DULUTH — Lee Emanoff angled over paint-splattered cardboard, moving burnt-red pigment back and forth with her brush.
“We’re closed on Tuesday, and that’s just about the only way we can really get things done,” she said.
Emanoff and her husband, Denis Sauve, made headway on updates to their business,
, thanks to a $500
through the city.
Melinda Lavine / Duluth News Tribune
With it, they’ve purchased quality paint, a sander and replacement letters for their signage. “It needed a facelift,” said Emanoff of their storefront, “and it makes the community look better, too.”
The business specializes in bike sales, repairs and accessories such as studded snow tires and commuter clothing.
Melinda Lavine / Duluth News Tribune
Sauve has owned the cyclery since 1975. After a yearslong interval in Canal Park, the pair returned in the 1980s to their Lincoln Park building, which had been used for storage.
Standing outside the building on a sunny Tuesday, the couple directed the News Tribune to a fading Garon’s Groceries sign high on the west side of the building.
Sauve said he purposefully left it untouched — a monument to the building’s former tenant. (“This is where I cashed my first check,” he recalled.)
Emanoff plans to update their door frame, she said with a laugh, bending to rub the dented wood. “Customers come in, and they’re not too coordinated getting the bikes in the door, so we’re going to put an old tire — nail it, screw it in there — so it’ll be like a bumper.”
Melinda Lavine / Duluth News Tribune
Sauve said he’s happy to be where he and the business are. “There’s a certain coolness to this side of town; it has a character.”
The Love Your Block model supports innovation in blight reduction through resident and government partnership with individual grants up to $1,500.
Other grant recipients this year include the Duluth Children’s Museum, Family Rise Together, and Union Gospel Mission for projects such as lot cleanup and community events.
