Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 4

STAR TRlBUNfc ST. PAUL EDITION Star Tribune TuesdayMay 311988 3Be' MetroState news 66- Some Minneapolis house prices up City's premier areas such as Kenwood show surging signs of life "Where you have the working-class areas you have (only) marginal change. When you look at East Isles and Lowry Hill, that's the big area (for increases)." Roy Ellison, the city's director of assessments had a double-digit increase. The range of increases in seven of the other nine communities was 1.7 percent In the four years ending in 1981, as inflation had its greatest impact, the increase in the average sale price among the 10 communities was spread from 27.1 to 34.7 percent. In the five years ending last year, the figures point to a shift.

While median sale prices in the Cedar-Isles community, which includes the Kenwood and Lowry Hill neighborhoods, led the list with a 24.6 percent increase, the Southwest community had the only other double-digit increase. The communities revolving around the Powderhorn Park neighborhood in south Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota had decreases. Said Ilsa Olson, a real estate agent specializing in expensive homes, of neighborhoods such as Kenwood: "Most of the other cities are so decayed you just can't reproduce something like this. (It's) very similar to the Country Club section of Edina, the Lake Minnetonka area or Oro- sections of the city, have not fared as well. "Where you have the working-class areas you have (only) marginal change," said Roy Ellison, the city's director of assessments.

"When you look at Kenwood, East Isles and Lowry Hill, that's the big area (for increases). They're all upper-income homes." Some city officials said the trend in Minneapolis' premier neighborhoods more closely mirrors the price increases in the suburbs, and, in contrast to the 1970s when inflation boosted housing prices equally throughout the city, is being guided largely by a neighborhood's appeal. "It's fueled more by demand," said David Bernier, the city assessor. Sales figures dating to the early 1970s illustrate how the gap between different sections of the city has grown. In the five years ending in 1976, the annual increase in the average sale price of a house ranged from 4.3 to 14.7 percent in the 10 communities making up Minneapolis.

Only one community, which included the neighborhoods straddling Hiawatha Av. and east to the Mississippi River, quality of life. In Kenwood, the median sales price of a home has jumped nearly 60 percent in the past three years, and last year stood at $285,000. The increases suggest the city has entered the late 1930s with two types of single-family homes those whose values are rising faster because they are located in the best neighborhoods and those whose values are going up more slowly because they are located in less desirable areas. While city officials say it is an undeniable trend, there is considerable debate on whether it will be long-lasting.

The areas that have benefited most include the neighborhoods wrapped around Lake Harriet, Lake Calhoun, Lake of the Isles and, to some extent, Lake Nokomis. Housing price increases in those neighborhoods, which enjoy the best features and fewest drawbacks of urban life, continue to reflect a strong homeowner confidence in those areas. The other areas of Minneapolis, including middle-income and poorer By Mike Kaszuba Staff Writer While the news out of Minneapolis was of drug raids, deteriorating neighborhoods and a call for more police, the main worry for Doug Olson was this: Will his three-story house in the city sell for $485,000, more than twice its purchase price just four years ago, as the real estate agents believe? Since 1983, when he and his family bought their home on Fremont Av. S. for $235,000, Olson has been bullish on Minneapolis.

He has spent $30,000 redoing a kitchen, $30,000 for an outdoor swimming pool and landscaping and nearly $90,000 on an upstairs marble bathroom with vaulted ceilings. "Oh no, we wouldn't do anything different," Olson said in looking back at the high remodeling costs. In Minneapolis' most prestigious neighborhoods, led by Kenwood and Lowry Hill, a surge in real estate prices for single-family homes is contradicting the perception that the city is losing the fight to maintain its and may be no more than 3 to 4 percent annually until the early 1990s. The differences are acknowledged by' the city's property assessors. Of Ihev; seven residential neighborhoods making up the Camden community-, in far north Minneapolis, only Two-were given property assessmenVMbV creases of 5 percent each this year.

The other were unchanged. In contrast, eight of the nine neighborhoods in the Calhoun-Isles com munity were assigned percentage-tn- creases for this year of from 5 to" 1-5 -percent. (Most Minneapolis neighborhoods; each year are assigned either a specif-. 1 Kenwood continued on page 4B, no. Some experts argue it is too early to say whether the gap in how fast sale prices are rising is real or a passing phenomenon.

