Saint Paul By Bike

Como, North End, Payne-Phalen

March 11, 2024

23.8 miles

The map of the March 11, 2024 ride, above.

A Little Free Library has taken up residence within an old newspaper box (officially called either newspaper vending machine or newspaper rack) in Hamline-Midway. This one sits on the front lawn of 1430 Taylor Avenue. It’s an imaginative way to use a newspaper vending machine. No doubt there will be plenty more newspaper boxes available for reuse with the continued decline of newspaper readership.

Willow Reserve

Saint Paul has several more-or-less hidden, or at least difficult-to-find parks. While nowhere near the largest (that designation belongs to Pig’s Eye Regional Park) Willow Reserve is a 23-acre area of woods and wetlands tucked in the North End, just north of Maryland Avenue, between Arundel and Farrington Streets. The natural area is known, at least colloquially, as a hidden gem in the North End.

The land encompassing Willow Reserve was almost certainly a wetland, with trees and/or grasslands, used for generations by Dakota peoples for food and furs. By the 1880s, lots were being platted and purchased, and homes built. Most of the residents gardened or farmed their plots, according to Willow Reserve History: Nature at Work, a report prepared in 2015 for the Capitol River Watershed District. The Northern Pacific Railroad laid tracks through the area in 1884, and a still active line serves as the northern border of the park to this day.

Parts of Willow Reserve served for decades as an area for neighborhood children to explore. Local citizens in 1970 formally began the endeavor to keep the Willow Reserve land undeveloped. It took five years before City officials entered negotiations with landowners to purchase their property and two more years to buy enough of it to officially establish Willow Reserve. At last, construction of a retention pond within the reserve began in 1991, once more properties were acquired.

Still, due to several obstacles, including funding and property owners unwillingness to sell, the project languished until about 2005.

The Capital Region Watershed District, in partnership with the City of Saint Paul and the North End Neighborhood Organization, released a restoration plan for Willow Reserve in late 2015. The plan, which included a wildlife census and plant survey, called for an incremental restoration to increase native plant and animal species and improve the ecosystem. A walking path and overlooks around the perimeter of the reserve were also part of the proposal.

According to signs posted at Willow Reserve and on the City of Saint Paul website, restoration was supposed to be complete in 2019. It was obvious, however, that this was not the case.

I walked my bike along the gravel roadway until it transitioned into a dirt path. Although the proposed path around the perimeter hadn’t been built, it’s possible it is part of the construction I encountered.

The eastern entrance to Willow Reserve is at the end of Ivy Avenue West and its intersection with the alley behind Farrington Street and is noted by a trail marker.

Unfortunately, someone also used the spot to dump some unwanted furniture and wood.

The alley behind Farrington is the eastern border of Willow Reserve.

Back and Forth through the North End

A pair of yellow roosters decorated the front steps of a home on Farrington Street. Lion statues are a much more common member of the animal kingdom to stand watch over the front of homes. I don’t know whether these rooster statues have any significance but they’re a nice accent.

The assortment of homes broadened moving south to the 1200 blocks of Farrington. Homes were constructed in the 1890s, 1900s, 1930s, 1940s, ‘50s and even 1970s. It’s an interesting display of the changing styles of homes over nearly a century. All six homes in the photos below are similar in size—between 900 and 1,300 square feet. The three oldest, classified as one and three-quarter stories by Ramsey County, were constructed as workers cottages in what appears to be Victorian style, at least to this architectural novice.

A block south on Farrington, the 1948 structures are classic single-story ramblers (known as ranch houses in some parts of the country.)

The window coverings on a Woodbridge Street house were unconventional to say the least. I didn’t think this was latest in window screen design. Rather, I surmised it was a type of security feature to protect a vacant home and a bit of internet searching proved this to be true.

Moving a block east, Albermarle Street is the next thoroughfare on which I traveled. The lovely story and three-quarter brick home is another example of a Victorian workers cottage that is common in the North End.

My north-south exploration skipped one block—Rice Street—and resumed on a block-long piece of Park Street.

Wheeling Along Wheelock

Wheelock Parkway is nearly 5.5 miles, stretching west from just south of Lake Phalen at Maryland Avenue to the southeast shore of Como Lake and Maryland. The piece just east of 35E provides a wonderfully wide biking/walking path. This delightfully smooth byway was redone in 2016 as part of parkway reconstruction still feels new. It is separated from motor vehicles, in some places by a grass boulevard and others by barriers.

Landscaping, art and wayfinding signs are improvements made as part of the Wheelock reconstruction.

Wheelock splits into a true parkway immediately east of the Gateway Trail bridge with a traffic lane in each direction straddling the biking/walking path.

