What started 40 years ago as a volunteer-led labor of love is now a downtown Iowa City institution: the Iowa Arts Festival. Back in the summer of 1983, Joyce Carroll and Kristin Summerwill helped organize a multi-day event on the Ped Mall that brought together artisans, visual artists, poets, local musicians such as Greg Brown […]
Iowa City history
Posted inFood & Drink
100 dishes from bygone Iowa City-area restaurants, remembered by LV readers
In March, Little Village asked followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, “What are some of your favorite dishes from bygone local restaurants?” The posts received hundreds of comments from nostalgic (and clearly hungry) current and former locals, recalling restaurants long gone and recently deceased. Below are 100 of those responses. Do you know the recipe […]
Posted inEastern Iowa
Time Capsule Dale: Craving Roxie’s scalloped potatoes and ham
Meet LV’s newest columnist — a Gen X townie who goes to bed in the ’90s and wakes up in modern day IC/CR. It had everything a southeast side Iowa City resident would ever need: happy hour specials and the best damn scalloped potatoes and ham in Johnson County. I’m talking about Roxie’s on the […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Time Capsule Dale: Laundry day at Duds N Suds
Meet LV’s newest columnist — a Gen X townie who goes to bed in the ’90s and wakes up in modern day IC/CR. The early months of 1996 have been a whirlwind for Hawk fans. Carver once again proved to be a menace to Bobby Knight and his gang of Hoosiers on Sunday as Russ […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Former UI President Sandy Boyd, who left an indelible mark on the university, has died at age 95
Willard Boyd, president of the University of Iowa from 1969 to 1981, died on Tuesday. Boyd, known to everyone by his nickname “Sandy,” was 95 years old. Boyd was president during a period of great change and unrest, with protesters challenging the established structures of power at the university over issues such as the war […]
Posted inCommunity/News
The Black Angel and Ana Mendieta
“I have been carrying on a dialogue between the landscape and the female body (based on my own silhouette). I believe this has been a direct result of my having been torn from my homeland (Cuba) during my adolescence. I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb (nature). My art […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘Your voice is valuable’: The LGBTQ Iowa Archives and Library welcomes a new director
The LGBTQ Iowa Archives and Library (LIAL) has a new interim director, Madde Hoberg. The former executive director Aiden Bettine founded LIAL in 2020 while working on the Transgender Oral History Project of Iowa. Bettine, then an archivist at the University of Iowa, realized there were no LGBTQ-specific collecting development policies in archives across Iowa. […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘Bloom County’ is coming to television as an animated series, bringing echoes of Iowa City with it
Almost 42 years after it was first launched, 33 years after its creator discontinued it and seven years after he revived it, the much-beloved comic strip “Bloom County” is set to become an animated series on Fox. And when Berkeley Breathed’s creation hits TV screens, it’ll be bringing echoes of Iowa City with it. “Just […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Best of the CRANDIC Spotlight: Colonial Lanes owner Brad Huff on keeping Iowa City’s oldest bowling alley a safe, retro escape
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 […]
Posted inLetters
‘Cowboy Justice’: A first-hand account of the deadly 1991 UI campus shooting, 30 years later
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, […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Public Space One purchases historic Iowa City mansion
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 […]
Posted inCommunity/News
The Hall Mall is dead, long live the Hall Mall!
“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 […]
