Macalester-Groveland, Summit-University, Downtown, West 7th/West End, Highland Park
June 10, 2026
18.63 miles
Macalester-Groveland
A uniform grey blanket of clouds hung down low as I embarked. A fine mist began shortly thereafter, coating the lenses of my glasses in small dots of water.
The misty rain brought something to mind that my mom told my siblings and me many years ago. “You’re not so sweet that you’re going to melt” she’d say when we’d complain about the rain. The memory brought a smile to my face.
My ultimate destination—in the (light) rain— was in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood for a scheduled interview.
Lexington-Hamline
The stoplight on Summit at Lexington turned red, giving me a moment to look around. The first thing I noticed, in the center boulevard, was flowers of a catalpa tree on the ground around its trunk. I got off my bike to consider this part of the Summit Avenue boulevard in a way I’d never done.
Several yards from the catalpa was the bench seemingly being consumed by various plants and vines, and next to it, a sign nearly obscured by weeds.
A well-worn path carved out by runners and walkers meandered before disappearing into some bushes and trees.
Summit-University
The architectural masterpiece that is now the Vertical Church building has seen more than its share of tenants over the years. Prior to this church, the SteppingStone Theatre for youth occupied the building.
Traveling along Maiden Lane will likely make you feel as though you’ve gone back more than a century in time. Paved with red bricks decades ago, the five block long street offers unusual views of many old buildings (and a few new ones.)
While designated a street, Maiden Lane is really akin to an alley, with garages and the backs of homes and buildings facing it along much of its five block length.
Learn more about Laurel Terrace through additional photos and information from a 2013 visit.
On to Downtown
Continuing the eastward trek, I came to Downtown, specifically Sixth Street at Wabasha. This intersection is one of several spots Downtown enduring another season of road construction. On the bright side, literally, the drizzle and clouds gave way to some welcome sunshine.
Several blocks north, at Tenth Street East between Wabasha and Cedar another obstacle presented itself. Not construction this time; instead it was a truck parked in Capital City Bikeway next to the History Theater.
I realize there’s virtually no auto traffic and riding on the street for a block isn’t that huge a deal. While true, Tenth Street can get busy, and the bike lane is there for…bikes. At best it gives delivery people the idea that parking in a bike lane is acceptable. At worst, it encourages others making a “quick stop” to leave their vehicle in the bike lane. Consider how inconvenient it is to maneuver around a double-parked vehicle when you’re behind the wheel. Rules of the road should apply to all vehicles; bikes and cars.
Little did I know that, just two blocks to the east, it would happen again! Another truck, this one with a long trailer, clogging the bikeway.
Plans change
An unexpected cancellation of my interview in Railroad Island prompted me to improvise. With that ride now unnecessary, expanded exploration of Downtown seemed prudent. Immediately south of the bikeway (and the truck and trailer blocking it) at 10th and Robert Streets is Downtown’s newest park. Pedro (PEED-roh) Park came to fruition after at least 30 years of hoping, asking, pleading, urging, demanding and convincing city officials that Downtown needed another park.
Public concepts for a new park surfaced in 1997 and again in 2006, but planning really took root after the 2008 closing of the 94-year old Pedro’s Luggage store.
The Saint Paul Pioneer Press reported that Carl and Eugene Pedro donated the nearly half-acre parcel with the building and parking lot to the City of Saint Paul. The Pedros stipulated that the site become a park within five years. (It took significantly longer!)
The building came down in 2011, replaced three years later with a makeshift park of grass and flowers—not at all what the Pedro family nor park advocates envisioned or wanted. Residents clambered for a larger recreational space. City leaders determined limited funds should go toward deferred maintenance on established parks across Saint Paul.
Another obstacle to a bigger park turned out to be the Police Annex Building, the the hefty brick and stone structure just west of the “park.” The police department used the annex for training, its radio shop, SWAT vehicle parking, gun range and more from 1976 until 2017. Not until six years later did demolition finally open about .4 of an acre more for the park.
Construction very belatedly began on Pedro Park in 2024 and its dedication and long-coveted opening were held in July 2025.
Flower planters
Take a look at the sidewalk along the exterior of many buildings, and from April into October, you’ll see pots replete with flora. From the yellow, red and white hues of tulips in May to October’s burnt orange, golden and purple mums.
Well, those flowers and plants don’t just grow there by themselves. It takes someone like Janet Lobberecht and her team from J-Bird Urban Gardens to make it happen.
Meeting Janet and her team tending the pots in front of Kellogg Square Apartments was happenstance. Riding south on 4th Street, I noticed several folks flittering about with plants and gardening tools in their hands. Watching their fluctuating movements called to mind the way in which ants scurry about when their hill is disturbed. This activity necessitated a closer look.
Catching Janet took some effort, as she barely stopped moving during the 20 minutes I was there.
She reluctantly agreed to talk about her work—if she could continue doing it. I did my best to keep pace while she dashed around, orchestrating her crew and planting along side them.
The path to commercial gardening began when Janet attended art school in Chicago. She took a job at a flower shop and became a designer. After eight years, she relocated to Minnesota “and worked in a flower shop, but didn’t really love it. So I started my own thing with a friend that I met in a flower shop, and then it just sort of evolved. In Chicago, I was working with a gardener, and here I started working with a gardener again, because I loved it, and it sort of evolved into this.”
