Reading the Highland Villager #203

[A Selby Villager.]

[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: Citizens League study opens the debate over $15 minimum wage
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: [Fifteen dollars an hour isn’t that much money, sez I, the guy who earns very little money.] There’s a debate in the City Council over the details of the policy. [There seems to be broad buy-in about this at the Council level, though it will be interesting to see who carries water for the Chamber or small businesses against the wage increase.]


Headline: Pedestrian safety improvements get green light on Grand; Upgrades planned for busy stretch between Victoria and Hamline
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: The City Council approved sidewalk and street safety upgrades for Grand Avenue [which is a surprisingly dangerous street given its mixed-use commercial nature]. Nobody attended a public hearing about the proposed safety improvements. [Is that good or bad? I should have gone, I guess.] They are going to install bumpouts, wider crosswalks, better lights. [There was maybe going to be a median, but this article does not mention it?] Article includes some safety and crash stats. The local neighborhood group would like better enforcement to prevent speeding. Ayd Mill Road will not be improved. [I have some ideas for how to improve that, and they involve a lot of bulldozers.]


Headline: Rathskeller reborn; HPC Oks permit for $8M brewery renovation project
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A cool old bar / building that is part of the Schmidt Brewery complex will be renovated for use as something. It has lots of cool old details in it. It was the offices for the Ethanol company [very stinky!] until ’04 and then was owned by the neighborhood group. It might be an event space or something. [Article does not say.]


Headline: County Board weighs the pros and cons of Riverview streetcar
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A streetcar project plan will be voted on soon by the County. Lots of cities and other organizations have already voted to support the plans. [As I have said, there are a lot of crucial details that are still TBD, including alignment, dedicated ROW, downtown ingress route, parking vs. sidewalk priorities, and the intrusiveness of the design viz. walking around. All of those decisions are super important.] Quote from neighbor: we might be spending $2 billion on what could be a fiasco.” Some people like it but others do not. Some people like light rail while others like buses or nothing.


Headline: Highland sidewalks OK’d to create safer ways to schools
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: The City Council voted to allocated Federal money for sidewalks by some catholic schools. [That seems like an obvious step to take… har har.] A young girl was hit by a car a few years ago in a place without sidewalks. The money is about $500K. Some trees will be cut down. Quote from neighbor:: “his family has been ‘farming city land’ and will have to move a garden on city ROW.’” [Well that’s quaint.] Another neighbor: “this will affect the quiet enjoyment of our house.” [Because kids walking in places that are not the actual dangerous street is really loud? "I'm not for little kids getting hit by cars, mind you, but the sound of their laughter as they walk really ruins my day."] One neighbor likes it, while another wants to see speeding reduced.

Headline: Outdoor seating sought at historic Waldmann
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: And old brewery restored to 1850s standards wants to have outdoor seating in its yard. It needs a variance. They want to make a hedge because the street is so loud. Historic Preservation folks debated how high the hedge should be, and settled on 3.5 feet. [How high were hedges in the 1850s? What about conforming to 13c. English shrubbery standards?]


Headline: Stadium exempted from noise ordinance
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: [Soccer fans will be allowed to cheer.]


Headline: JCC expansion grows a creative arts wing
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: The Jewish Community Center in Highland [where I performed in musical theater productions as a child] will expand.


Headline: Rezoning eyed for Norfolk Avenue lot
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A senior housing building will likely be allowed to tear down a few homes to build a new surface parking lot.


Headline: Mac buys final parcel on Grand Ave. block [sounds like an episode title of It's Always Sunny...]

Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: Macalester college bought a vacant lot a block west of campus on Grand Avenue. They have not said what they will do with it. The old building that was there was torn down a few years ago.


Headline: Historic designation sought for former West End fire station
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: And old fire station in Randolph Avenue might get converted into a restaurant and/or brewery. The HPC is OK with it so far. The second story would be for banquets. Quote from developer: “really the only thing left is the fire pole.” Neighbors are concerned about parking. [Note that this is the first mention of parking that I’ve seen in this edition of the Villager, a new record for sure.] The fire station is from 1885. The brewery is moving up from Fairbault. [That’s just weird, but I guess it’s cool if Saint Paul collects all the breweries from out-state cities, one by one.]


Headline: Apartments planned for old plant near University-Cleveland; Commission OKs permit allowing first-floor units
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: [OK technically this is outside of Villager territory and falls within the Park Bugle domain. I write for the Park Bugle so this is like a turf war. I’m not gonna re-blog this one and you‘ll have to wait until the Park Bugle comes out in a week or so. They have a website.]

Announcing the Lamppost Palette of Saint Paul Colorways

As a local sidewalk blogger, the most common request I get is this:

"Bill, when are you going to curate a set of paint colors based on Saint Paul lampposts?"

[Most of these emails are lamppost-related.]

It's gotten so bad that I have had emails with the word "swatch" in them automatically redirected into my Spam folder for years now, until I began obsessing over the latest retro Swatch watch designs and had to undo the filter. And immediately, the deluge of requests for lamppost paints began again in earnest.

