Standing where Cedar and Riverside Avenues cross, it’s hard to believe that this was once the blondest intersection in all of Minneapolis. In the 1800s, it was home to the city’s largest concentration of Scandinavian immigrants. Today, framed by the looming Riverside Plaza Towers and the long-standing 400 Bar, the neighborhood is still defined by newcomers, except that they are more likely to hail from East Africa than Northern Europe.
Next to neighborhood stalwarts such as the Wienery and the labor-party-endorsed Mayday Books, newer entities have moved in, like the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, which shares its space with the Cedar-Riverside cop shop, and the Al Karama Mall, offering fine furniture and digital versions of the Koran.
Despite Mohammed’s presence, the neighborhood retains its reputation as a hard-drinkin’ destination with a few hard-luck regulars. Bars and clubs line the streets, from the Triple Rock Social Club to the Nomad World Pub to more purposeful drinking haunts like Palmer’s. Throw in throngs of U students straight outta Ames, and you’ve got a neighborhood with a distinctly transient feel. The ubiquitous ads for phone cards and money transfers only add to the effect.
Life for Cedar Avenue’s newest homesteaders still seems firmly rooted in Africa. Aside from a few mini groceries selling Syrian bath products and locally made flat breads, most of the area’s Somalis shop at a makeshift market at 419 Cedar Ave. S. This place would seem forlorn if not for the smiles and laughter of the women hawking colorful long skirts, tunics, and headscarves, all of which can be admired in cracked mirrors alongside machine-made prayer rugs, plastic flowers, and incense.
Another favorite destination is Ubah Restaurant and Coffee, where men in kufis and henna-dyed beards slurp down steaming soup from plastic bowls and watch Al Jazeera on the big-screen TV. It’s hard to go unnoticed at Ubah, especially if you’re a lily-white woman. Each new customer gave me a curious once-over before sitting down. And I got the sweetest smile from the slight young man who wiped my table.
It occurred to me while sipping coffee that this is exactly what the Department of Homeland Security is most fearful of: foreign-born, Islamic, Al Jazeera-watching men. But from where I sat, it looked like they were probably discussing the weather and their kids and telling jokes. Cancel that code orange.
Cedar-Riverside remains, as always, a sort of cultural chameleon. But just as in the seventies, the word on the street is “peace.” Now it just sounds more like “salaam.”
—Sarah Lemanczyk
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