On the outside, the Hamline Playground Recreation Center looks pretty much as it has since 1940 — clean modern lines, Kasota limestone facing, a cornerstone that still identifies it as a Works Progress Administration project.
Inside is a different story: loud splashes of color, large wall cutouts and mosaics. Lots of mosaics.
Welcome to Mosaic On A Stick, Lori Greene's nine-year-old art enterprise that moved this spring from a nearby storefront to the vacant Hamline Park landmark at the corner of Snelling and Lafond Avenues.
"It's beautiful. It's stone. It's such classic-looking architecture, and I liked how it was on this funny angle to the street," Greene said of the new home for her studio/art shop/classroom/gallery business.
Area residents also are happy that the rec center, designed by legendary St. Paul architect Clarence (Cap) Wigington, is no longer empty.
The Hamline Midway Coalition District Council occupied the building for years before moving because the group didn't need all the space.
When Greene heard it was for lease from the city, she didn't have to look to know she'd bid. "I'm sure I was screaming and jumping."
She had some hoops to jump through first. The entire park, not just the building, had to be rezoned retail to enable Greene to sell art goods there, and she had to enlist an architect and a lawyer to firm up her plans.