The character of Lakeside, Duluth, Minnesota
Part of the Lakeside neighborhood guide. Back to the full guide.
Lakeside feels like a small town that happens to sit inside a city. The commercial block is short enough to walk end to end in ten minutes, and the businesses on it are almost entirely locally owned, which means the coffee shop knows the hardware store and both of them sponsor something at the school. Kids ride bikes on the residential streets. The rink at Portman Square has lights on winter evenings.
The streetscape is legible and unpretentious. Numbered avenues run up the hill, named streets run across, and the housing repeats in recognizable patterns block to block. Yards are tidy without being manicured. There are more detached garages and alleys here than in the newer parts of the city, and more front porches than you would expect this far north.
A Saturday in Lakeside is chores in the morning and outside in the afternoon. In summer that means the Lakewalk, Brighton Beach, or a trailhead at Lester. In September it means the Lester Park Rendezvous and hawk counts on the ridge. In February it means the rink, the ski trails at Lester, and a lot of shoveling. Nightlife is thin and nobody here is apologizing for it: the brewery on Superior Street is the closest thing to a scene, and downtown is a fourteen-minute drive when you want one.
Landmarks
The east side high school at 40th Avenue East, and the neighborhood's most-used civic building outside the parks.
Opened in the former Falk's Pharmacy building at 4507 E Superior Street, the first retail liquor store in Lakeside in more than a century after the 2016 repeal of the neighborhood's dry charter.
The neighborhood's indoor rink and rec building at Portman Square.
Character next door
Directly east and effectively the same market, with more trail access and slightly larger lots.
Congdon ParkThree minutes west, the same schools pathway, historic architecture, and a much higher price.
Hunter's ParkUp the hill toward Hartley, wooded lots and a quieter, more spread-out feel.
North Shore (Duluth)Beyond Brighton Beach along Scenic 61, where the lots get bigger and the lake gets closer.
WoodlandInland toward UMD, with a similar era of housing and a shorter run to campus.