Real estate agents who focus on the Calhoun-Isles neighborhoods attribute the surge in housing prices on the sale of a relatively small number of extremely high-priced homes that underwent major renovation. "There is certainly a small number of people and a small number of homes, and we're talking about 12 to 15 homes, that have been heavily improved It's easy to spend $50,000 on a $200,000 home," said Barry Berg, a Merrill Lynch agent. He said the surge in Kenwood, which led to housing-price increases as high as 35 percent in early 1987, has leveled off While Americans play, children from Japan add to their education i i 4 I Mim Mmm s-iSiSissiiisss mmmi'ivmmmbmmm 1 ywmmxmmmi lllpllllllllaiis; JIBllHIHii By Cheryl Johnson Staff Writer No doubt about it, Danny Motoyoshi and Thomas Muehle could find better things to do with their Saturday mornings. Like "watching cartoons," the 7-year-olds said in unison. Instead, at their parents' insistence, they go to school.

Danny and Thomas are among 91 children from Japan or of Japanese descent who attend the Minnesota Japanese School, a supplemental school that convenes 42 Saturdays a year, half a day each time. It is nothing novel in Japan. Most students there spend Saturday morning in school, part of a rigorous education that prepares them for mandatory college entrance exams. But in a country like the United States, where weekends have come to mean rest and relaxation for most students, Saturday school is perceived as a real chore. There is the homework lots of it even during the August recess.

"In American schools I don't have a lot of homework," said Thomas, who attends the Burnsville School District. There is the heavy emphasis on language. By ninth grade students are expected to be able to read, write and speak about 2,000 of the Chinese characters called Kanji, which symbolize nouns and verbs in Japanese writing. Neither boy claims to be having much fun learning the language. The parents expect such reactions.

"Students are the same, exactly, wherever we go around the world," said Ike Aida, president of the school. In the long run their kids will come to appreciate the experience, parents hope. "I am a father," said businessman Yas Motoyoshi. "It is my responsibility to teach the language, culture and value of a Japanese heritage and the value of the people." Culture is extremely important. For some parents, the Saturday school is a part of the process of preventing their children from assimilating Western ways.

Student Kanae Fujii, 13, said, "I don't have any pierced ears or a perm," as do many of her schoolmates in the Minnetonka School District. "My parents say I am Japanese, so I can't do it, because in Japan we don't do that." Kanae said she entered the Minnetonka school system with a two-year head start on fellow math students. "I have an A-plus for math in American schools because Japanese math is a little bit harder." Japanese spokesmen for the local school said it's less a matter of the math being harder in Japan than of -mf" 1 I XP t'f 7 Staff Photo by Rita Reed Takahiro Makita, a third-grader at the "Saturday school" in Coon Rapids, showed his frustration during a Japanese language class. Japanese children being introduced Daniel Thompson agreed. His son Jason, it's always been a breeze (in he had that last year, or the year to mathematical concepts sooner Jason, 9, attends the school.

"The his Montessori school). When they before." than American children. math is so advanced," he said. "For are introducing something new, well, JAPANESE: School also attracts those who plan to stay in U.S. All the teachers are Japanese.

They are paid about $200 a month. Most of them work Monday to Friday as housewives and mothers, but a few are university students and one is an engineer. A heavy load of homework accompanies classes throughout this school year, which runs from April to March, as in Japan, and even during the kids' month off in August. Tom Snell, a parent, said, "It gets tough in the summer. Everybody else is outside playing." Japanese education is not without its critics, including some parents whose children are enrolled in the Minnesota Japanese School.

Americans "are a little too lackadaisical and the Japanese are too intensive in their educational that they are learning in other classes," she said. "I think it is wonderful." Spending Saturday mornings in school demonstrates a "special sacrifice" on the part of both parent and child, she said. David Speer, Minnesota's commissioner of trade and economic development, said, "Without it (the school), it is difficult to attract people here; otherwise they have to leave their wives and children home." The first supplemental school for Japanese was formed in Washington, D.C., in 1958. The concept didn't come to Minnesota until nearly 20 years later, when the Morizono family moved here from Australia. In Australia, Noriko and Tetsuo Morizono's children had access to a Continued from page IB "Japanese businessmen want to have their children enter Japanese colleges and universities," he said.

"If Japanese students ever are to enter Japanese companies, they have to go to Japanese colleges and universities." That's one reason that 42 Saturdays a year, 91 children from 53 families in the Twin Cities and from as far away as Willmar and Rochester, rise early, forsake television's Smurfs and Muppet Babies and head for Coon Rapids. From 8:55 a.m. until 1 p.m., students in kindergarten through ninth grade fill 1 1 classrooms at Anoka-Ramsey Community College with a staccato of Japanese. Not all of them are preparing to reenter schools in Japan. In the 1 1 years since the school was founded, it has expanded to include Japanese who plan to remain in the United States as well as children of Japanese-Americans.