South on the Gateway Trail

The piece of the Gateway State Trail between Maryland Avenue and Cayuga Street is far from the most appealing part of the trail. It’s wedged between the din of speeding vehicles on 35E on one side and a weather-bleached wood fence obscuring a light industrial building and MnDOT facilities on the other. Still, with no motor vehicles to contend with, it was a safe, convenient way to make my way south.

More North End

A sprawling conglomeration of interconnected off-white buildings stretch northward from Cayuga Street along Agate Street. Tilsner Carton Company, a manufacturer of cardboard (corrugated) boxes and displays, moved from Lowertown to the North End spot near what is now I-35E in 1986.

The company’s north lot offers an inkling into the products made there.

A Signpost

The directional signpost (or sign post) was not invented by the producers of M*A*S*H*, the beloved CBS TV show about an Army medical unit during the Korean war. M*A*S*H* did, however, ensconce the signpost in popular culture.

Fifty years later, a limited number of directional signposts dot the landscape of our fair city. Most follow the lead of M*A*S*H*, with each arrow pointing toward and naming one city and the mileage to it.

With that in mind, I had to pause at the uncommon and noteworthy signpost displayed in the front corner of the yard at 362 Topping Street. Nineteen names—mostly first names— each followed by a number, lined the top 15 feet of the weathered post.

Homeowners Cindy and Jim told me the signs refer to their children and each of their siblings; specifically the direction and mileage from 362 Topping to their respective homes. Cindy has five siblings-all brothers-and Jim has nine. They have four children.

What was the inspiration for the signpost? Jim answered honestly, “ I don’t know,” and he laughed. “Just thought it’d be something cute, something different in the neighborhood.”

Almost as interesting is how Cindy and Jim got the telephone pole on which the signs are mounted. As Jim explained, a pipefitter with whom he worked lived along the Gateway Trail got the pole for him. “When they were putting the Gateway in they took the telephone poles out. He said, ‘I’ll get you one.’ So he got me a pole. So dug a big hole, dropped it in, and it’s been there ever since.”

Our conversation moved on from the signpost to their close-knit neighborhood, their home, and their back yard, awash in fruit trees and gardens during warm weather.

362 Topping was built in 1900 but in 2017, a fire sparked by a faulty toaster all but destroyed the house. Fortunately, everybody was at work when the blaze started.

Cindy said they rebuilt the home on the original foundation “because the walls were super thick in the basement, so we didn’t wanna get rid of that.”

They incorporated the front porch into the new house as well. “There’s nothing really wrong with that ’cause the fire was at that [the back] end so we kept it. We just thought it was cool.” So the foundation and front porch date back to 1900, with the rest of their home almost 120 years newer.

While waiting for their home to be rebuilt, they stayed in the neighborhood, moving across the street to be exact. Jim and Cindy purchased 363 Topping and relocated there.

Cindy and Jim gave me a tour of their backyard, which at 81 feet wide is twice the width of the standard lot Saint Paul lot. She talked about the cornucopia of trees there. “This is a cherry tree, a Granny Smith apple, plum, raspberry bushes, blueberry bushes underneath the plum tree. Most of it’s fruit. And then that back there is a big vegetable garden.” Those gardens are all organic.

Meanwhile, flowers bedeck other gardens during warmer weather. Cindy pointed out a couple of bushes they planted. “The bushes here were kind of bad. Actually, right before our fire, ironically, we replaced them with burning bushes.”

Like most places in Saint Paul, their little part of the North End has evolved since they moved there in 1980. “We were the youngest when we moved in here,” said Cindy. “I would say we’re probably the oldest ones now.”

Also different is that about one-quarter of the homes on the block are now rental properties. Therefore, she stated, “We try to get to know everybody and everybody’s really good about that. I’ve always told the new people that we need to look out for each other and trust each other and have each other’s backs ’cause there is a lot of violence around in St. Paul, especially the last few years. So, it’s nice that we all look out for each other.”

And Cindy added, “It’s [the neighborhood] really nice. We do the National Night Out in August. All the neighbors come and it’s a nice block to live on.”

Another way the block keeps in touch is via Facebook. “My daughter set up a little Facebook page for just our block so that if there’s a car you don’t know, you can say, ‘Whose car is this or what happened or why were there sirens.?’”

Burgess Street

Jim and Cindy offered a form of a parting gift with a suggestion to visit a unique house less than two blocks away. Sure enough, the house and property at 277 Burgess Street, from the strong Gothic elements on the house, and six stall garage in back, to the brick-laden wall surrounding it all, is certainly enigmatic.

Property records indicate the 1500 square foot, four bedroom home was built in 1884. Listed online as The Manor, it is a bed and breakfast available for short term rental. Undoubtedly there are some interesting stories surrounding more than 130 years of history at 277 Burgess, which I’m already working on.