Secrets of the City

[via Strib] Plans for locating light rail service and a station area in the Washington Avenue trench have focused attention on the long-deferred challenge of reconnecting Cedar-Riverside and the West Bank to Seven Corners and downtown Minneapolis. In its current state, Washington Avenue cuts a barren path through land located between two of Minnesota’s most productive places – downtown Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota.

I never knew the Seven Corners area until the ’80s, long after urban renewal and 35W had changed the neighborhood’s landscape. (I count only four “corners” now.) The article points out that several acres of land have been “mothballed” since that time; devoid of any development. Central Corridor LRT construction could change all that.

What would your suggestions be for the resurrection of Seven Corners as a viable, hospitable district?

I have been offered jobs in both places and am having a difficult time deciding which place would be the best place to move. Currently, I live in the south. I snowboard when I am in the north but my boyfriend doesn’t) I like the beach but also like the mountains and large, clear lakes. Are people really friendlier in the Mid-West? That would be a plus. I have family in New England. (that is a big plus for me) My boyfriend has family outside of Detroit Michigan.

Can someone please give me some insight as to what life is like in Minnepolis/suburbs. If anyone has ever lived in New England AND Minneapolis, their thoughts would be most helpful also. I just joined this sight but was unable to ascertain where you go to make a new post.. that is why this question is in the form of a story.. Thank you in advance for your help in a life-changing decision.

Following up on the “Missing Street Food of Minneapolis”, the Heavy Table’s Susan Pagani finds the Street Food in the Twin Cities. (Today is also the last day for Curbside this year.)

A few blocks in the Kingfield neighborhood didn’t get bus assignments for the first week of school, so they started the Lyndale Walking Bus which picked up kids along the way.

Sounds like things got a little out of control at a Minneapolis strip club after a police versus firemen softball game: By the time the off-duty Minneapolis officers arrived at the Double Deuce strip club, still in their softball uniforms, the owner told FOX 9, the cops were so intoxicated that the bouncer wouldn’t let them in the strip club.

The owner says the officers even started flashing their badges, trying to intimidate the bouncer. And in retaliation, one of the officers allegedly urinated on the club’s wall. The incident was caught on video.

According to the story, the cops then went to Mayslaks and started roughing people up.

Rhubarbism does some digging online and find this old article by former City Pages food writer Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl. The subject? Minneapolis’s wild and wooly past. It’s well worth revisiting. Some samples from the story:

The Sioux believed that this core of Minneapolis was a creepy place on two counts. The spirit of evil and waters, Oanktehi, lived behind the falls, and was given to making frequent and terrible mischief.

Minneapolis didn’t bother to lock up drunks; that was one of its attractions. Men from St. Anthony would come here for the pleasure of our liquor. “Every day,” noted the Minneapolis Tribune, “our city is visited by ‘denizens from the metropolis’ of the male persuasion …

The most violent of these shantytowns, Hell’s Half Acre, occupied the block between Eighth and Ninth Streets and Second and Third Avenues South. Mead’s History of the Police and Fire Departments described them as a settlement “of utter darkness, wailing, and woe. Bloody frays were a nightly occurrence….

Meet Minneapolis asks for readers to suggest how to be a tourist in your own town. What are your suggestions?

The Craig Show, a South Minneapolis-based, no-BS golf program starring coach Craig Teiken, quietly launched a couple months ago. Lately they’ve been fixing up clubs, talking tee box stance and dealing with uneven lies. Golf season has begun — who else golfs here?

There’s a bit of a kerfuffle in the RNC now, as their chairman, Mike Steele, won’t call Obama a socialist, but instead a “collectivist.” Since this absurd accusation of socialism won’t seem to simmer down (and it should have when the New Republic put it firmly to bed), I thought I would take this moment to remember a fellow named Thomas Van Lear, who actually was a socialist, and was Mayor of Minneapolis. As it happens, the Minnesota Historical Society has some very good articles about our socialist mayor in PDF form: Minneapolis and the Pragmatic Socialism of Thomas Van Lear; A Frustrated Voice for Socialism; and a fascinating article about socialist draft resisters in Minnesota during WWI that discusses Van Lear. The poor guy served only one term: With the start of WWI, his opponents campaigned claiming that Van Lear wanted to Germans to win the war, as discussed in the article Loyalty as a Political Weapon.

An interesting look back in time at happy hour in Minneapolis’ skid row.