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Best of the CRANDIC 2021 winner: Best Bowling Alley Bowling, putt-putt, arcade games, a lunch counter and sunken bar. That’s how Colonial Lanes rolls. The business opened in 1959, and current owner Brad Huff has overseen the lanes at the CRANDIC’s Best Bowling Alley since 1972. Little Village sat down with Huff to discuss CL’s […]
It’s Nov. 1, 1991, an ordinary Friday afternoon, the day after Halloween. I’m sitting alone in a big office on the fifth floor of Van Allen Hall, where the Physics Department at the University of Iowa is housed, when I hear a loud noise on a floor below: Pop pop pop. That sounds like gunshots, […]
Public Space One bought a mansion. To be more specific, PS1 is expanding into the Close House, a historic building on the well-trekked corner of South Gilbert and Bowery streets in downtown Iowa City. The purchase marks a bold new chapter for the arts nonprofit, which spent the better part of the last decade in […]
“I came up with the Hall Mall name,” Kirk Stephan said through chuckles as he recalled opening what would become Iowa City’s original incubator of small businesses in the early 1970s. “I wanted to have a longer one, but it turned out that advertisers charged more money the more letters you had!” More than a […]
I was a little nervous during my first meeting as a member of Iowa City’s Historic Preservation Commission a few years ago. After we voted to adjourn, I breathed a sigh of relief — I hadn’t made a motion at the wrong time and didn’t seem to screw anything up. And then a former commissioner […]
In early July 2021, the Iowa City Bike Library is releasing the first in a series of four bike rides touring the Iowa City area intended to create awareness of calls to action in the community. The Raise It Up Rides are audio-guided routes visiting points of interest relating to racial inequities, identifying systems of […]
Emlen Tunnell made history on the football field — first as a Hawkeye, then in the NFL — and continued do so after his playing days ended in 1961. In 1965, he became the first Black assistant coach in the NFL, and in 1967, Tunnell was the first Black player inducted into Pro Football Hall […]
Beneath a veneer of “niceness,” the Midwest is among the very worst places to live in the United States if you’re a person of color. That’s what historian and University of Iowa history professor Colin Gordon discovered while completing a report for the Iowa Policy Project titled “Race in the Heartland: Equity, Opportunity, and Public […]
KRUI 89.7 FM was voted Best Radio Station in Little Village’s 2020 Best of the CRANDIC awards. Things are constantly changing in Iowa City as students move in and move on and familiar parts of the landscape disappear, replaced by new apartment buildings. Sometimes nothing seems permanent except the flocked wallpaper at George’s. But at […]
If three months into Iowa’s COVID-19 pandemic there were some locals who still hoped life might return to normal someday, the announcement that The Mill restaurant and music venue was being sold off was likely a wake-up call. The Mill, 120 E Burlington St, was a stomping ground for generations of townies and a destination […]
On May 1, 2009, a charter bus rolled into downtown Iowa City, packed with lesbian and gay couples from Missouri (and a rabbi or two). A few weeks earlier, Iowa had become the first state in the Midwest to recognize same-sex marriage. The busload of couples had come to the Hawkeye State to get hitched. […]
In 2014, a small building on the block between South Johnson and South Van Buren streets in Iowa City was added to the National Register for Historic Places. Its inclusion was well-warranted; it had served as a small grocery store for nearly a century, beginning in the late 1800s. The store at 518 E Bowery […]
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Little Village is an independent media company based in Iowa City. In print since 2001, our mission is to create visibility for the communities, businesses and events that define our region. Support Little Village →