Star Tribune
River City marks the return of the record shop in Duluth
DULUTH – In the years since Duluth’s last record store was shuttered, Todd Hanson has seen more collectors making the 75-mile trek to Hole in the Wall Books and Records in Hayward, Wis.
In response, the Superior native — who wanted to return to this area anyway — decided to bring his shop to the aficionados: River City Records and Books opened last weekend.
“I just always knew this would be a good market,” he said.
Hanson loaded more than six U-Haul rental trucks of merchandise from his two Wisconsin stores (he has another in Rice Lake) to fill the 4,000-square foot space at 1814 W. Superior St. More is on the way, according to a sign posted on a single empty table inside. Hanson’s aim is for a diversified stock divided between new and used records (punk, funk, reggae, jazz, metal and more) and other physical media, including DVDs, CDs, tapes, comic books, fiction and nonfiction, and biographies of musicians.
This city has been without a traditional record shop since the Electric Fetus closed its downtown Duluth store in 2021. Located at 12 E. Superior St., the longtime go-to for music, fashion, incense and in-store performances shut down alongside other retail spaces during the pandemic — and stayed closed because of changes in shopping trends, a water main break and construction on Superior Street that interrupted traffic for years, it said at the time.
Barnes & Noble and local big-box stores sell records, in addition to Globe News in Superior. When the Electric Fetus closed, Evan Tepler’s Round Here Records has offered its collection — a mix of records that includes local musicians — as a pop-up shop at various venues and breweries. He’s already connected with Hanson, he said. Even when he visited River City recently, browsing audiophiles were asking about his next popup. (It’s Nov. 25 at Blacklist Brewing.)
Some neighborhood shops have added a few local records to their stock.
River City’s aesthetic leans retro and eclectic — in its décor and its merchandise.
“It’s maximalism to the max,” said Dury Nelson, the shop’s manager, whose artistic eye is behind the wall collages made from album images of Morrissey and Johnny Marr, KISS, and Radiohead, posters of “ET” and “Mary Poppins Returns,” and window tapestries featuring the likes of Kurt Cobain, Bob Marley and Sublime.
Hanson, of Superior, grew up in this area’s music scene in the 1970s and ’80s. His band the Reason played original alt rock on one night and classic rock covers the next. He left the immediate area and has been living in Wisconsin — with an eye toward setting up here again.
Midweek and in the middle of the afternoon, within days of opening its doors, more than a dozen people browsed the new shop, snagging stacks of CDs or a few comic books — or trailing Hanson out the back door to see the building’s loading dock, one of the onsite spots where the owner said he might later host live music. Sonic Youth spun on a record player.
Blocks away in the same neighborhood, the Caddy Shack hosts several live local and regional acts every Friday. Owner Stephanie LaFleur, president of the Lincoln Park Business Group, described the addition of River City as exciting, vibrant and “4,000 square feet of fun.”
“It’s something different,” she said. “It fills a void that we’ve had in Duluth.”
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and her daughter were among the throngs Friday as President Joe Biden delivered the apology that many Indigenous Americans thought would never come.
“I think he really said the things that people have been waiting to hear for generations, acknowledged just the horror and trauma of literally having our children stolen from our communities,” said Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. “It’s a powerful first step towards healing.”
Hundreds of boarding schools operated in the 19th and 20th centuries, separating Indigenous children from their families and forcing them to assimilate to European ways. Many children were abused, and at least 973 died, according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Other Minnesotans reacted similarly to Flanagan, saying they welcomed the apology but that additional action is needed to help Indigenous people move forward.
Anton Treuer, a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, wrote in a newsletter that the apology was “a welcome first step on the journey to healing.”
“There is no way to truly right historical injustices for the children buried at Carlisle, Haskell, and other schools, but these words set a new tone for the country and will help heal the anguish so many Natives have carried for so long,” Treuer wrote. “It gives me hope that we can come together to reconcile and heal our troubled nation.”
Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, the first Indigenous woman to serve in the state Senate, called Biden’s apology encouraging.
“This recognition of past wrongdoings is an important step towards healing relationships between the United States and the sovereign nations affected by these past systems,” Kunesh said in a statement. “This dark period of American history must be remembered and taught.”
“I have done everything in my power to remedy this situation, and it continues to get more and more violent by the day,” Moturi wrote. “There have been numerous times when I’ve seen Sawchak outside and contacted law enforcement, and there was no response. I am not confident in the pursuit of Sawchak given that Sawchak attacked me, MPD officers had John detained, and despite an HRO and multiple warrants — they still let him go.”
On Friday, five City Council members sent a letter to Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara expressing their “utter horror at MPD’s failure to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor.”
Council Members Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley went on to allege that police had failed to submit reports to the County Attorney’s Office despite threats being made with weapons, and at times while Sawchak screamed racial slurs. Sawchak is white and Moturi is Black.
The council members also contend in their letter that the MPD told the County Attorney’s Office that police did not intend to execute the warrant for “reasons of officer safety.”
At a Friday afternoon news conference at MPD’s Fifth Precinct, O’Hara said police had been working to arrest Sawchak since at least April, but “no Minneapolis police officers have had in-person contact with that suspect since the victim in this case has been calling us.” The chief pointed out that Sawchak is mentally ill, has guns and refuses to cooperate “in the dozens of times that police officers have responded to the residence.”
O’Hara put aside the option to carry out “a high-risk warrant based on these factors [and] the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect.” The preference, he said, was to arrest Sawchak outside his home, but “in this case, this suspect is a recluse and does not come out of the house.”
ROCHESTER – The Federal Transit Administration has green-lighted an $85 million grant supporting the development of the city’s planned Link Bus Rapid Transit system.
The FTA formally announced the grant on Friday during a ceremonial check presentation outside of the Mayo Civic Center, one of the seven stops planned for the bus line. The federal grant will cover about 60% of the project’s estimated $143.4 million price tag, with the remaining funds coming from Destination Medical Center, the largest public-private development project in state history.
Set to go live in 2026, the 2.8-mile Link system will connect downtown Rochester, including Mayo Clinic’s campuses, with a proposed “transit village” that will include parking, hundreds of housing units and a public plaza. The bus line will be the first of its kind outside the Twin Cities — with service running every five minutes during peak hours.
“That means you may not even need to look at a schedule,” said Veronica Vanterpool, deputy administrator for the FTA. “You can just show up at your transit stop and expect the next bus to come in a short time. That is a game changer and a life-transformational experience in transit for those people who are using it and relying on it.”
The planned Second Street corridor is already one of the busiest roads in Rochester, carrying more than 21,800 vehicles a day, and city planners have talked for years about ways to reduce traffic congestion in the city’s downtown. Local officials estimate that the transit line, which will rely on a fleet of all-electric buses, will handle 11,000 riders on its first day of operation and save eight city blocks of parking.
Speaking to a crowd of about 100 people gathered on Friday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the project shows Rochester is thinking strategically about how it handles growth.
“If you just plan the business expansion, and you don’t have the workforce, you don’t have the child care, the housing or the transit, it’s not going to work very well as a lot of communities across the nation have found,” Klobuchar said.
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