Twin City Lampposts #19

 [Bloomington.]

 [Bloomington.]

 [Grand Avenue, Saint Paul.]

 [Midway, Saint Paul.]

 [Bde Mka Ska, Minneapolis.]

 [San Diego.]

  [San Diego.]

 [San Diego.]

Reading the Highland Villager #233

[Basically the problem is that the best source of Saint Paul streets & sidewalks news is the Highland Villager, a very fine and historical newspaper. This wouldn't be a problem, except that its not available online. You basically have to live in or frequent Saint Paul to read it. Until this newspaper goes online, sidewalk information must be set free. See also: Three Reasons Why I Re-Blog the Highland Villager.]


Headline: Council approves Ryan changes to Ford site plan
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: The developer asked the city to change the zoning at the former truck factory in Highland, including allowing single-family [mansion] homes, more parking, and changing the street network. They did. [See my previous comments on some of this.]


Headline: Stadium traffic plan passes first test; MN United's home opener posed few problems, but locals are pursuing permits fore residential only parking
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: There was a soccer game at the new stadium. Neighbors are concerned about traffic and parking.


Headline: The Pitch's six stories OK'd for N. Snelling; Mixed-use apartment building gets permit for 2 drive-thru lanes
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version:  A former one-story bank with a large drive thru will become a six-story building with a small drive-thru. There were some variances and a conditional use permit needed.


Headline: Plans revealed for vacant Lex-Ham parcel; six-story building eyed near Lexington-University
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version:
A vacant lot by Lexington and University might become a six-story mixed use building with an "undetermined amount of structured parking." Neighbors are concerned about traffic and bike connections.

Headline: City Council approves $3.5 million resurfacing of Ayd Mill Road
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: The city will spend a lot of money to re-pave an odd city-owned urban freeway. Article includes some history of the street. [See my extremely long take on this at streets.mn.]


Headline: St. Paul takes closer look at assessments for street work Summit Hill residents join those protesting high bills
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: Saint Paul now charges people a lot more money for repaving projects, sometimes up to $8000 per property owner. This was a recent change. Article describes the how pavements work and includes some history of department policy. Quote from homeowner: "we're not responsible for 50% of the traffic, we all should share the costs of thoroughfares."  Another says: "exorbitant and extremely unfair." [If you cannot connect the dots between this story and the preceding story here, well... it's all part of the same budget.] 


Headline: City seeks new powers in imposing fines; opponents of charter changes ask council to consider ramifications
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: The city sill change the charter to allow itself more power to use fines and fees for things like code violations, for example for people who do not pay their trash bill, though as yet these fines remain unclear.


Headline: Civilian board reviews police misconduct; 77 allegations in 2018 resulted in disciplining of 22 police officers
Author: Kevin Driscoll

Short short version: The commission that reviews police problems reviewed those problems and found a few, 19, to forward to the Chief for action.


Headline: Local projects wishing on Neighborhood STAR grants, loans; Expo School parents again seek funds for playground
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: Organizations like centers, art groups, schools, and non-profits are competing for city money for stuff. Article includes list of these potential grants.


Headline: HDC election results in huge turnover of board members
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A neighborhood group had an election. [The city should require official neighborhood groups to at least report whether or not they represent the community viz. key demographics, and encourage in strong terms that these groups work hard to do so. A good idea would be having rental / POC / gender balance requirements, at the very least.]


Headline: St. Paul allows liquor sales closer to churches, schools
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: You can sell liquor close to a religious institution now, or close to a school if you are downtown. [Coming soon: Church of Scientology: the night club.] There was a charter school that got mad about a new bar downtown.


Headline: Storefronts purchased for new Lunds & Byerleys on Grand Ave.
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A company that sells food has bought a building on Grand Avenue and wants to build a new building there. Neighbors are concerned about traffic and parking.


Headline: Plan Fitness to join Aldi as new tenants at Sibley Plaza
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A strip mall that was mostly empty will have a fitness place and a grocery. [This is the strip mall that the city did NOT rezone because the owner asked them not to, because he promised he would develop the parking lot into housing.] 


Headline: Midway Marketplace is sold to Kraus-Anderson for $31M
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A strip mall was sold to a developer on University Avenue. The Herberger's is closed now.


Headline: Development of Gateway, riverfront properties are moving ahead in St. Paul
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A city-owned parking lot is being sold to a developer might become and might become a hotel and apartments with mixed-use retail. [As long as there are no skyways!] There will be parking. Also the county-owned vacant land by the river might become apartments, hotel offices, and commercial space, and a 1,500 space parking ramp. [That is a large parking ramp. See also: the city's Downtown Parking study which shows there are plenty of under-used existing parking ramps downtown, and also the city's request for $50M in state money for a completely different massive parking ramp a few blocks down the street from here.]

