Join artist and author Jamie Schumacher on a tour of one of Minneapolis's most unique neighborhoods: The West Bank.
In her second book, Butterflies and Tall Bikes, Schumacher combines personal narrative, compelling interviews, and neighborhood history in vignette-style chapters that paint a picture of the West Bank Business Association and West Bank/Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. Detailed, mandala-like illustrations by artist Corina Sagun are interwoven throughout the text, and the book features a cover and map by Minneapolis artist Kevin Cannon. Interviews highlight the stories of West Bank characters and Cedar-Riverside residents, past and present, as they reflect on the community’s changing landscape.
The stories affirm an essential truth about community: it’s the people that make a place.
Release date: May 18, 2021.
Online orders will ship media mail to arrive on or before release date, in the order they were placed.
$15.95 direct / $19.95 list
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Parking Lot Book Party
Thursday, July 8 @7pm CST
House of Balls, West Bank
1504 7th St S, Minneapolis, MN 55454
(IN PERSON!)
Where to buy Butterflies and Tall Bikes:
MN Local?
You can pick up a copy at participating West Bank locations:
Also available at:
Support local businesses!
“Jamie's storytelling blends poetry, journalism and autobiography into a beautiful oral history of Cedar-Riverside. She captures the personalities and culture of the neighborhood with a warmth and love that flows out of each page.”
- JD Duggan, The Uptake
“This book is a time capsule, a living history, and a love letter. And it makes my heart go a-flutter.”
—Andrea Swensson, radio host and author of Got to Be Something Here: The Rise of the Minneapolis Sound
“I LOVED the book. It felt like the walking tour Jamie gave me in my first months at Our Streets--feeling her deep love for the neighborhood and the people we met on the way, but ultimately getting to know her better, too. The painful and slow work it takes to make change resonated with me.
In Butterflies and Tall Bikes, Jamie Schumacher paints a thrilling portrait of Minneapolis’s West Bank Neighborhood and its extraordinary inhabitants. Part biography and part travel guide—Jamie’s love for one of our city’s most interesting and diverse communities shines through. While grounding us in the West Bank’s history this book fills us with a soaring optimism about the future of our city.”
- Ashwat Narayanan, Our Streets MPLS
“In Butterflies and Tall Bikes, author Jamie Schumacher takes readers on a journey to an urban island on the West Bank of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, MN. This “island” is not surrounded by water as you would think, but flanked by interstates and transit ways creating a tight-knit community, divided by ideas, but united in serving each other.
The book amplifies stories of the unique businesses, people and institutions on the West Bank while weaving in Schumacher’s transformative experiences in helping businesses navigate big changes with vision, advocacy and creativity. Reading between the lines, Schumacher discusses why accessibility matters in all forms. It is clear that the COVID 19 pandemic has forced us to look at community differently. However, as a transit professional, I was challenged to re-think how community engagement can bring even better resources directly to families, businesses and organizations.”
- Queen Tea / Theresa Nix
“Cities need neighborhoods like the West Bank, and storytellers like Jamie. In her practical, observant style, Butterflies and Tall Bikes captures the people, peculiarities, and policies that have shaped the neighborhood and the community bonds that have made the West Bank vital and vibrant through it all. Reading Butterflies and Tall Bikes is like taking a stroll with a good friend – invigorating and enlightening, and it makes you love a place even more.”
- Carl Atiya Swanson, CAST Consulting and Springboard for the Arts
“From Koerner, Ray and Glover to Bonnie Raitt to Semisonic, from Bedlam to the Southern Theater, from the Triangle Bar to Palmer’s to the Triple Rock, the West Bank has historically been a center for one of the must creative and diverse music, arts and culture scenes in Minneapolis, possibly the universe.
Jamie Schumacher’s book weaves threads of history, memories and hopes for the future into a rich tapestry of her personal stories intertwined with those of fellow West Bankers who love this neighborhood as much as we do. Butterflies and Tall Bikes is a beacon, an inspiration to we who have loved the West Bank for decades and to those who want to know more.”
- Cyn Collins, author of West Bank Boogie and Complicated Fun
Butterflies and Tall Bikes features interviews with:
Scott Artley, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (and prior- Patrick’s Cabaret, Mixed Blood Theatre, Southern Theater)
Kate Barr, Propel Nonprofits (and prior- Riverside Bank)
Merrie Benasutti, University of Minnesota (and prior- Augsburg University)
Abdirizak Bihi, Somali Education and Social Advocacy Center, Resident
Angie Courchaine, Pinwheel Arts and Movement Studio and Resident
Erik Funk, Triple Rock Social Club
Cam Gordon, Council Member - City of Minneapolis Ward 2
David Hamilton, Cedar Cultural Center (and prior - Augsburg University)
Claudia Holt, Prepare+Prosper (and prior - Zombie Pub Crawl)
Michelle Kwan, Keefer Court Bakery & Cafe
Anna Lohse, Hard Times Cafe
Ben Marcy, University of Minnesota (and Bedlam Theatre, Resident)
Abdi Mukhtar, Minneapolis Park Board, Daryeel
Dan Prozinski, Harparatus, Resident
Andrea Swensson, The Current - Interview and Foreword
Elton Trusclair, West Bank essential
Jennifer Weber, Cedar Riverside Community Athletic Association
“Jamie's warm and down-to-earth reflections shift easily between memoir, thoughtful oral history, and insights gleaned from years eking out small but important wins as the leader of a scrappy neighborhood non-profit. Butterflies and Tall Bikes is a thoughtful document that faithfully captures a period in the West Bank's raucous and ever-changing momentum. It's a welcome read for anyone longing for their next half-drunk beer and conversation on the patio at Palmer's.“
- Aleah Vinick, former tour guide
“I've worked in and around the West Bank in the political and live music worlds. I've seen 4 of my all-time top 10 bands within blocks of each other here and watched a dear friend buy a bar here. Jamie captures the energy of the community while shining a light on the right places that showcase why my friends fly into Minneapolis and have me pick them up at Palmer's instead of the airport.”
- Andy Holmaas, former political staffer, local musician, and Minneapolis enthusiast
“Crafted in a time of isolation, this book brings healing nostalgia, warmth, community and hope. What a gift to have someone write so deeply about this neighborhood unlike anywhere else in the world.”
- Hailey Colwell, Minnesota Playlist, Spektrix
“Jamie Schumacher tells these West Bank stories much like she paints: by refracting thousands of tiny details into a vibrant portrait of the multi-faceted neighborhood.”
—Sage Dahlen
“Margaret Mead said, ‘What happens on the growing edges of life is seldom written down at the time. It is lived from day to day in talk, in scraps of comment on the margin of someone else’s manuscript, in words spoken on a street corner . . .’ Happily, the West Bank and its community has Jamie Schumacher to honor and preserve those precious ‘scraps of comment,’ weaving them beautifully into this love song to a neighborhood and a city.”
—John Capecci, coauthor, Living Proof: Telling Your Story to Make a Difference
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