Dinkytown

Notable landmarks

Notable establishments

History

• The streetcars, called Dinkys, that used to provide transit throughout the area.
• Similarly, the locomotive tenders at the nearby railyard were called Dinkys due to their compact size.
• The theatre in Dinkytown had only four rows of seats, and for years was known as "The Dinky Theater." Shortly thereafter, it was just "The Dinky."
• DINKYs
• It's a small town-like area; everything is within walking distance.
• The Loring Pasta Bar, previously Gray's Drug on 14th Ave. SE and 4th St. SE has the name of an early owner carved in cement over the doorway: "Grodnik," meaning a small town. The name of the early owner was Louis Grodnik. He owned a haberdashery at that location and built the building. His brother, Hela Grodnik, always claimed that he was the one who named the area when he said that "This is getting to be a real 'Dinky Town." Hela then went on to work for another brother, Jacob Grodnik, at Grodnik Jewelry at 7th and Hennepin in Minneapolis. Louis also owned a haberdashery at 4th and Hennepin known as "Grodnik and Fassbinder".
• Then-Gopher football player Frank "Dinky" Rog, whose large group of friends spent much time down here in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
• Another conjecture which has been made is that "Grod" means "town" as in Stalingrad and that "nik" is the diminutive form. Hence small or dinky town.