[This article is shared with permission from the Journal of American Rocket Science, a well-respected encyclopedic publication, ed. Robert Roscoe, that is not available online.]
The Journal of American Rocket Science introduces re-
search that indicates the large stepped back two-tier
mound on Saint Paul’s Snelling Avenue near Highland
Park is remains of 15,000 year old mega pyramid, much
larger and older than ancient Egyptian pyramids. Built by
an alien force from the outer galaxy, the grass mounds
formed an ancient landing pad, intending to be a base for
a mega pyramid as part of the alien force’s earth-based
civilization. The pyramid project was halted when the
aliens realized the general area was useless for them.
[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: With master lease, MN United evicts tenants in the way of soccer stadium
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: The really wealthy guy who owns the soccer team has purchased the strip mall and is buying out tenants like the Rainbow and the bowling alley. The port authority had been trying to do this but hadn't been able to. The Milwaukee developer that was going to work on the project is no longer working on the project. [Seems like a big FAIL for the Port to me. Still, redeveloping a strip mall is one of the hardest things to do.] The bowling alley owners are sad. Construction is underway. The liquor store building and old bank are not controlled by McGuire at this point. [Those were where the urban redevelopment portion of the project were slated to begin.]
Headline: Longtime West 7th staffers Ed and Betty ready to retire; Pair have held down the fort for Ford Road Federation since 1970s
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: Article includes a lot of neighborhood history. [So long!]
Headline: Residents, businesses brace for closing of High Bridge, Smith, Dodd
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: [The bridge is closed now. I am sad.] Some trees will be cut down.
Headline: Proposals sought for future use of Highland Park's south reservoir
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: The people who are in charge of water things are closing the reservoir and now the land can be used for other things. Some people want to use the land for soccer, baseball and softball fields. Others would like it to be used for hockey and the parking of cars. [We really need new soccer fields in Saint Paul, so that's my vote.] Yet others want it to be developed.
Headline: Snelling rezoning gets hearing; City Council considers high-density mixed use for 2.5 miles of avenue
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: The city is looking at switching to TN zoning instead of the old [obsolete] classifications. There was a hearing about it at the City Council [yesterday]. One property was almost developed at Snelling and St. Clair, but then wasn't [because of a title issue?]. An auto shop closed and the guy who owns it is going to move to Lino Lakes. [That seems like a better place for an auto shop.]
Headline: Mayor proposes city budget with 23.9% tax levy increase; but 19% of property tax increase is due to a drop in street maintenance fee [buried the lede there!]
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: Property taxes are going up but "street fees" are going away. Article includes lots of detailed numbers. Other than a few cops, there really aren't any spending increases.
Headline: Proposed PILOT program will not ease tax burden in 2018
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: [The city is going to try and beg non-profits and other non-tax-paying institutions for money but isn't able to do that until next year.] Schools seem OK with it and suggested ways to "pay" that are not necessarily cash. [This isn't bad but it also isn't going to help much in my opinion. The city should look to other solutions for the tax base problem.]
Headline: Business licenses granted to historic Waldmann saloon
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: A really old lager beer saloon / brewery will open soon. [Just in time for the bridge to be closed! Of course, there was no bridge there in 1857 either. Maybe we can get a ferry boat to run between the West Side and the upper landing?]
Headline: Controversial new skyway rules get a public hearing
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: Some people want the skyways to be closed earlier; others do not. There [was] a City Council hearing about it. [The fight is over who will pay for security downtown. There is a leadership vacuum in downtown Saint Paul that really sucks. The small group of very wealthy people who own property downtown do not get along nor agree about what direction downtown should be going. And some of them really don't want to pay for some seemingly basic things. The city should have a skyway removal policy and program that could help shrink the system over time and focus civic attention on the sidewalk, where it should be. Skyways, with their impossibly "grey area" muddle between private and public space, are something of a lost cause and not good for the city.]
