Impact of City Improvements on a North Minneapolis Ho Stroll
If you haven’t been on Lowry Ave N lately, you may be surprised by how much things have changed. But don’t take more word for it. Here’s the perspective of someone who’s tracked the street walking scene over the years:
Lowry Avenue near the Library was once one of the city’s most popular ho strolls. In case you don’t know, a ho stroll is exactly what it means: an area where hos stroll. Several years ago, an evening cruise around this area would encounter a host of women strolling up and down the avenue, from Fremont up to Penn. Most of the hos were of the desperate crackhead variety, but every once in a while you could come across a chick that made your jaws drop in shock that such a chick was a working girl.
The area has since undergone a huge facelift. The Avenue had been widened considerably, making the working girl stand out conspicuously and police have aggressively tamped down of much of the illegal activity. Thus, it has nowhere the action it once boasted. But old habits die hard and every so often you will spot a working girl out on the Ave taking a chance on making some money.
Perhaps it’s been pushed to other parts of the neighborhood? It seems like the streets along Lyndale between Broadway and Dowling are the drive-thru for just about anything you’d want to buy in North. Maybe it’s not as far north as Lowry these days.
On the south side of town, Carly and I saw some action on Lake near 13th Ave S pre-dawn on Tuesday (they were out too late, or we were out too early). It looks like the stretches of Lake and 31st St from there to 35W have a long history of action in South Minneapolis, according to the stats Johnny Northside posted last year. Ranty backs that up in Johnny’s comments.
One thing interesting about the stats Johnny posted is the big gaps between arrests, and the occasional spikes. Here are the dates when arrests occurred, and how many:
10/3/2006 1 5/2/2007 4 5/16/2007 2 6/11/2007 1 6/14/2007 5 6/18/2007 1 6/21/2007 2 6/28/2007 2 7/18/2007 1 7/19/2007 1 7/26/2007 1 8/13/2007 1 8/22/2007 1 8/29/2007 1 11/7/2007 1 11/20/2007 1 12/4/2007 1 12/18/2007 2 12/26/2007 2 1/2/2008 1 1/4/2008 1 1/9/2008 1 1/19/2008 1 1/22/2008 1 1/25/2008 1 2/5/2008 1 2/6/2008 1 3/24/2008 1 3/25/2008 1 3/26/2008 1 3/30/2008 1 4/2/2008 2 5/4/2008 1 5/7/2008 3 5/8/2008 1 5/12/2008 2 5/14/2008 2 5/20/2008 1 5/21/2008 1 7/2/2008 1 7/10/2008 1 7/16/2008 2 7/31/2008 2 8/20/2008 1 8/21/2008 9 3/12/2009 1
Does anyone have any theories on the time gaps or spikes? Is this something that gets attention from time to time, which leads to sweeps?
August 21st, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Some things I agree with, such as yes, prostitution is less visible on Lowry – however just go to Penn between WBro and Lowry and you’ll find all the cracked out hookers you want. Go ahead, go there, Johns, so we can photograph you and take your license plate, do you think we are oblivious to what you are doing?)
Some things I don’t agree with, such as the jaw-dropping girls. I suppose everyone has a different level of what constitutes jaw-dropping.
August 25th, 2010 at 5:45 am
I lived by 32nd St and 4th Ave during Spring-Fall 2007. Some of those spikes might be due to temperature and better weather. It was always there, but to a much lesser extent. We moved in during mid-spring and it wasn’t until it got much warmer outside did the place seem to explode with activity on the street. Whenever a squad car came by, the women would pretend to wait for a bus that didn’t run at that time of the night. Sometimes the police would shine their search light at them, but usually the police didn’t seem to do much. Some neighbors who had lived there for 20 years were very frustrated because the area wasn’t always like this, and felt the police didn’t seem to make much impact.