5441 Newton Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN, USA

Original Building Permit for 5441 Newton Ave S

Record all work, permitted by the City of Minneapolis, performed on all houses, buildings, and other structures. Normally dating from 1884 or original construction to the early 1970s.

Lot survey for the property at 5441 Newton Ave. S.

Lot survey for the property at the Minneapolis address listed above. Lot surveys were conducted by surveyors to establish the property lines for specific properties. The survey may have been conducted at the time the house or building was first constructed or for other significant building permit (B permit) projects.

The user of this content acknowledges that the information in the attached lot survey is shown for convenience and historical interest only. These surveys do not and are not intended to, depict the legal boundaries of a property.

Developer: William R. Jessup

William R. Jessup was engaged in home construction as the William R. Jessup Co. for 42 years in Minneapolis and the suburbs.

Pennhurst Racial Covenants

According to the University of Minnesota's Mapping Prejudice developers of the Pennhurst development which includes 5441 Newton Ave., placed a racial covenant into the property deed, which is a clause that prevented people who were not white from buying or occupying land. Racial covenants were outlawed by 1968 and are no longer enforceable.

Minnesota law now allows property owners to remove shameful and discriminatory language from property titles. The Armatage Neighborhood has set up AREA: Armatage Reparations & Equity Action to raise awareness of the racial covenants that shaped Southwest Minneapolis.


What are racial covenants?
Racial covenants can be found in the property records of every American community. These restrictive clauses were inserted into property deeds to prevent people who were not White from buying or occupying the land.


Racial covenants served as legally-enforceable contracts. They stipulated that the property had to remain in the hands of White people and they ran with the land, which meant that it could be enforced in perpetuity. Anyone who dared to challenge this ban risked forfeiting their claim to the property.


A survey of the 30,000 covenants unearthed in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties illuminates the wide variety of people targeted. An early Minneapolis restriction proclaimed that the "premises shall not at any time be conveyed, mortgaged or leased to any person or persons of Chinese, Japanese, Moorish, Turkish, Negro, Mongolian or African blood or descent." Before 1919, Jews were often included in this laundry list of “objectionable” people.


This language shifted with time. This eugenics-inspired list gave way to simpler declarations that the property could only be “occupied exclusively by person or persons. . .of the Caucasian Race.” While many different kinds of people were targeted by racial covenants, every restriction identified by Mapping Prejudice bars Black people, as they were perceived by White Minnesotans to be particularly likely to decrease property values.


Resources:
AREA: area1946.com
UMN Mapping Prejudice: https://mappingprejudice.umn.edu/
Just Deeds: https://justdeeds.org/

Planning Body OKs Home Site Tracts

Planning Body OKs Home Site Tracts

Three plots providing sites for about 150 homes had the approval of the city planning commission today. The tracts include ground for 96 homesites between Humboldt and Penn Avenues S., from Fifty-fourth to Fifty-fifth streets, to be known as Pennhurst addition.

Homes of Comfort Edition No. 47 - Minneapolis MN

Catalog of 122 designs of moderately-priced modern, artistic, and practical homes. Carr-Cullen Company was one of the leading manufacturers of sashes, doors, and millwork in the Northwest. They began manufacturing and distributing interior and exterior millwork under the trade name Bilt-Well in 1866.

History of the Armatage Neighborhood

The Armatage neighborhood was originally part of Richfield but was annexed to Minneapolis in the mid-1920s.

Homes in the neighborhood began to rise up in the 1940s, and by 1960 most of the neighborhood was estab­lished. In 1952, the Armatage Community School was built and named in recognition of a distinguished leader by the name of Maude Armatage. During her active years, she was tireless in her efforts to improve the civic, cultural, leisure time, and educational life of this community.

Ms. Armatage served as a member of the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners for 30 years and was instrumental in developing one of the finest park systems in the country at the time. Her interests were broad in scope, among which included education and recreation for children and adults. She was responsible for a resolution establishing the joint use of school board and park board facilities for recreational purposes. She was a pioneer in the campaign for women’s rights and became actively engaged in the issue at a time when it was unpopular to do so. Her devotion to duty and integrity, as well as her pleasing personality, love for children, and outstanding character, were hallmarks of her life. Since that time, the neighborhood has continued to grow and develop in the direction first inspired by Maude Armatage.

Plat of Lands in the City of Minneapolis

Plat of Lands in the City of Minneapolis Recently Annexed from the Village of Richfield Showing Proposed Zoning Regulations

Plat map of the area of Richfield added to the City of Minneapolis in 1928, from 54th St. to 62nd St. and Xerxes Ave. S to 46th Ave. S. Shows zoning areas of residence districts, multi-dwelling districts, commercial districts, light industrial districts, and duplex "C" density districts. March 1928.