Somehow this news escaped me, but the Bee Hive Tavern closed down last month. The Pioneer Press had a poignant write-up of its economic demise a few weeks ago ("...it feels like the end of an era, with no one there to see it..."). The article is short and sweet and you should read it.
I am a bit sad about the Bee Hive's inevitable demise because the place had long been one of my most treasured historical anecdata. I first discovered the Bee Hive after a friend of mine moved to the East Side, bought a house on Forest Street a few blocks away. He lasted a few years before the drug dealers and petty nuisances drove him away, but when I'd go over to visit I would pass by the curious Bee Hive building, half of which was an old former barber shop, and the original bar which dated back to 1887, and had been a Schmidt "tied house" saloon in the 20s and 30s.
I was so enamored of the odd Bee Hive that I listed it in my recent City Pages "Saint Paul dive bar guide". Here's what I wrote, only a few months ago:
The windowless white walls of the Bee Hive Tavern, on Forest Avenue in Dayton’s Bluff, hide the last 3.2 bar in St. Paul, where Zima has been on the menu since it went out of style the first time. John, the owner, is almost always there, and this quiet bar is a great place to hang out and watch cable TV or Vikings games, or to simply sit in silence while drinking “ponies” of weak beer. The building dates back to 1887, and the bar used to be owned by the Schmidt brewery back when “tied houses” were legal. Like its 3.2 counterpart in north Minneapolis, the T-Shoppe, this is the last gasp of the golden age of prudent prurience.
I can only hope that a few City Pages readers made it over to Dayton's Bluff and had a "pony" of Old Style before the place went belly up.
The owner and ubiquitous bartender John was a nice guy, if adverse to change. He's previously owned a 3.2 joint in Frogtown called "The Family Inn," where (I was later told) people would be able to bring in their own bottles of booze and, for a small fee, mix them with bar-supplied juice. THat was the old business model, very fly-by-night and, for John anyway, very lucrative.
The new business model is something altogether different. I can only imagine how many hours John spent sitting alone in the Bee Hive watching cable TV shows about antique salvage or fixing old cars, waiting in vain for someone to walk through the door to order cheap lager.
Well, let's hope John got a payout. Farewell Bee Hive. You were the last of an era, that's for sure. Now, only the T-Shoppe remains.
Here are the Bee Hive tasting notes from my Noteworthy Dive Bars of the Greater East Side bike tour, from last year. Those were the good ol' days.
-->
So anyway the Bee Hive is funny. It's all white and
windowless and John, who has owned the place for 40 years, is always there.
Always, every time I've been there. He's often there alone, watching reality
shows about salvage or thrifting or old cars. The building dates to 1887. Half
of it used to be a laundromat but at some point they took out the interior wall
and consolidated the space. John didn't change the name when he bought it, and
doesn't know the origins of the insectile moniker.
John used to own a long-shuttered bar in Frogtown called the
"Family Inn," which I'd always found to be an amusing name. I asked
John about it and he said something like "oh well it was different in
those days. You'd bring your family to the bar, kids, everyone."
John
often talks about the old days, somehow unromantically wistful, and how many
shift workers used to pour into his bars at all hours of the day.
"Made a
lot of money," John says, "but things are different now."
The first time I went there, visiting a friend who lived in
the neighborhood, I remember seeing Zima on the menu. I asked John about it the
other day and he admitted that he kept a case of it around for years after it
disappeared, as a joke. The menu is still there on the wall, but there's a
piece of paper covering the Zima. I wonder how much he charged?
Someone said to me, "the Bee Hive? That's a 3.2
bar." And I didn't believe them because I didn't know there were any 3.2
bars in Saint Paul. (isn't that a Minneapolis thing?) But lo an behold, it's
true. Something to do with being close to schools or churches or both. All they
have on tap is PBR and Hamm's, available for $1.50 per half-pint. The bar's
population peaks during Vikings games, when they sometimes serve up purple
jello shots every time the Vikes score.
