Como is a neighborhood within the University community of Minneapolis. It is sometimes referred to as Southeast Como, due to many of its streets ending in SE, and possibly to differentiate it from the Como neighborhood in neighboring Saint Paul. Its boundaries are East Hennepin Avenue to the north, 33rd Avenue Southeast to the east, the Southeast Industrial Area to the south, and Interstate 35W to the west. Como features many amenities for its residents: Van Cleve Park Community Center, the Como Student Community Co-op, the University Childcare Center, Dar Al-Farooq mosque, SE Christian Church, and the Como Evangelical Free Church. The #3 busline is convenient to all who live in Como and provides easy transportation to Downtown Minneapolis, all of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campuses, and Downtown St. Paul. The high-traffic business roads, industry, abandoned industrial sites, and active railroads that surround Como contrast sharply with the residential character of the neighborhood. The housing stock consists of modest early 20th-century bungalows and Victorian and twenties-era homes mixed with a scattering of newer duplexes and single family homes. Some areas have post-60's two-story walk-up apartment buildings. Commercial activity is focused on Como and East Hennepin Avenues. The neighborhood is served by two convenience grocery stores and a number of small service businesses, including a hardware store, a barber, a dentist, two coffee houses, three bar/restaurants, a diner, a video rental shop, an electronics repair shop, a resale shop, three printers, a car parts store, several auto repair garages, and several gas stations.
Como Avenue, which forms the spine of the residential neighborhood was originally a Territorial Road laid out in 1851, called the Willow River Road.
Later, when St. Paul named Lake Como and it became a popular recreational spot, the section of the WillowRiver/Hudson Road that led to the lake from Minneapolis became known as the Como Road.
The first residential blocks were platted in 1882 by James Tallmadge Elwell.
Maria Sanford, the first female professor at the U of M, lived in the neighborhood and was active in the community church.
General Mills built their research laboratory here in 1930 and created Cheerioats, which is known as Cheerios today. In the early 1950s, GM's mechanical division invented the Ryan Flight Recorder, more famously known as the "black box".
