The site of the former Tuttle Elementary School went up for sale in December 2022 after being vacant since April 2007.

Located just a mile from the University of Minnesota campus, the three-story structure on 18th & Talmage Avenues Southeast built in 1910 once served as an elementary school for the families of Southeast Como.

The school opened for enrollment in 1911. However, after nearly a century, the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) board made the decision to close Tuttle’s doors to students in April 2007.

The school began facing enrollment sustainability issues from the mid- to late-2000s as University students replaced families with children in the Southeast Como area.

The building has been vacant since 2007, which has raised several questions from many Southeast Como residents on what will happen to the once thriving elementary school.

Throughout 2021, several forums and surveys were sent out by the Southeast Como Improvement Association (SECIA) to gather insight on what community members would like to see happen to the building. Many suggestions involved creating a community-based facility out of the old elementary school.

The MPS board issued several updates about the building and officially removed the building as an MPS school in October 2021, which gave the community an opportunity to create something out of the vacant facility.

The Tuttle School was put on the Surplus Property list in May 2022, which meant it could be put up for sale or lease. SECIA and MPS began searching for developers that focus on redeveloping, managing and funding older structures, and MPS selected Commercial Equities Group (CEG) to manage the sale of the property.

Jeff Salzbrun, the listing broker for the Tuttle School and owner of CEG, said CEG has received thousands of phone calls from potential buyers interested in the property.

“We’re just trying to sift through them and find the group that has not just the financial ability, but the the ability to go through the process,” Salzbrun said. ”Unfortunately, we get just far too many phone calls from people that really want to see something there or they want to reminisce and go tour the school again because they once went to school there.”

Kathy Knudson, co-chair of SECIA’s environment committee, said CEG is also handling the sale of two other surplus schools in Minneapolis, Willard and Gordon. However, “everything is on hold at the moment,” until CEG receives a market value report, she said.

SECIA’s representative to the University District Alliance board Katie Fournier said she hopes to see the building turned into some kind of housing for those in need.

“I guess that affordable housing would be nice, but I don’t know whether that’s possible,” Fournier said.

Former president Donald Trump became the first former U.S. president to be charged with a crime after he was indicted by a grand jury in Manhattan Thursday.

This indictment does not prevent Trump from running for the White House in 2024. Prosecutors from District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office have not stated whether they will seek prison time if Trump is convicted. 

As of Thursday evening, the charges of his indictment had not been publicly released. Bragg’s office is coordinating a surrender, which is expected to happen Tuesday, according to Reuters.  

The former president was being investigated for several payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign to porn actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter.

Federal prosecutors in New York charged Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen in 2018 for violating campaign finance laws in relation to these hush money payments and Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison. 

Trump has continuously denied all allegations related to the payments, referring to the indictment as “political persecution.” 

Trump’s charges are highly likely to reinforce current dueling political perspectives — those who support Trump and those who say his indictment is long overdue, according to reporting from the Associated Press. 

Susan Necheles and Joseph Tacopina, Trump’s defense lawyers, said in a statement Trump has not committed any crimes, and they will continue to advocate for him. Trump released a statement claiming the indictment is “political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history.”

“I believe this Witch-Hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden,” Trump said on Truth Social. “The American people realize exactly what the Radical Left Democrats are doing here. Everyone can see it. So our Movement, and our Party — united and strong — will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

With Black History Month coming to a close, University of Minnesota students shared their experiences with Black-owned businesses near campus.

Students said welcoming environments, affordability and positive missions make some of these businesses stand out.

The Red Sea provides unique offerings and a welcoming atmosphere

The Red Sea is an Ethiopian restaurant owned by Russom Solomon located on West Bank. The restaurant opened in 1990 and was the first Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurant in Minneapolis, according to the businesses website.

The Red Sea offers unique Ethiopian dishes, including both meat and vegetable sambusa, Ethiopian-style scrambled eggs and Kifo, a traditional dish of minced beef seasoned with a spice blend and Ethiopian butter.

Mekede Radiate, a first-year student at the University, said she has enjoyed her visits to the Red Sea.

“I felt welcomed and the workers were nice. They gave me notices on when my food would be ready and updates. Pricing was reasonable,” Radiate said. “They represented Ethiopian food well and had great options. Overall, [it was] a great visit.”

Good food and affordability expected at Afro Deli

Afro Deli is a restaurant that provides a fusion of African, American and Mediterranean cuisines. The restaurant has four locations in the Twin Cities metro area, the closest to campus located in Stadium Village and Cedar-Riverside. The restaurant is owned by Abridirman Kahin, who grew up in Cedar-Riverside.

Afro Deli opened its first location in 2010 with the mission of combining culture and community, according to the restaurant’s website.

Faaya Adem, a first-year student at the University, said she enjoys the restaurant because of the good food and affordable prices.

“The food brings me comfort when I’m away from home and at my dorm instead,” Adem said. “The prices have risen a little over throughout the pandemic, but it’s still a pretty cheap and affordable place to eat. I always get their quesadilla and fries whenever I go there and that always fills me up.”