[This is an op-ed that appeared in the Community Reporter, the local monthly newspaper for the West 7th area. County Commissioner Ortega's office asked me to share my thoughts on Riverview for his regular column, which is why his picture appears at the top of the column. For the record, I have never met Commissioner Ortega.]
[In this month's edition.]
The reason that plans to invest in transit along West 7th Street keep coming back, again and again, is that the Riverview Corridor has the most transit potential of anywhere in the East Metro. Compared to any other potential connections in Saint Paul, the West 7th area offers better ridership and serves more key places. For anyone looking at improving Saint Paul’s transit system, focusing on West 7th is an obvious first step.
Yet there’s no doubt that the options for the Riverview Corridor are complicated. So far in the planning process, there are a half dozen potential combinations of route and mode. The quesiton remains: Which of the many choices – including the do-nothing “no build” option – would offer the best improvement for the most people?
For me, the critical thing about Riverview is to look at it from the transit perspective, through the eyes of someone riding the bus. That’s what the whole project is about. Before making up your mind, nothing replaces actually riding around on buses and trains to see what it’s really like.
For example, I believe that anyone interested in Riverview should ride the Green Line as much as possible. There’s no other way to see what rail looks and feels like, and how it changes the experience of the street. The same goes with riding on the new A-Line bus down Snelling, or existing 54 bus down West 7th. If you are at all curious about the Riverview debate, take a few hours of your time and ride the 54 to and from downtown, the airport, or the mall. Take it during rush hour, mid-day, or later at night, and see for yourself what the route is like today.
Some key questions: Is it crowded? Does it get mired in airport traffic? Is it comfortable? Would you take it to catch a flight?
Personally, I’ve been riding the Green Line multiple times a week since it opened, and I love it. It’s amazing to sit on the train and watch how people use it. I have seen a tourist family from Iowa get directions from kids from Frogtown. I see parents pushing strollers onto the train, homeless people share space with business people, crowds of Twins fans look dejected after a close loss, college kids moving from dorm to dorm in laundry carts, and always people schlepping their bikes or groceries. Most importantly, just about every day, I watch people in wheelchairs or mobility scooters making their way around the city unassisted. The wider, smoother rail cars have level boarding that provide comfort and dignity for rich and poor alike, allowing people to get around without driving. The Green Line has made a big part of Saint Paul truly walkable for the first time in generations.
My experience riding the Green Line is the big reason why I support rail options for the Riverview corridor. I’m hopeful that, this time around, the planning compromises are a good fit for the unique character of West 7th Street. Unlike the University Avenue-style dedicated light-rail plan, or the historical 1980s plans for bus rapid transit that would have needlessly widened the street, a streetcar can be built so that the sidewalks and public spaces along West 7th are improved and not eroded. In my role on the Technical Advisory Committee for Riverview, I have been pushing to make sure walkability is a high priority, and will continue to do so.
After carefully studying the issue, I believe that Riverview offers a tremendous opportunity to invest in Saint Paul and to boost both pedestrian safety and transit ridership for the next generation. If we invest in high quality transit for Saint Paul, I am confident that within a short time, tens of thousands of people will be using it every day. It will offer unprecedented level of freedom and mobility to people in the West 7th neighborhoods from all walks of life. It will connect the diverse parts of the neighborhood – everyone from the downtown business people to the folks living in the public housing tower – in an important new way.
So whatever your thoughts about Riverview so far, I urge my neighbors to go out and ride some of the existing transit in the city. See for yourself what it’s like to take the bus or the train to the airport or downtown. Think about people who rely on transit every day, and consider what the city might be like in ten years. Then make up your own mind about what’s best for West 7th and for the future of Saint Paul.
I believe that Rice Street is the most intriguing old commercial street in Saint Paul, a place that is hard to pin down, full of potential, terribly unsafe (from drivers more than from crime, but both are threats). Rice Street is old, marginalized, resilient, neglected, overlooked, historic, full of character and characters alike, and vaguely in decline or undergoing a huge flourishing transition, depending on how you look at it.
