The character of East Hillside, Duluth, Minnesota
Part of the East Hillside neighborhood guide. Back to the full guide.
East Hillside feels like an ordinary older city neighborhood that happens to be tilted, which is a genuinely different experience from Central Hillside's density or Congdon's grandeur.
The middle of the neighborhood, around the school and the co-op and the blocks between Fourth and Eighth Street, is the part that surprises people: houses with porches and yards, kids walking to Myers-Wilkins, a bakery on Third Street, ordinary residential quiet. It reads far more settled than the price band suggests.
The lower blocks near Superior Street and London Road are busier and closer to the water, with lake fog in spring and traffic noise from the two arterials, and with Leif Erikson Park and the Lakewalk immediately below as compensation. The upper blocks toward Skyline are quieter still, get the harbor view, and get the wind.
The eastern edge along Chester Creek is the neighborhood's best-kept part and the most obviously desirable. Houses back onto a wooded gorge, the trails start at the end of the street, and the sound in summer is water rather than traffic.
The through-line is that this is a neighborhood people walk in, along the contour. The cross-slope streets carry a steady flow of people going to the co-op, the school and the bus, which gives the middle of the neighborhood the kind of everyday street life that expensive Duluth neighborhoods often lack.
Landmarks
The lakefront park and formal rose garden at 1301 London Road, directly below the neighborhood, with an amphitheater and a direct connection to the Lakewalk. It is the East Hillside's front lawn and the reason the lower blocks are worth more than their construction dates suggest.
The creek and its wooded gorge form the neighborhood's eastern boundary, dropping through about 60 acres of city park with waterfalls, a sledding hill and the ground once used for Duluth's ski jumps. Same idea as Congdon Park on the other side of the hill, a different creek.
The neighborhood school at 1027 North 8th Avenue East, enrolling about 329 students from prekindergarten through grade 5. Having the elementary inside the boundary is the clearest practical difference between East Hillside and Central Hillside.
The large congregation at 1100 East Superior Street at the foot of the neighborhood, whose summer Sunday services move down the hill to the Leif Erikson Park bandshell.
The full-service co-op grocery at 610 East 4th Street, open daily 7am to 9pm. A walkable full grocery is rare in a Duluth neighborhood at this price, and this one serves both Hillsides.
The 1881 brewery at 600 East Superior Street on the neighborhood's lower western corner, which brewed until 1972 and was listed on the National Register in 1984. Ten buildings running about 720 feet along the shoreline now hold a hotel, a brewpub, restaurants and shops.
Character next door
West across Sixth or Seventh Avenue East, the other half of the Hillside: denser, cheaper, closer to downtown and the hospitals, and noisier.
Chester ParkEast across Chester Creek, the university-side hillside neighborhood with a much higher owner-occupancy share and higher prices.
East End / EndionBelow and east along the lake, historic housing with lake views at meaningfully higher prices.
Downtown DuluthAbout a mile downhill southwest, with the transit hub, the library, the theaters and most of the region's restaurants.
Congdon ParkEast along the hill, the city's benchmark historic neighborhood, at roughly three times the price.