Jarjay’s photography aims to highlight “unapologetic beauty”

Cyrus Jarjay is a local photographer and University student studying finance. His speciality is photographing people, often highlighting the beauty of people of color in his work.

“I’ve had a long-existing fascination with fashion. Dating back to the third grade, I would draw designs of models’ clothing.” Jarjay said. “However, collaborating with people to provide an experience that made them feel priceless and inclined to fully express themselves drove me to expand my hobby into a business.”

Jarjay said he is inspired by the “unapologetic beauty” of his subjects and messages he would like to convey through his works.

“Igniting the imagination of my subjects and revealing the model within them is my primary specialty,” Jarjay said. “Similarly, my work has been sought after for how I edit the skin, which is naturalistic. This has been the case especially for Black women, that have had negative experiences with their skin tones being washed out.”

Como community members started several renovation projects to restore and preserve the historic Como Community Center (CCC) in October 2022. Located on 1037 14th Ave. SE, the building was built in 1886 and originally served as a neighborhood assembly hall.

The renovations to the building include restoring the auditorium and several living and rental spaces and installing a concrete walkway and a new driveway that are both accessible.

The focus of the restoration project is based on the previous functionality of the building as a church during its prime in the 1920s, overall hoping to restore its former image with a new purpose as a community-based entity.

The estimated date for renovations to be completed has not been released.

An outside developer pushed for the building to be demolished in 2020 due to its old age and several years of vacancy. However, after 14 years of unsuccessful attempts to buy the building from the City of Minneapolis, the CCC team took ownership of the building in December 2021.

The CCC team was founded in 2004 by a group of people living in the neighborhood who decided they wanted to restore the building due to its historical value, according to CCC member Larry Crawford.

Crawford said the renovations will bring vitality to Como and give residents a space where they can get to know each other.

“There’s the community service side of it, which is to have it operate again as a community center with events like public meetings, educational events, cultural events and so on,” Crawford said. “It will also continue to have religious services on the weekends by rental along with all the other rental uses for different organizations.”

The building is divided into several units, with an auditorium in the front of the building and several smaller areas in the rear that were added around 1920.

DeWayne Townsend, a Southeast Como Improvement Association member, said the center will become a nonprofit that he hopes neighborhood organizations will find useful.

“It’s a nice way to preserve a historic building and find a use for it,” Townsend said. “It meets the needs of both students for housing, but also provides a unique gathering space. There isn’t an abundance of these small little venues.”

Elizabeth Yang is a first-year University of Minnesota student who frequents the Como area.

“The community center and the congregational building renovations [are] something I’m looking forward to,” Yang said. “They are restoring historic land, which I like because I can see how it originally was in the 1920s. I can’t wait to see what they’ll be doing.”

The Positive Pregnancies Support Act was introduced to the Senate on Jan. 17 to expand access to safer reproductive health services and information as well as reform services crisis pregnancy centers provide.

If passed, the bill, authored by Sen. Mary Kunesh (DFL-New Brighton) and Rep. Liz Olson (DFL-Duluth), would reform the Positive Alternatives to Abortion Act, a Minnesota law that enables state funding for crisis pregnancy centers. Critics of these centers say they often pose as places that offer reproductive health care but aim to prevent pregnant people from getting abortions.

The Positive Pregnancies Support Act is meant to improve reproductive health care for pregnant people, according to an email statement to the Minnesota Daily from UnRestrict Minnesota, an organization dedicated to expanding abortion access in Minnesota and advocating for the act.

The bill would require state-funded reproductive health care providers to offer medically accurate information to patients and remove any language representing anti-abortion propaganda. It would also lift a gag rule preventing state funding from going to organizations with connections to abortion providers and eliminate language requiring providers to try to persuade pregnant people who come to them to carry their pregnancies to term.

Abena Abraham, campaign director for UnRestrict Minnesota, said the bill will not end state funding of crisis pregnancy centers but will instead add more regulations to them.

“Some of the crisis pregnancy centers offer ultrasounds, and the people performing those ultrasounds are not always ultrasound techs or people that are licensed to perform ultrasounds,” Abraham said. “What the bill would do is ensure that the folks working within these facilities actually have licenses to perform the services that they say that they do and that folks are given all pregnancy options.”

The Act would fund more services and resources for those in need of reproductive care as well as provide more information about pregnancy care programs to the public.

“It’s disappointing to see that our state is investing a lot of money in organizations that deceive people and remind them of finding out that they’re pregnant,” Abraham said. “The fact that you may be [pregnant] triggers a lot of emotions for folks and people are oftentimes googling quickly to find resources to help them figure out what they need…It’s maddening that they have been unchecked for many years and are causing a lot of harm to people in our community.”

Alongside the introduction of this bill, the PRO (Protect Reproductive Options) Act was also introduced and passed by the state Legislature; Gov. Tim Walz signed the act into law on Jan. 31. The PRO Act ensures several rights for Minnesotans, including the right to carry on a pregnancy, a right to contraceptives, a right to carry out an abortion and the right to reproductive health care privacy.

