As a child I loved riding around with my dad as he went about his Saturday chores: a trip to the cleaners on Selby Avenue to pick up his starched white shirts, groceries at Klein's Supermarket (now Restoration Hardware), gas for the 1950 Buick Roadmaster at Glenn's Phillips 66 station at Grand and Chatsworth (Lloyd's Automotive) and maybe even a visit to where he worked as a display artist: the Golden Rule Department Store.
Dad would tell the greatest stories at least from my point of view anyway. One of those stories involved the Oakland Hill, and how after a snowstorm the hill would become clogged by all the cars stuck in the snow in failed attempts to climb the thing. This story was told every time we traversed the hill to or from Downtown.
The Oakland Hill, or rather the Oakland Avenue Hill was carved out of the south side of what was then called Saint Anthony Hill in 1885 to enable streetcars to ascend to Grand Avenue.
Oakland Avenue once ran from Summit Avenue to Grand Avenue and then down to its intersection with Ramsey Street and Pleasant Avenue.
In 1970, at “the insistence of the Grand Avenue Business Association” Oakland Avenue became “Grand Hill” and Ramsey Street was renamed Grand Avenue, all to take advantage of having a named exit at Interstate 35E. Ramsey once ran from Summit Avenue to Exchange Street and terminated conveniently at the Alexander Ramsey House.
This brings me to the curmudgeonly part and the entire excuse for writing this post: I liked it better the way I remember it.
