Thursday, April 2, 2015

The Historic Wedge Newspaper

Two of the early hand-drawn front pages.

Last fall, the @WedgeLIVE news team spent an insane number of hours in the remarkably luxurious and well-equipped Special Collections room of the Minneapolis Central Library, doing what no one else thought possible or necessary: scanning nearly 40 years of the Wedge neighborhood newspaper going back to 1970.

Now that I've mined it for all the blog material it was worth (and used up all the old unredeemed coupons for Tuthill's General Store), we're releasing it to the neighborhood. Check out the archive. It's more historic than a Healy house.

Print it out. Denny may still be legally bound to honor this coupon.

Many talented and dedicated people put a lot of work into this paper over the last 45 years. It's an amazing resource. But if you're too lazy to lift a finger to browse the full archive (I'm looking at you, renters), I've condensed decades of accumulated neighborhood knowledge to a manageable number of bullet points.
Alright "Ken"--you say your last name ends in a chant of "USA"? We're not buying it.

  • "The Wedgies" was a cartoon featuring a Wedge-shaped married couple (unfortunately, not a continuing series).
Next panel: "That's not a hotel, it's a former boarding house you converted to single-family. You owe me $200 for historic repairs."

  • This old political ad fills me with transient pride. Who needs a wife and kids when you can tout your amazing "roommate"? This goes both for euphemistic and platonic roommates. 

Recycle this into a historic Christmas card.


The Wedge newspaper archive is brought to you by Homemade Soups™.