Mira Altobell-Resendez, a member of the University of Minnesota student organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), said the group is fighting for abortion access at the University.

“Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it was sort of like a wake-up call about how Minnesotans have our status as a sanctuary state to those states surrounding us that have triggered bans on abortion,” Altobell-Resendez said. “We have a responsibility to the people both coming into the state seeking abortions and also to Minnesotans themselves to be able to provide adequate health care to everyone.”

Zareya Nolen, a first-year student at the University, said having access to reproductive care on campus is important. Currently, the University has no clinics on campus that offer abortion-related services.

“I think having reproductive care on campus is helping so many people in many different ways,” Nolen said. “Everyone at college has a goal in life, and that’s to finish college.”

After 40 years of business, Keefer Court, a Chinese cafe and bakery located in the heart of West Bank, permanently closed its doors in December.

Keefer Court opened in 1983 and was known for serving authentic Chinese and Hong Kong style delicacies, including handmade pastries. The bakery has gained popularity over the years, bringing customers back with their unique food.

After receiving an offer to buy the building in which Keefer Court resided, owners Sunny and Paulina Kwan decided to retire and move on after 40 years of service. Potential future plans for the space include a community-based facility that would provide services, such as a community kitchen and clinic, for the homeless population in the area. The new owner of the business has not been publicly announced yet.

The cafe was one of the only Chinese bakery present in the metro area. Many who frequented the West Bank bakery and cafe were upset to see the establishment withdraw from the business scene.

Aleah Anderson, a first-year University of Minnesota student and Keefer Court regular, shared her thoughts on the sudden closure of the cafe. Anderson said the bakery was a staple in her weekly routine.

“I was actually really sad when I heard that Keefer Court was closing; it was one of my go to locations right after my business classes over at Carlson,” Anderson said. “Their red bean buns were my favorite pastry by far.”

Michelle Kwan, Sunny and Paulina Kwan’s daughter, said she grew up in the bakery.

“It literally raised me, being that my parents had me during the heyday of Keefer Court kind of growing to be what it is today,” she said. “Who I am today came from Keefer Court and being raised there and [I’m] definitely sad that corner won’t be part of my life.”

Growing up with Keefer Court as more than just a place to call home, Kwan said she would miss the cuisine from her family’s once bustling bakery and cafe.

“I already miss the food, eating it my whole life and getting to have easy access to awesome Hong Kong style food and bakery. And so a lot of my feelings come in this bittersweet moment,” Michelle Kwan said.

KJ Starr, the executive director of the West Bank Business Association, shared similar sentiments.

“Of course we are all very sad about losing a long-standing member of our West Bank community and such a great business. I especially enjoyed Michelle [Kwan]’s addition of vegan buns,” Starr said. “The new owner of the building, however, is also a long-time business owner in the neighborhood who is a first-generation immigrant, so of course, we are also happy for her.”

Michelle Kwan said even though she was sad to see the bakery close, she was also glad her parents would have an opportunity to settle down.

“I’m really excited for my parents to be able to take that time and finally get to enjoy the life that they set up for themselves after working so hard moving to this country,” she said.

With renovations on Marcy Park underway, many residents living in the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood said they feel the park’s name should be changed due to its honoree’s distasteful legacy.

Marcy Park was built in 1992 and renovations to the park began in July, but the name of the Dinkytown-bound park is still in question. According to the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association’s website, the park is named after a “cynical, racist politician that never stepped foot in Minnesota” — William L. Marcy.

Current renovation plans include a newly implemented dog park, community basketball court, replacement trees, bench seating, underground storm water treatment and more. Several other renovations are set to occur with the hopes of further improving the park’s design, catering to its University of Minnesota-student audience.

After expressing their distaste for the current name of the facility, the association created a petition to change the park’s name.

Marcy, the park’s namesake, was an American statesman who held various political positions throughout the mid-1800s. Marcy was a secretary of war and U.S. secretary of state. His almost 40-year career as a politician has raised some questions about the park’s naming.

Marcy, a northerner with a southerners sympathies, was an advocate for slavery during his time as a politician, which is often the cause of controversy with the park’s name.

“[To] work towards some sort of anti-racist future, we have to examine the names that we have in our neighborhoods, and sometimes the names have meaning,” Billy Menz, Minneapolis Park Comissioner for District 1, said. “It’s not a meaning that we necessarily hold on to any longer.”

Another point some residents have brought up is that Marcy never set foot in Minneapolis, let alone Minnesota; ultimately raising a query about his relation with the area.

Menz said community engagement was helpful and necessary in this process.

The name changing process would take place over two years and go through the park board. There would be a public hearing and a nomination put forward to the board.

Some Marcy Holmes residents agreed with Menz and expressed support in changing the current title of the newly renovated park.

Erica Hanson, a Marcy Holmes resident, said she supports the name change because its current name is dedicated to a slavery advocate

“It’s great that our generation is able to hold others accountable and put efforts toward creating a more respectful and accepting city,” Hanson said.