They are drawn by an interest in their cultural heritage and in the language skills and advanced mathematics the school offers. It costs parents $35 a month per child for math and language, and an additional $15 for an optional course in social studies. The curriculum is prescribed and partly financed by the Japanese Ministry of Education. Students use the same textbooks used by children in Japan. There are heavy doses of mathematics and a particular emphasis on language skills.

Japanese is the only language spoken at the school, and a mastery of the language is an entrance requirement. preparation," said Regis Barber, whose two Japanese-American children attend the school. "Children need time to be children and also need to develop socially, emotionally in conjunction with education." Yas Motoyoshi, whose son attends the school, agreed. "American schools encourage kids to be more creative and give more freedom and discipline. In Japan I don't think they give you much freedom.

It is i will teach you what to Very structured; it is very regimental." Ruth Randall, Minnesota's commissioner of education, takes no affront to the presence of this school or other such ethnic schools in the metropolitan area. "I don't think it takes a thing away from their regular schools. It gives depth and breadth (to the material) network of Japanese schools. the help of a few other Japanese professionals, the Minnesota Japanese School was established in St. Louis Park.

i- "I know the hardship for those V-Japanese children who go back to Japan," said Tetsuo Morizono, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. "I wanted to reduce the frustration of our children and ourselves when we returned to Japan. In Japan there is no second chance. You can't fall behind." The Morizonos have two -at the Minnesota Japanese Their son, Hiroki, now 22, was its "i first graduate. He received a degree in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is now studying University in Japan.

Rescuers hurt but still save family from burning house yelled that he needed water. A neigh- u- .4 1 1 fswt i v. i i iivnvi 1 1 Firefighters and ambulances arrived about that time, after getting a call au about 2: 1 5 a.m., said Battalion ClTieC Jim Hanley ot the Minneapolis rjre Department. He said the fire "'ap-pcared to be suspicious" because it built very quickly and there was no "I'm just glad my friend's OK, and the baby's OK," he said. Durant, who is unemployed, went in for the same reason as Stewart.

"I knew there were kids in there. I've seen them playing in the yard. It was a chance I had to take," he said. Durant said he was carrying Jeanette through the living room when "I saw this ball of flames coming across the ceiling. I got torched by the front door.

I couldn't see at all there." His eyes are nearly swollen shut and eye brows and lashes are singed off. He said he stumbled through the entry way and out the porch door. He dropped Jeanette in the yard and By Jim Adams Staff Writer Roger Durant, his face and arms covered with burns and gauze, walked gingerly across the hall of the Hennepin County Medical Center burn unit Monday to visit the children he helped rescue from their burning home early Sunday. "How are you?" Durant asked Jean-ette Walton, 5, whom he carried through flames and smoke from an upstairs bedroom of her Minneapolis home. "Fine," Jeanette replied from her bed.

saw a living room couch on fire and flames spread within minutes. White was in serious condition Monday and has been using an oxygen tent because of smoke inhalation. Durant and the children are in satisfactory condition. Stewart, of 3517 Park said he had minor burns and scrapes. He works as a maintenance man at Minnegasco.

"I don't think I could live with a baby dying if I could do something about it," Stewart said. "I wasn't worried about myself, I was worried about the babies. They have a lot more to live for. Something clicked in my head and said, 'Just run, help, do what you Durant, 18, and a friend, Mark Stewart, saw the fire when they returned to Durant's home, 3508 Columbus Av. at about 2 a.m.

Sunday after celebrating Stewart's 20th birthday. "We kicked in the door and ran upstairs. I hollered to get out because the house was on fire," Durant said. He said he carried Jeanette out of the house at 3501 Columbus Av. S.

Stewart said he grabbed 1 -year-old Calvin Walton, and took him out. He helped the children's mother, Tamela White, 24, get out a kitchen window. He said Calvin Taylor, who was visiting the family, escaped through a bedroom window. Stewart said he v' natural or accidental cause found so far. Arson investigators are gathering evidence, he said.

The house aonarentlv had no smoke, Sill 11 WMSMs. Ill detectors, which are required by ordinance, Hanley said. Because; of the lack of functioning detectors, the. 1 rescue efforts may have saved the inhabitants' lives, Hanley said. loger Durant.