07 March, 2017

MN Monday #4 - The Grand Oak Grove

When I came up to visit the University of MN campus, it was really the only option I had for grad school at that time.  So we had scheduled time with an apartment hunter to show me some places quickly while I was in town.  I looked at several places, the correct choice was pretty obvious as soon as I walked into the lobby.  230 Oak Grove St. - The Grand Oak Grove Hotel - just a few blocks off of Loring Park south of Downtown Minneapolis.

With it's history as an actual hotel, it has this very impressive marble clad lobby with a long entryway.  It was reasonably well-managed and the rooms were quite nice, by-and-large.  Plus it was right in the heart of an exciting (but not _too_ exciting) city that I was eager to go exploring.

But more importantly, when I lived in that building there developed a community of people who cared about each other.  Many of us were dog owners (at the high point there were 40 dogs in a building with just over 100 units).  So many of us got to know each other through them on the dog lot across the street from the building.  At the time it was a grassy area beside the parking lot and sometimes we would just sit out there for a could hours with the dogs and socializing.  The big lobby also became a place where we could build a community.  At one point, Jacob started rolling his upright piano down to the lobby during the holiday and people would carol beside the gigantic Christmas tree we convinced the manager to spring for.

It was only a few years -- Jonathon and I moved in July 1, 1997 and Jacob and I moved out when we bought our first house in October 2001.  But it was a good chosen family with lots and lots of good memories.  (Plenty of bad ones too, but this is supposed to be a fun retrospective.)  We've all split to the four winds now but I'm really grateful that my first home in this new place was one that gave me the support I needed to thrive here.

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