Well, I'm finally listening to the voice of the people.

ANNOUNCING THE 2018 LAMPPOST LINE OF ARTISANALLY CURATED COLORWAYS, PRESENTED BY SAINT PAUL

Based on meticulous sampling and painstaking collecting of actual boulevard lampposts photographs in Saint Paul, Minnesota, I have curated this professional artisanally labelled set of color swatches for you!

Complex and contemplative, these colorways are curated to cultivate neighborhood pride. They are designed to foster enlightened states in both interior or exterior contexts. Use them for your kitchen, bath, three-season porch, or backyard light fixtures.

You can even have your bicycle custom painted with shades of different lampposts from individually curated Saint Paul neighborhoods.  Or your hybrid SUV / art-car if you prefer.

From this point forward, the world of LAMPPOSTS™ is your oyster.

Onward!

[See also: all the pics of lampposts.]

Classic Sidewalks of the Silver Screen #99

A gang of kids chase a chicken through the sidewalks of a Brazilian favela...



... in Fernando Meirelles' and Katia Lund's 2002 masterpiece, City of God.

Classic Sidewalks of the Silver Screen #98

Harris K. Telemacher commutes to work on the sidewalks of Los Angeles...



... in Steve Martin and Mick Jackson's 1991 urban comedy, L.A. Story.

Why Message Boards?

[A sign of a lively city in Dinkytown.]

There’s a dynamic feedback loop that persists between a city and its people. The city shapes the people and the people shape the city. They mirror each other, build each other, inscribe patterns and stories upon each other, and so forth. We reflect the cities around us, and the cities reflect their people.

This kind of reciprocality is especially visible on city sidewalks, where architecture, footprints, and other traces follow like wakes behind the patterns of the people; these patterns then shape our behavior, drawing people onward like the lingering aroma of a bakery around the corner. In a dynamic city with lively sidewalks, you can find these traces everywhere, in the footprints, paths, and shop windows of a city street.

There is almost no better reflection of the living city than a good public message board. I first encountered this when I lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I remember sitting in a hipster café and reading an article about how one particular block of Bedford Avenue had long served as the center of public announcement. (I can’t find any trace of this article today, but the message stuck with me.) There was a wall along a vacant lot that, in all other respects, was simply a plain wooden wall. It ran along a well-traveled street, but then someone put a poster on it, and then someone else did the same. And through the years, this particular section of wall on Bedford Avenue became the local equivalent of a thriving back-page newspaper want ads section: any “for rent” notice, “roommate wanted” sign, or “lost cat” flier found its way there.

[The message board in Minneapolis' Kingfield neighborhood that piqued my interest.]

Over ten years ago, having left New York City, I was living in Minneapolis’ Kingfield neighborhood and happened across a similar stretch of fence. It was a simple wooden alleyway fence on Grand Avenue just off 38th Street, but it served as a gathering place for messages, fliers, notes and posters. It caught my eye and from that point I began to pay attention to and document message boards wherever I went.

A few patterns have emerged.

First, there are different kinds of message boards. Some are formalized (cork boards or kiosks) while other are informal (lampposts or wooden walls). Some are private (small businesses or business associations), some are semi-public (like a city park), and others are truly free-for-all public spaces. Within the world of message boards, there are all kinds of variations and gradations of these basic types, everything from simple graffiti stickers to carefully choreographed neighborhood displays.

[The most well organized public message board I've seen is on Como and Carter Avenues in St. Paul's St. Anthony Park neighborhood.]

[Message boards in St. Anthony Park and Maple Grove.]

[Message boards in Grand Marais and South Minneapolis.]

[Message boards in Red Wing and Longfellow, Minneapolis.]

[Message boards in Lyndale, Minneapolis and Northfield.]

Yet within all this diversity of types of message boards, there’s one general rule that seems to hold no matter where you are. Message boards only thrive when there are lots of people on foot. Without an audience of passers-by, signs and fliers live lonely meaningless lives.

[Message board in Winnipeg.]

With well-trod sidewalks, on the other hand, fliers thrive and become fulfilled. It’s a variation on the age-old philosophical quandary: if a flier is posted on a  message board, but there’s nobody there to walk past it, does it even exist?

Perhaps not.

That’s why I pay attention to message boards. In a great walking city like Portland, Oregon, New York, New York, or New Orleans, Louisiana, message boards are everywhere and constantly overflowing with information. Any college campus will be like this, and it’s a sign of a dynamic thriving place.

On the other hand, in car-dependent cities with unpeople’d sidewalks, nobody bothers to post any bills. Why would you? Walking in these places is lonely and devoid of connection, and far too many of our streets and sidewalks lack any meaningful messages.

In short, message boards measure the health of our public spaces. Look for them in your neighborhood, on a lamppost, wall, or kiosk.

Is there anything to see?

Is anyone trying to communicate anything meaningful?

Or do you live in a landscape of solipsism?

[See also: Why Sidewalk Closed Signs? and Why Lampposts?]

[Message boards in Saint Paul's Railroad Island, Salem, MA, and Southwestern Wisconsin.]