Notable Quotes #16: J. Proctor Knott describes the City of Duluth, c. 1871

Hence, as I have said, sir, I was utterly at a loss to determine where the terminus of this great and indispensable road should be, until I accidentally overheard some gentleman the other day mention the name of “Duluth.” Duluth! The word fell upon my ear with peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft, sweet accents of an angel’s whisper in the bright, joyous dream of sleeping innocence. Duluth! ’Twas the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panteth for the water brooks. But where was Duluth? Never, in all my limited reading, had my vision been gladdened by seeing the celestial word in print. And I felt a profounder humiliation in my ignorance that its dulcet syllables had never before ravished my delighted ear. I was certain the draughtsman of this bill had never heard of it, or it would have been designated as one of the termini of this road. I asked my friends about it, but they knew nothing of it. I rushed to the Library and examined all the maps I could find. I discovered in one of them a delicate, hairlike line, diverging from the Mississippi near a place marked Prescott, which I supposed was intended to represent the river St. Croix, but I could nowhere find Duluth.

Nevertheless, I was confident it existed somewhere, and that its discovery would constitute the crowning glory of the present century, if not of all modern times. I knew it was bound to exist in the very nature of things; that the symmetry and perfection of our planetary system would be incomplete without it, that the elements of material nature would long since have resolved themselves back into original chaos if there had been such a hiatus in creation as would have resulted from leaving out Duluth. In fact, sir, I was overwhelmed with the conviction that Duluth not only existed somewhere, but that wherever it was it was a great and glorious place. I was convinced that the greatest calamity that ever befell the benighted nations of the ancient world was in their having passed away without a knowledge of the actual existence of Duluth; that their fabled Atlantis, never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired poesy, was, in fact, but another name for Duluth; that the golden orchard of the Hesperides was but a poetical synonym for the beer-gardens in the vicinity of Duluth. I was certain that Herodotus had died a miserable death because in all his travels and with all his geographical research he had never heard of Duluth. I knew that if the immortal spirit of Homer could look down from another heaven than that created by his own celestial genius upon the long lines of pilgrims from every nation of the earth to the gushing fountain of poesy opened by the touch of his magic wand, if he could be permitted to behold the vast assemblage of grand and glorious productions of the lyric art called into being by his own inspired strains, he would weep tears of bitter anguish that instead of lavishing all the stores of his mighty genius upon the fall of Ilion it had not been his more blessed lot to crystallize in deathless song the rising glories of Duluth. Yet, sir, had it not been for this map, kindly furnished me by the Legislature of Minnesota, I might have gone down to my obscure and humble grave in an agony of despair, because I could nowhere find Duluth. Had such been my melancholy fate, I have no doubt that with the last feeble pulsation of my breaking heart, with the last faint exhalation of my fleeting breath, I should have whispered, “Where is Duluth?”

But, thanks to the beneficence of that band of ministering angels who have their bright abodes in the far-off capital of Minnesota, just as the agony of my anxiety was about to culminate in the frenzy of despair, this blessed map was placed in my hands; and as I unfolded it a resplendent scene of ineffable glory opened before me, such as I imagine burst upon the enraptured vision of the wandering peri through the opening gates of paradise. There, there for the first time, my enchanted eye rested upon the ravishing word “Duluth.”

This map, sir, is intended, as it appears from its title, to illustrate the position of Duluth in the United States; but if gentlemen will examine it, I think they will concur with me in the opinion that it is far too modest in its pretensions. It not only illustrates the position of Duluth in the United States, but exhibits its relations with all created things. It even goes further than this. It lifts the shadowy veil of futurity and affords us a view of the golden prospects of Duluth far along the dim vista of ages yet to come.

If gentlemen will examine it they will find Duluth not only in the center of the map, but represented in the center of a series of concentric circles one hundred miles apart, and some of them as much as four thousand miles in diameter, embracing alike in their tremendous sweep the fragrant savannas of the sunlit South and the eternal solitudes of snow that mantle the icebound North. How these circles were produced is perhaps one of those primordial mysteries that the most skillful paleologist will never be able to explain. But the fact is, sir, Duluth is preeminently a central place, for I am told by gentlemen who have been so reckless of their own personal safety as to venture away into those awful regions where Duluth is supposed to be that it is so exactly in the center of the visible universe that the sky comes down at precisely the same distance all around it.

