Twin City Lamppposts #30

 

[Grand Avenue, Saint Paul.]

[Location forgotten... maybe Richfield?]

[Portland, OR.]

[Portland, OR.]

[Portland, OR.]

[Edina.]

[Kansas City, MO.]

[Kansas City, MO.]

[Kansas City, MO.]

Twin City Doorways #68

[Portland, OR.]

[Portland, OR.]

[Portland, OR.]

[Portland, OR.]

[Portland, OR.]

[Northeast, Minneapolis.]

[Portland, OR.]

[Portland, OR.]

[Portland, OR.]

[Portland, OR.]

 

Signs of the Times #185

 

LAKE

CHIPOTLE

1.1 miles

[Pole. Greenway, Minneapolis.]

MEET ME

HALFWAY

[Tree. Longfellow, Minneapolis.]

[light switch]

[Tree. Longfellow, Minneapolis.]

Season's

Greetings

[Pole in summer. Longfellow, Minneapolis.]

[SENT IN FROM A FRIEND in San Francisco I think.]

edna's

park

[Pole. Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis.]

The lottery. State

promoted greed,

addiction, and

dumb investing.

[Pole. Cedar-Riverside. Minneapolis.]

10%

RAD

[Pole. Como Park. St. Paul.]

summer 1981 (82? 83?)

JIMMY FLEISHAKER - BARBER

ACOUSTIG GUITAR PLAYER

RIGHT HERE ON THIS VERY LOCATION, LIGHTNING

CAME DOWN FROM A STORM 

AND ACCENTED EVERY

WORD I SAID TO HIM

POOR GUY COULDN'T DEAL

WITH IT - HE WENT TO ANOKA

STATE MENTAL HOSPITAL

2 WEEKS LATER -- WHERE IS JIMMY NOW?

[Mickey's Diner railing. Downtown, St. Paul.]

PLANT SALE ->

[Boulevard. St. Paul.]

Obscure Local History #11: Anti-semitism on Minneapolis' Mt. Curve

[Mansion on Mt. Curve Avenue, Minneapolis, 1950.]

Here's a quote from the fascinating documentary about Minneapolis' early Jewish community, We Knew Who We Were, of man who grew up in Minneapolis then-Jewish Near North neighborhood. 

My father became restless, he was was always a the kind of guy who liked to move a little bit outside of the lines. I recall that one time I went with him to look at a house on Mt. Curve avenue. This must have been in the early 1910s, and he had the money to pay for it. But after driving around, and after he checked into it, he found out he might not be so comfortable being Jewish there. 

So he took his money and he found a house on Washburn Ave N and within about a year or two after we moved in you could tell the movement of the population was going the non-jews were moving out, the Jews were moving in, and building homes. And it became a predominantly jewish neighborhood for a long time….

(Note: At first I thought they were talking about St. Paul's Mt. Curve Avenue, but given the timeline and geography, that makes little sense. That part of Highland was still farmland in 1910, and Minneapolis. Mt. Curve is surely the one he's talking about.)

Obscure Local History #10: Metropolitan Building, c. 1890 and 1961

[Metropolitan Building, 1960.]

I happened across this wonderful film made in 1961 by U of MN students, focusing on the famous and tragic Metropolitan Building in the Gateway District. It includes the speech given at the opening of the Metropolitan Building in 1890...

This day in 1890 shows that men of rare business ability are not afraid to place their money in a building investment involving many hundreds of thousands of dollars. All Minneapolis units today to pay tribute to the men who have built in this great structure not only a monument to their own usefulness in the community, but an enduring testimonial to the gigantic progress of the greatest city on the vast valley of the Mississippi. 

... and then continues to show, to a then-contemporary cool bop soundtrack,  the demolition of that same building seventy years later. It's a well made film about one of Minneapolis' huge mistakes. Check it out.