J-Bird Urban Gardens’ customer base numbers between 20 and 25 clients around the Twin Cities. Their biggest is a real estate development and property management company with a large Saint Paul presence. Besides the plants at Kellogg Square, the J-Bird gardeners care for others at buildings that include Galtier Towers, Mears Park Place, the Cosmopolitan and Lowertown Lofts.
As much fun as playing in the dirt is, it’s not what Janet enjoys the most. “ I think my favorite part is the sort of planning and designing it and getting the material. I like installing it, but it’s a lot of hecticness [sic], and when I’m planning things, I get to imagine and play a little bit more.”
The growing season means early mornings for Janet. “ I wake up at probably, like, 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. And I start my sort of organizing and alone-time to figure out what we need to do. My guys get here anywhere between 7:30 and 8:30, depends on the day. We start loading my list (of plants, accessories and tools) and we start moving around to sites.”
They do five plantings a year, starting with one in April. The first plants to go in, according to Janet, are “a lot of rhododendrons and pansies and spring bloomers, things like that.”
Summer plants go into pots in both May and June, depending upon the client. “The summer (planting) is anything that can handle the hot weather and the sun. It just depends on where it is and how much they water.”
Come fall, Janet explained, heat-tolerant plants make way for those that favor pleasantly cool days and crisp nights, such as, “mums, pansies again, heucheras, anything fall-loving that can handle it a little bit cooler. And then,” she added, “winter is all winter greens and birches and berries and stuff like that.”
The number of J-Bird gardeners fluctuate from two, Janet and one other person during slow months, to seven spanning the prime growing seasons of late spring through summer.
Except in years with unusual weather, Janet begins preparing for the growing season in late March and she and her team wrap up by Thanksgiving. Between then and March, she has more time to create art and to teach at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD).
Does designing arrangements of flowers and plants make Janet an artist? She offered an interesting answer. “ I am an artist. I’m a painter. So yeah, I do consider myself an artist.” And added, “ I would say in this, it’s very creative and I use some of those skills, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily artistry. It’s more design.”
Things they see and hear
Tending to plants in very public places in visible ways leads to some interesting situations. For example, frequent, consistent comments from onlookers, such as, “‘Yay! Yay! You’re switching out for a new season!’ ‘Thanks for doing our pots.’”
Janet also mentioned the regular appeals they get for information. “‘Where’s the post office?’ ‘Where’s…’ And we don’t know anything. ‘Can I leave a delivery here?’ ‘I don’t know. I just work here.’”
Every job has its set of challenges, but Janet and the team have some that you’d call idiosyncratic. “ You have to be really careful because in urban places you find all sorts of stuff. You find wallets, which you’d have to be careful about, or IDs, needles. For real! Broken glass, bottles. Underwear. Dead birds. I found a hawk. I can’t remember what kind of hawk it was. I found one this spring in a pot. It hit the window and fell into the pot. And I’ve cleaned up, like in the spring, and there’s like, you know, geese or ducks nesting in pots- and things like that.”
And with that, Janet ended the interview with a courteous but adamant, “ All right, I’m done. I gotta keep going.”
Kellogg Park
From the Kellogg Square building, I went to Kellogg Park, such a short distance to make it barely worthwhile to get back on the bike. Near the northeast corner of the park stood a large granite rock with a plaque (actually three) on it.
The Rev. Lucien Galtier first came to the village known as Pig’s Eye in 1840. Not only was he the first Catholic priest to visit what would become Saint Paul, he organized the first church, and bestowed upon the city its name.
While at Fort Snelling, Galtier learned of several families living along the Mississippi a couple of miles downstream and felt it his responsibility to minister to them. According to a memoir of Father Galtier written by the Rev. John Ireland, two settlers donated land for a church, a garden and a graveyard. Galtier was quoted as saying, “In the month of October, 1841, I had, on the above stated place, logs cut and prepared, and soon a poor log church, that would remind one of the stable of Bethlehem, was built.”
Just a month later the hand hewn logs had become a Catholic church. In the memoir, Galtier stated, “The church was thus dedicated to St. Paul, and I expressed a wish that the settlement should be known by no other name.”
The history of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in Saint Paul began in 1851 when four members of the order arrived from St. Louis. Within seven years, they’d established four schools and a hospital. The sisters remain active almost 175 years later through dedication to community involvement, spirituality and justice.
The unusual route of Second Street
The entrance to Second Street borders the western side of Kellogg Park. The street was so named because it is the second street from the Mississippi River, according to “The Street Where You Live” by Don Empson. Originally dubbed Bench Street, it served as a route between the steamboat landing and Downtown.
Second Street is closed to all but “authorized vehicles,” whatever that means. Bicycles are among the banished vehicles, though some riders either miss or ignore the signs (yes, including me.)
Shepard Road and the river
Light rain returned as I made the push home along Shepard Road and the the river. Still, I paused to watch a tug pushing some barges upriver toward the Minnesota River.
A last stop along Mississippi River Boulevard in Highland Park to view the river concluded this ride.
A nearly inexhaustible jumble of stories, big and small, permeate Downtown Saint Paul. The sheer number of potential topics complicates what I choose to share and how I interpret this part of the city. Which building, business or residents are notable or interesting enough to feature? On this trip it happened to be the distinctive duties and exploits of Janet Lobberecht and J-Bird Urban Gardens’ workers updating planters at the Kellogg Square Apartments.
Only another visit Downtown will bring the next story to the surface.
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That was fun! I never knew Second Street existed. Love following your adventures!
Highland Heritage Project