Traffic stopped on Nicollet Avenue when victory over Japan was announced in August, 1945. Image is from the newspaper photo collection of the Hennepin County Library Special Collections. And it was identified and digitized by citizen-researcher Rita Yeada.

Sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s, Walter Scott demonstrated for a newspaper photographer the common (and dangerous) practice of “hitching” a bike on a car for speed and thrills. According to the photo caption, the boy lived at 814 Hawthorne Avenue, a neighborhood on the north edge of downtown that was flattened first by the construction of the Farmer’s Market and then the freeway. Since the lad gave his name and address to a reporter, it’s not likely he was trying to hide his behavior from his mother. The image was probably created as part of a public safety campaign. Now it’s in the collection of historic newspaper photos at the Hennepin County Libraries Special Collections. Thanks to citizen-researcher Rita Yeada for locating and digitizing this and so many other amazing images.

The premiere of the film, “Purple Rain,” thirty years ago was a major cultural milestone for Minneapolis. Listen here to this wonderful conversation between Minneapolis native Michele Norris and National Public Radio television correspondent Eric Deggans about the film–and its legacy for music, the city and the world. Norris–who is related to musician Mark Brown–calls the film “a love letter to Minneapolis.”

This image–by local photographer Charles Chamblis, who chronicled the African-American community in Minneapolis during the years dominated by the “Minneapolis Sound”–may show Prince delivering a far more intimate “love letter” to the part of the city that nurtured him when he was most vulnerable. The photograph–from the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society–shows Prince playing in 1985 at a street festival sponsored by Phyllis Wheatley House, the North Side settlement house that has nurtured generations of young people and served as a safe haven in the city for African-American visitors. Taken one year after the release of the film that made him internationally famous, this photograph illuminates the North Side roots of the man most associated in the public imagination with First Avenue downtown.

With this performance, Prince was following the footsteps of musical legends. Established in 1924, the Phyllis Wheatley House moved into a new building in 1929 that included 18 bedrooms for travelers.While Prince was a native son of the North Side, the Wheatley House played host to visiting luminaries like singers Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson, who could not finding lodging in downtown Minneapolis during the Jim Crow years.  All of these singers repaid the hospitality they enjoyed at the Wheatley House by sharing their music with the families connected to this critical North Side community institution.

Our guest blogger today is Daniel Bergin, Senior Producer at Twin Cities Public Television and the director/producer of “Cornerstones: A History of North Minneapolis.” First broadcast in 2011 on TPT’s Minnesota channel, this documentary about the history of the enclave known as the “Northside” was co-produced by TPT and the University of Minnesota’s Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center (UROC). Today he writes about the creative milieu of the city’s North Side, which has fostered some of our community’s most notable writers, artists and musicians.

Thirty summers ago, the film ‘Purple Rain’ premiered to long lines. The film became an instant cult classic, making a local prodigy an international icon. The film focuses on Downtown streetscapes and the famous ‘Lake Minnetonka’ scene.  But the musician’s creative origins are located on the North Side, a part of the city with a rich musical history.

After trouble at home, Prince was welcomed into the house of North Minneapolis matriarch Bernadette Anderson. Prince and her son Andre (Cymone) created what became known in the 1980s as the “Minneapolis Sound” in the Anderson basement.  This photo from the Hennepin History Museum was taken by Bernadette’s daughter Sylvia Anderson. Click here to listen to Bernadette’s son Edward Anderson describe the musicians’ connection to the neighborhood.

Prince is one of the most recent musical talents to emerge from North Minneapolis. decades ealier, two North Side residents– Ira and Oscar Pettiford– -brought a “Minneapolis sound” to the jazz world. Click here to hear Ira’s widow describe how the brothers changed jazz in Minnesota and beyond.

Pivotal in this musical history is the Phyllis Wheatley House.  Segregated downtown hotels sent American legends like Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson to the North Side where they stayed at the Phyllis Wheatley House and performed for the settlement’s children and families.  That legacy stayed with many North Siders, infusing the creative milieu that Prince’s father, and first musical influence, would enjoy when he moved to Minnesota.

This weekend, you can celebrate both the Pettiford brothers and “Purple Rain” as part of “Flow,” the North Side art-crawl that highlights the creative esprit of North Minneapolis. A lively affirmation of the urban creative class, this festival extends along West Broadway and beyond, anchored by long-standing arts centers like Juxtapositon Arts, the Lundstrum Center and the Capri. In fact in the ‘70s the Capri was one of the early venues, for the explosively talented teenager.

Sadly, the stories flowing from the North Side this summer often haven’t been good.  There has been too much violence, and the news that follows.  So his weekend, eschew news of guns and knives. Focus on the products of cameras, pens and brushes, what one-time North Side denizen Gordon Parks called his ‘weapons of choice.” Experience the power of creative place-making. And join the North Side as it revels in the power of arts, past and present.