🛏 What's up at Elsa's House of Sleep?

After the Longfellow Boom, the second most common request in the LW mailbox concerns the status of the Elsa's House of Sleep building, the shabby former furniture store on the corner of 36th and Lake. A lot has changed since it went dark in 2019: A pandemic, an unrest, a fire in the back, a rebuild in the back, an art exhibition, a mural, and, most recently, a condemnation notice from the city. The other corners of the intersection have progressed and evolved in the intervening years, but through it all, the peeling off-white building has remained ominously void of life.

I caught up with building owner Tetra Constantino, the youngest son of the titular Elsa who has run the business since she passed away in 2004, about his plans for the building and why they've taken so long to materialize.