I find by reference to this map that Duluth is situated somewhere near the western end of Lake Superior, but as there is no dot or other mark indicating its exact location I am unable to say whether it is actually confined to any particular spot, or whether “it is just lying around there loose.” I really cannot tell whether it is one of those ethereal creations of intellectual frostwork, more intangible than the rose-tinted clouds of a summer sunset; one of those airy exhalations of the speculator’s brain, which I am told are ever flitting in the form of towns and cities along those lines of railroad, built with Government subsidies, luring the unwary settler as the mirage of the desert lures the famishing traveler on, and ever on, until it fades away in the darkening horizon, or whether it is a real, bona fide, substantial city, all “staked off,” with the lots marked with their owners’ names, like that proud commercial metropolis recently discovered on the desirable shores of San Domingo. But, however that may be, I am satisfied Duluth is there, or thereabout, for I see it stated here on this map that it is exactly thirty-nine hundred and ninety miles from Liverpool, though I have no doubt, for the sake of convenience, it will be moved back ten miles, so as to make the distance an even four thousand.

Then, sir, there is the climate of Duluth, unquestionably the most salubrious and delightful to be found anywhere on the Lord’s earth. Now, I have always been under the impression, as I presume other gentlemen have, that in the region around Lake Superior it was cold enough for at least nine months in the year to freeze the smoke-stack off a locomotive. But I see it represented on this map that Duluth is situated exactly halfway between the latitudes of Paris and Venice, so that gentlemen who have inhaled the exhilarating airs of the one or basked in the golden sunlight of the other may see at a glance that Duluth must be a place of untold delights, a terrestrial paradise, fanned by the balmy zephyrs of an eternal spring, clothed in the gorgeous sheen of ever-blooming flowers, and vocal with the silvery melody of nature’s choicest songsters. …

… As to the commercial resources of Duluth, sir, they are simply illimitable and inexhaustible, as is shown by this map. I see it stated here that there is a vast scope of territory, embracing an area of over two million square miles, rich in every element of material wealth and commercial prosperity, all tributary to Duluth. [Points to the map.] Look at it, sir. Here are inexhaustible mines of gold, immeasurable veins of silver, impenetrable depths of boundless forest, vast coal-measures, wide, extended plains of richest pasturage, all, all embraced in this vast territory, which must, in the very nature of things, empty the untold treasures of its commerce into the lap of Duluth.

Look at it sir, do not you see from these broad, brown lines drawn around this immense territory that the enterprising inhabitants of Duluth intend some day to enclose it all in one vast corral, so that its commerce will be bound to go there whether it would or not? And here, sir [still pointing to the map], I find within a convenient distance the Piegan Indians, which, of all the many accessories to the glory of Duluth, I consider by far the most inestimable. For, sir, I have been told that when the small-pox breaks out among the women and children of that famous tribe, as it sometimes does, they afford the finest subjects in the world for the strategical experiments of any enterprising military hero who desires to improve himself in the noble art of war, especially for any valiant lieutenant general whose trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, For want of fighting has grown rusty. And eats into itself for lack Of Somebody to hew and hack.

[From a speech by Kentucky Congressman J. Proctor Knott, 1871. h/t to David for the reference.]

[Duluth harbor, 1870.]

Notable Quotes #15: Gareth Hiebert, aka. Oliver Towne, describes Saint Paul c. 1958

This town is a blend of old and new, both in people and architecture. The quicksand of the rollicking river town of more than a century ago has solidified into a firm foundation of grace and poise.

Out of it all has come a personality called Saint Paul.

At 9 a.m. at Fourth and Wabasha when the Minnesota Mutual Life chimes announce the day's work has begun; and at 5 p.m. when, as you cross the bridges toward home, the chimes ring out a mellow farewell that tolls across the jagged top of the skyline and carry far up and down the valley.

Day or night, the city is my beat. To roam at will, scour and prowl, examine and study, note and report, from the vantage points.

[From the Pioneer Press, 1958, as seen on display in a shop window in 2019.]

[Saint Paul's Seven Corners, 1958.]

Another Dive Down as Timeless Lee's Liquor Lounge Relinquishes

This one is particularly sad, because Lee's was one of the least likely stories of dive bar survival. It lasted in the last place one would think a bar would linger, centered in a vortex of freeway on-ramps, municipal parking lots, homeless shelters, garbage burners, bus garages, and over-built roads on the far west edge of the downtown.

Lee's Liquor Lounge features prominently in the upcoming book that Andy Sturdevant and I are writing about the history of bars and saloons in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and I was dearly hoping that we could host a reading on the stage at Lee's this fall, when the book is scheduled for publication, accompanied of course by some honkytonk country. It's a damn shame that won't happen.

Lee's also featured prominently in my Taxidermy Tour of Minneapolis bike ride, which I daresay might be resurrected soon before the place disappears. Lee's has the metro area's absolutely finest collection of mid-century bar kitsch, including a fine case of Elvii, and amongst the throng is some fifty-year-stuffed animals, including a black bear in a shriner's fez and a perched cougar.

