immigrant group of all, who turned a riverside brew house into "America's Grain Belt." And we tell the harder half of that story: how, almost overnight during World War I, the most "American" immigrants in the state were suddenly treated as enemies — a reminder that belonging has always been something a city grants, and can take away.
**The details:**
- When: Thursday, August 27, gather 5:30 PM, roll shortly after
- Where: 6th and Nicollet at the Dayton YMCA
- Pace: Relaxed and social, with frequent stops
- Cost: Free
- Bring: A working bike, a helmet, front and rear lights, and water
Reserve your spot so we know how many to expect — then just show up ready to ride.
*Part of the Late Summer Slow Roll Series, hosted by Venture with the 2035 Transportation Subcommittee. Earlier: A River Runs Through It (July 23) and Parks, Place & the People (Aug 6). Coming up: Black Women to the Rescue (Aug 27).*
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 0.00 to USD 7.18
