North East Neighborhood House is a building in the Northeast neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The building housed a social services organization established in 1915 by Plymouth Church, a Minneapolis congregational church. The roots of the organization go back to Immanuel Sunday School, established in 1881 near Second Street Northeast and Broadway Street Northeast. The school later built a new building, Drummond Hall, near Second Street Northeast and 15th Avenue Northeast. The church expanded its programs to include various social services and clubs for neighborhood residents who had immigrated to Northeast Minneapolis from France, Germany, and Scandinavia. The demographics of the area had changed by the 1910s, though, and most of the newcomers were from eastern Europe. These newcomers still needed social services, but since most of them were Catholic, they were unwilling to accept Protestant religious education. The attendance dropped, forcing Drummond Hall to close in 1913.
Plymouth Church still wanted to provide social services in northeast Minneapolis, so they commissioned a study to determine what they could provide for social services. The key finding of the study was that the neighborhood needed a sense of unity, since immigrants from various ethnic groups had differences with each other. The study found that they could acquaint new immigrants with American cultural norms and provide education, health care, and recreation. The church established a settlement house and hired Robbins Gilman, who had recently been fired from University Settlement House because of his support for the Industrial Workers of the World. The house opened in the Drummond Hall building, but later moved to a new, larger building a few blocks north.
The house continued in operation until the early 1960s, when it merged with the Margaret Barry House, another settlement house. The combined organization was renamed East Side Neighborhood Services. East Side Neighborhood Services moved out of the Georgian Revival building in 2001 and into a new, modern building. The 1919 building was renovated and now serves as apartments. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
Famous quotes containing the words north, east, neighborhood and/or house:
“—Here, the flag snaps in the glare and silence
Of the unbroken ice. I stand here,
The dogs bark, my beard is black, and I stare
At the North Pole. . .
And now what? Why, go back.
Turn as I please, my step is to the south.”
—Randall Jarrell (1914–1965)
“The East is marvellously interesting for tracing our steps back. But for going forward, it is nothing. All it can hope for is to be fertilised by Europe, so that it can start on a new phase.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The style, the house and grounds, and “entertainment” pass for nothing with me. I called on the king, but he made me wait in his hall, and conducted like a man incapacitated for hospitality. There was a man in my neighborhood who lived in a hollow tree. His manners were truly regal. I should have done better had I called on him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity with nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)