[Highlights from the 2015 taxidermy tour.]

The story of Lee's cannot be told without mentioning Louie Siriam, and nobody will ever tell that story better than Brad Zellar did in his 1997 feature piece for the City Pages [see below]. I'm excerpting it here because it's not online, and please read it. Zellar chronicles one of the most amazing bar stories in Twin Cities history. Siriam started his working life as a kid sweeping up the floor at a South Saint Paul slaughterhouse (imagine the yuck!), and would end up in his later years meticulously cleaning Lee's each and every night until the formica gleamed in the limelight.

The bar's owner claims that parking is the culprit for the closure, but I am chalking this up to the absence of Louie. Never take a great dive for granted, folks. They rarely last.

[Louie's office and mop rack from the basement of Lee's.]

[Excerpts from and photos of Brad's 1997 column below.]

Louie’s foot is not an attractive sight. Horribly stunted with splayed, twisted toes and squashed arch, it is the casualty of years of foot-binding labor--20-hour days, seven days a week, including many long hours behind a floor scrubber in the dead of night. Clean floors are an obsession with Louie, the man who has owned Lee’s since 1976, Seriously clean floors. Waxed gleaming floors. They mean something; represent an ethic, a correct way of doing things.

…

As Louie likes to say,” the horse that shits the fastest don’t shit for long.”

For more than 20 years Lee’s has been Louie’s bar.

No matter how many hours he worked, nothing he did was going to stop the flight of blue-collar jobs that was taking his best customers and their paychecks out to the suburbs or wherever the hell it was taking them. Street bars like his all over the city were being eradicated. … with 394 wrapped around it like a moat that cut him off from downtown.

For a time Vikings’ great Carl Eller ran a liquor store out of the place that was now Lee’s dance floor. There was a short-lived attempt at a game room as well.

The band Trailer Trash… evolved into a regular weekday Wednesday night gig. “You know, where it’s no big deal to play 200 minutes a night. Where people don’t go to see a band but to dance, to have fun. The band’s job was simply to rock the place…. .. the revamped Trailer Trash … kept right on ripping through their catalog of more than 300 roadhouse and honkytonk staples.

Louie once said, “Nate [the Trailer Trash musician] is very impressive and he puts himself across very well. He’s a real gifted salesman. The whole group is just a bunch of fine young fellows, so clean-cut and likable. … The young folks have such clean good fun, and often they will say thank you as they leave."

...

[Another quote from a regular]: “You know, just neighborhood drinking. Friday nights we’d get all gussied up and come to Lee’s. In the old days there was a jukebox with a bunch of country oldies, and maybe twice a year this band would come in and play. I think that first Wednesday with Trailer Trash there was just Ed the bartender, me, and a handful of other people. And then all of a sudden it was the place to see and be seen.”

...

The marriage of band and bar was successful beyond anyone’s imagination, and led to a couple of major renovations designed to open up the room and improve sight lines.

“Because, essentially, Lee’s is a roadhouse. It’s a bona fide honkytonk right in the middle of a city.”

...

Louie has a favorite word: schmaltzy. He’ll say something’s “almost schmaltzy, “ and that’s the spot-on description of the appeal of Lee’s, with the careful emphasis on almost. There’s certainly an element of nostalgia in the bar’s appeal; the place seems to touch a familiar chord even in people who didn’t grow up in the world of servicemen’s clubs and small-town Saturday night dances… There’s something int he bar’s smoky, paneled 1950s roadhouse authenticity -- with its beer signs, stuffed fish, … that resonates in young urban types who’ve received their notions of Americana from, say, David lynch.

...

Lee and Sally Triemert had run Lee’s since 1962 and when Lee passed away Sally started looking for a buyer.

“I looked at the place a couple times and I had my second thoughts…" [says Louie] "But Mrs. Triemert gave me a real nice deal and I went ahead and bought the bar. … I found out quick that this is a very tough racket that requires a lot of hard work… Every night I was in here, doing everything. I was janitor, bartender, bouncer, and bookkeeper. Seven days a week I was working 21 hours just to pay the bills…"

The bar was once surrounded by industry: Kemps, Munsingwear, McGarvey coffee, Shopmaster, the Boyer Ford dealership -- and Louie depended on the business of the working men and women who sopped in after work to drink and cash their paychecks. Freeway construction just outside his front door cut him off form downtown and the neighborhoods to the north and disrupted business for years… It was the first of “many isolations… right from the get go this area started going through enormous transitions. The neighborhood’s pretty much been wiped out a couple different times.

“The last time I took a vacation, I got drafted," said Louie

Louie is out on the sidewalk in front of his bar with a brush and a pail, cleaning windows.

...