DULUTH — Grand Rapids glories in its status as the birthplace of Judy Garland. Minneapolis celebrates Prince with towering murals, and his Chanhassen studio complex is now a museum. There's even a Glenn Frey statue standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona.
Our city, as the birthplace and early childhood home of the only popular musician to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, has three manhole covers. There are also signs marking "Bob Dylan Way" — which is not, to be clear, an official street name.
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"Why is Duluth not embracing the whole concept of being his birthplace?" asked Dave Lee, who has long advocated for Dylan to be more visibly celebrated here. Lee's efforts began in the 1990s, when he operated the A. Charles Weiss Inn and had conversations with owners of similar businesses.
"We talked to (Duluth officials) about having signs, when you're coming into Duluth, that would say 'Birthplace of Bob Dylan,'" remembered Lee. "That was a total exercise in frustration. The city said, 'Well, you know, that would be MnDOT.' MnDOT would say, 'No, it's (the) county.' We almost printed a big sign and had it put up on our own dime."
Discouraged but not defeated, Lee recently compiled a slideshow he's been sharing with local leaders. He's calling for "a small portion of the current site of St. Mary's Hospital" to be held as "a place for public art and reflection" in honor of the man born there in 1941 under the name Robert Allen Zimmerman.
Lee is not holding his breath.
"Essentia said, well, the Benedictines own the property," he said. "So when I sent it to the head of the Benedictine sisters, she sent it back to a vice president at Essentia. 'We need to look at this and talk about it internally.' And that's it."
The hospital building where Dylan was born (407 E. Third St.), replaced in 2023 by the current Essentia Health-St. Mary's Medical Center, is currently being demolished. According to a June 2024 news release from Essentia, "the site will become a temporary green space while the final use is determined."
Lee envisions a space similar to Strawberry Fields in New York's Central Park, where fans flock to honor the late John Lennon.
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"Once that site is developed, it's developed," Lee observed about the former St. Mary's Hospital site. "We have a little space and time here to try to be reflective."
Meanwhile, Kenneth Botelho emailed the Duluth City Council on Jan. 2.
"As a new resident and someone deeply invested in Duluth’s future," Botelho wrote, "I am reaching out to propose an exciting opportunity for our community: the establishment of a Bob Dylan Museum in Duluth."
Botelho moved to Duluth from Rhode Island to lead the College of St. Scholastica's new Doctor of Medical Science program.
"When I came here in August," Botelho told the News Tribune, "I was actually looking to see if there was some type of a cultural center that may have a little bit more about Bob Dylan in the area, because I was aware that he was born here, and I had seen Bob Dylan Way, but there's not really a stop that you can jump in and enjoy."
Duluth City Councilor Tara Swenson responded and suggested Botelho contact Mark Poirer, co-executive director of the Duluth Armory Arts and Music Center.
The Armory is undergoing a $58 million renovation that will ultimately include, the organization hopes, exhibits honoring Dylan alongside other Northland musicians and notables who have performed at the venue. While Dylan has never played the Armory, he had a deeply influential experience seeing Buddy Holly there in 1959.
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After touring the Armory with Poirer, Botelho was sold.
"I would actually put my foot on the ground and say that is the perfect place," said Botelho, "in the sense that not only does it harbor so much history for Duluth, but it also harbors a great space to tell Bob Dylan's story."
"We already have a star marking where Bob Dylan was standing right in front of the stage," said Michelle Miller, the Armory's co-executive director.
Construction to transform the historic building into a multiuse community and event center is expected to get underway in July, with a projected 18-month timeline to completion. While the organization plans to "infuse" the facility with nods to its storied past, said Miller, plans to build a museum inside the space are on hold until funding for that aspect of the development can be secured.
"It's very expensive to create a museum," said Miller. Still, the organization has worked with Split Rock Studios to create renderings of what it might look like to have a "right and respectful and interactive and educational" display inside the Armory.
For Lee, putting museum exhibits inside the Armory is "nice" but underwhelming. He'd like to see "a statue or something that could really be prominent out in the community, versus tucked inside of a building."
Proposals for celebrating Dylan have circulated in Duluth for decades, but have run up against a series of obstacles. One is the fact that the musician is an iconoclast, not the sort of person who would likely be enthused about a grand display. Fans and family push back against plans that seem out of character.
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"There is a Minnesota artist who has actually created a bronze sculpture and has approached us several times," said Miller, but "the family doesn't want (to) put Bob on a pedestal."
Despite an endorsement from then-Mayor Don Ness, a 2013 attempt to crowdfund a Dylan statue for Duluth fell flat, raising less than 10% of its $159,000 goal. That speaks to the other obstacle Dylan tributes face: a lack of public enthusiasm.
As "A Complete Unknown" depicts, Dylan not only left the Northland but initially obscured his origins. While he's acknowledged his roots in a number of ways since then, many locals continue to feel that Duluth doesn't owe any tribute to a man who turned his back on the community.
In 1986, the Duluth City Council quickly reversed a decision to rename Harbor Drive as "Bob Dylan Drive," following an outpouring of community protest. Dylan himself didn't help the cause when the News Tribune landed an interview and asked the artist about the plan.
"I don't remember much about Duluth," Dylan said, speaking backstage at the Metrodome. "I would think there'd be a lot of other people in Duluth they could name streets for."
City leaders are inclined to agree, according to Lee. As he's aired his proposal to honor Dylan at the former St. Mary's site, he's been told that the Central Hillside location might just as easily recommend a monument honoring local civil rights leaders who have lived and worked in that neighborhood.
"This guy is unique," argued Lee, adding that Dylan was an important voice of the Civil Rights Movement. "What song were they singing at the (1963) March on Washington? 'Blowin' in the Wind.'"
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Officially, Bob Dylan Way is a 1.8-mile "cultural pathway," designated by the City Council in 2006. The manhole covers followed in the early 2010s. Although the manhole project, suggested by artist David Everett, required a multiyear effort, some still saw it as absurdly insufficient.
Duluth resident Lawrence Lasky, in a 2011 letter to the News Tribune, imagined the patter of a tour guide. "On your right is the world-famous lift bridge, but if you look down, there is the dedication to musician Bob Dylan."
Still, as proposals for more prominent street namings or monuments have continued to founder, local Dylan fans have largely consolidated their hopes around the Armory project — and perhaps, some day, a publicly accessible museum inside Dylan's childhood house.
"That was in the original plan several years ago," said Miller. "Again, financially, that is a barrier. It is not off the table, however, we want to stay within our mission of arts and music and community building."
On Sunday at Clyde Iron Works, the Armory is hosting a fundraiser concert: Todd Eckart is playing a tribute to Buddy Holly and the music of the late 1950s.
Botelho said he didn't realize what an impact that Holly concert had on Dylan until Poirer pointed it out. In Botelho's mind, the connection "definitely cements the Armory as a place that's worth restoring, and potentially part of the future Duluth as well as the past."
Lee would like to see an even more public form of recognition. "Many people I talk to just don't get it," he said. "I don't know why it's so hard for our community to elevate someone like him to a level of prominence that we believe he deserves."
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