 | | Downtown Negaunee offers a surprising amount for browsers: antiques, handcrafts, art, architectural artifacts, and a beguilling array of pastries at Midtown Bake Shoppe. Tino's Bar & Pizza (right) has been the hometown anchor for decades. A county-wide theater group is working to restore the Vista Theater next door. | Downtown Negaunee and its attractive, inexpensive space have drawn a number of enterprises centered on food, art, and antiques. Iron Street is downtown's main commercial street. From U.S. 41 outside Negaunee, turn south onto Teal Lake Road/Bus. Route 28 (under the viaduct), right onto Main, left onto Pioneer, and right onto Iron.
Downtown highlights, arranged from east to west, include:
• VISTA THEATER. 218 Iron. The most impressive of Negaunee's seven movie theaters, the 1926 Vista is the home of the Peninsula Arts Appreciation Council, which is slowly restoring the theater. For a restoration update and schedule of upcomng events, visit www.vistatheater.org .
• TINO'S BAR & PIZZA. 220 Iron. Feel the intensity of local pride in this smoky hangout, festooned with mementoes of the Negaunee Miners, past and present. See restaurants.
• MIDTOWN ANTIQUES. 308 Iron. Three floors (almost 10,000 square feet) provide lots of room for Cory Rowe's general line of antiques: not just smalls and china but furniture and (his specialty) lighting and architectural pieces. The Upper Peninsula has such a treasure of historic buildings that normal demolition and remodeling, unfortunate that they are, create a continuing supply of architectural salvage. Here are fretwork, fencing, turned posts, hardware, doors, and beveled and stained glass, including some very large pieces like those removed in de-Catholicizing the Hancock church that became the Finnish-American Cultural Center. (906) 475-0064. Open Mon-Sat 10-5, Sun noon to 4. Wheelchair-accessible: first floor only.
• MIDTOWN BAKERY & CAFÉ. 317 Iron. Marybeth and Cory Rowe chucked the hectic life in Detroit's northern suburbs to pursue their personal passions. They have redeveloped a piece of Downtown Negaunee in the process. Cory has moved his antique business across the street, and Marybeth's bakery has taken over the downstairs and expanded into a full-fledged café. It's a most welcome breakfast spot and community gathering place now that there are no other restaurants downtown. The look continues to be eclectic, with dinette sets and tables and chairs from years gone by, and offbeat changing exhibits by area artists. Checkers, chess, backgammon, and magazines invite customers to sit down and stay awhile. A group of older women friends comes down after lunch and does just that.
Marybeth, a self-described chocoholic, worked for years as a pastry chef in Chuck Muer restaurants. She looked for space for an eat-in gourmet bakery in Marquette but found it too expensive. Then the Rowes hit on the idea of combining bakery, antique shop, and residence in this old frame building, covered with asphalt shingles, now painted bright blue. Cory has artfully covered the exterior walls with architectural items, wisteria, and Virginia creeper. In good weather the vacant space next door becomes an outdoor café and display for garden antiques. Here Marybeth grows edibles to garnish her cakes: nasturtiums, miniature sunflowers, and pansies.
The Midtown staff bakes morning pastries, cheesecakes, tortes, mousses, brownies, muffins, and cookies for individual customers, special events, and wholesale customers like the New York Deli. Wedding cakes are a big deal here. No low-fat, low-taste substitutes here - she uses only butter and fresh whipping cream. Favorites include cheesecakes, carrot cake, and banana cake, made with her grandmother's recipe and covered with chocolate ganache (a heavy cream-chocolate mixture) poured over each piece of cake.
Marybeth's approach to food is like the French: enjoy a rich dessert occasionally, and eat sensibly, with quality ingredients, the rest of the time. Her bout with cancer brought healthy living to the fore, and her restaurant menu reflects that. In May she completed her fourth Avon Cancer Walk marathon (all 26.5 miles) in Washington, D. C (906) 475-0064. Summer hours (mid May through mid September): Mon-Fri 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sat 8-5, Sun 9-4. Otherwise open Mon-Fri 7-6, Sat 10-5, Sun noon to 4. Wheelchair-accessible.
• MY WORKSHOP. 320 Iron. Country and rustic crafts include works by 35 artisans who create seasonal decorations, lodge décor, metal fish, and more. Owner Kathy Lenten does a little bit of everything, and teaches it, too: crocheting, beadwork, painting, rubber stamping, knitting, and basketry. Small groups of friends can schedule a class together and lunch and shop in Downtown Negaunee. Kathy makes flamework glass beads, and she loves to paint - scenic murals to transform dull spaces, painting on children's keepsake furniture, painting on slate, painting on whatever customers bring in or dream up for their homes. Her store also carries rubber stamps by Hero Arts, PSX Design, and Stampendous. It's the largest selection in the Upper Peninsula, she thinks. (906) 475-9663. Open Tues-Fri 11-5, Wed to 6, Sat 10-4. Wheelchair-accessible: call.
• OLD BANK BUILDING ANTIQUES MALL. 331 Iron. Twenty dealers fill this rambling, three-story building with attractively displayed small items and a general line of furniture. The noteworthy triangular building was erected in 1912 for the Negaunee State Bank. Marquette architect Demetrius Charlton designed it. (906) 475-4777. From May through color season open Mon-Sat 10-5, possibly Sunday afternoon. Winter hours: probably Fri & Sat only.
• THE DEPOT GALLERY/ LIBERTY CHILDREN'S ART PROJECT. 442 Iron St. Despite her retirement, former proprietor Marilyn Mutch is often at work here, making her wheel-thrown functional pottery dinnerware and some freeform, fused glass jewelry. Gallery artists number some of the Marquette area's most celebrated artists, including Paul Grant (oil and watercolor portraits and landscapes), Bill Hamilton (landscapes), and Nita Engle, also a landscape painter and the only Michigan woman to have received the American Watercolor Society's prestigious Artist of the Year award. (Call for info on occasional three-day watercolor workshops by Nita Engle.)
This large space was erected in 1918 as the home of the Liberty Theater, before movie theaters became picture palaces like the Vista Theater up the street. The projection booth and outline of the stage can sill be seen.
Sharing this large space with the Depot Gallery is the Liberty Children's Art Project (906-475-5607), with inexpensive children's art classes for preschoolers to high schoolers. Classes are after school and, during vacations, one week long ($25 for five 1 1/2 hour classes). A 1995 Kellogg Foundation grant helped Marilyn start the classes, which include photography, pop art self-portraits, masks, trash to treasure sculpture, and designing action and fantasy heroes, as well as drawing and painting. She says she "saw a need in the community to reach the children, who are the artists and dreamers, and offer them a safe place to express themselves. . . . All children benefit from participating in the arts during their formative years." Visit hometown.aol.com/childrensartp for the upcoming schedule. (906) 475-4067. Open year-round, Mon-Sat 10-5 or by appt. Wheelchair-accessible: a few stairs.
• NEGAUNEE CITY HALL. Corner of Silver and Jackson. Silver is the diagonally intersection street down the hill of Iron Street. Go right (north) on it. This forceful, eclectic architectural composition from 1914-1915 is like few others. Horizontal bands of white limestone and darker brick emphasize the chunky, rectangular shape of the two and a half story building, contrasting to the massive, square clock tower, 94 feet high, shooting up from its central entrance. In Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Eckert writes, "This flamboyant government building was planned at the time when the population of Negaunee was on the rise and the production from Negaunee mines was approaching its peak." It makes a statement about the city's optimism, she implied. Today city hall still houses its original uses: city offices, police station, and library. (906) 475-7400. Open business hours.
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