There are a whole bunch of fascinating historical spots, including-but-not-limited-to
the old railroad car / blues bar, the city's last strip club (and only
strip club located in a strip mall), an ancient family-run pizza parlor,
a German-American "klub haus", the batting cages where Steve Winfield
coaches, dozens of new immigrant businesses, a historic Hmong bait shop,
a willingly-homeless man who has lived literally on the sidewalk for
decades, one of the only non-chain 24-hour diners in the Twin Cities, the city's waterworks reservoir, a couple beautiful lakes, the
building formerly known as the "hair milk lab", an old Catholic school
that is increasingly populated by Southeast Asian immigrants, cemeteries
and car part stores and industry, and, of course, a whole bunch of
truly gritty dive bars.
[The past comes to life on Rice Street.]
This is to say that no Twin Cities' dive bar epic saga would be complete without a visit to Rice Street, and so here we go. This Sunday.
I’ve written before about what it was like to hang out around Rice Street:
The growing diversity is a good thing for Rice Street, which boasts businesses like Bangkok Thai Deli or Kathy's Live Bait, with more and younger people speaking languages other than English. But in an area that struggles with crime and gang violence, it’s a challenge, especially for the old-timers.
Another story: I felt really weird when I marched in the Rice Street Parade back in 2006, because the parade offered a long string of floats full of white people heading down a street lined with people of color. The parade dynamics really bugged me, especially when I saw the guy running for City Council on a “tough on crime” platform hoisting police logos against a segregated racial background. It was one the things that pissed me off enough to get involved in local politics in the first place.
One of the great things about this particular tour is that it is going to begin up in the suburbs, at an amazing watering hole called the Vadnais Inn. The first time I stopped at the Vadnais Inn, on a bike ride from Shorview, I knew that this tour had to happen someday.
NOTE ON DIRECTIONS: Biking to the Vadnais Inn is not too difficult, and sort of beautiful! I highly recommend taking Victoria Street north at some point, and going along the northern edge of Lake Owasso. From the Vadnais Inn, the rest of the ride is simple. We make no turns. We make no diversions. We continue along Rice Street south to the city.
Rice Street is named after Henry Rice, one of the key figures behind the founding of Saint Paul, and even then, the street (which followed an old trail leading out of Saint Paul) was a bit marginal. The peerless Donald Empson describes the terrain thus:
The north-south portion of this street, named in Rice and Irvine's Addition in 1831, marks a section line on the land survey. The first surveyor noted the area today along Rice Street between Van Buren Avenue and Wayzata Street was marshland and tamarack swamp. To the north of today's Wayzata Street all the way to Larpenteur Avenue, he area along Rice Street was comprised of oak barrens interspersed with marshes.
[Typical Rice Street sentiments.]
In early 20th century aerial photos, Rice Street looks surprisingly undeveloped. There are still vacant lots, marshy areas, and a lot of empty space in between the old buildings. Rice Street and the North End in general are also home to a few cemeteries, a sign of a neighborhood on the edge.
There's also a heated debate on Rice Street about the connection between street design, safety, and economic development, which will be food for thought as we bike the suburban-to-urban transect and go through
This will be a one-way trip down Rice Street, about 5 miles in length, beginning by Interstate 694 and ending not too far from the Rice Street Green Line station. We will stop at Vadnais Inn, the historical McCarrons' Pub (formerly Dean's) for food, Lonetti's Bar, and wind up at Born's (formerly a 40+ bar).
Please join me on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Rice Street is always changing and will never be the same again.
What: Bike tour of dive bars along Rice Street
When: Sunday 9/10 at 2:30 pm.
Where: Meet at Vadnais Inn, by Rice and 694.
Why: Because it's there.
Who: You. Free of charge, though tips are very much accepted.
