OP/ED fron The Rake magazine
I was asked once to reveal some “universal truth” I’d learned. When I couldn’t dredge up the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus from my faded memories, I settled for, “Things are usually more complicated than they seem.” I give the same answer when asked why I live in Minneapolis.
Each day here is an exercise in ambiguity. My commute to our Warehouse District office is short. I can follow one route that never leaves city streets. That path passes the three cathedrals that reach up to God from their plots on Lowry Hill, then curves behind the Christian mission. There the sidewalk is lined by shopping carts full of scrap and their custodians, who sit on a low concrete wall, smoke cigarettes, and wait for their next meal.
Sometimes I vary my route and enter the freeway at the Basilica entrance to skirt downtown for one exit. I usually take a long look at the suburban commuters at a dead stop in the oncoming lanes. They are all angry, I imagine, as they wait for their turn to exit into a high-rise parking ramp and begin their daily visit to purgatory in the city. They don’t see the line behind the mission, but I expect some may be panhandled at lunch time or hear the dreadlocked drummer in front of the Target store on Nicollet Mall.
The suburban tourists sometimes venture downtown at night, too, and lap up Cold Stone ice cream or Applebee’s margaritas on the second floor of Block E. Some grab a burger and beer on First Avenue before a Timberwolves game. You don’t see the same scrubbed faces so much at Café Brenda, though. There you know nearly everyone, at least by face, because they are from the neighborhood. They are the people who have perhaps seen Kevin Garnett going into a dance club in his impeccably fitted five-button suits, but have never seen him in his baggy white basketball shorts.
One suburban tourist was killed this summer on First Avenue, hit in the head by a bullet that wasn’t meant for him. Another man from out of town was shot dead by a robber as he left an Uptown restaurant. Forty others who lived here have been murdered in the city this year. Hundreds have been wounded. The reactions to this vary from resignation to outrage, from mere sadness to fury. My city friend who was robbed at gunpoint last week in Uptown says it was “no big deal. He only got twenty bucks.” My other Golden Valley friend, whose wife and daughter were subjected to some obscene suggestions when he brought them to a Hennepin Avenue musical last year, says he will never come downtown at night again.
The people who live in the city pay a price. The cacophony of the streets assaults us daily. We know nearly every walk through downtown is going to mean, at best, being panhandled at least once, or, worse, being actively menaced. Most busy intersections feature mendicants with cardboard signs containing a “God Bless” and a short plea for a donation. Our City Council members didn’t bother to offer an apology when they told us last week that our property taxes were going up eight percent. Any available additional revenue would be used to hire more police. The amount available is limited, however, by the many bad decisions the city has made in the past. We pay off the purchase of Kevin Garnett’s showcase arena, yet provide scant playgrounds for youth soccer. We finance downtown office towers while most of our branch libraries are open three or four days a week. There was a bullet hole in the second-floor window of the Central Library before it even opened in May.
But this is what we pay for having sidewalks in front of our homes. In my neighborhood, we’re thankful for quirky restaurants like Auriga, which you can walk to for an imaginative pizza and Malbec by the glass after 10:00 p.m. Though the drug dealer next door in a Northeast neighborhood does a brisk business every night, we can still walk to the 331 Club. In Southeast, we can get a three-course Chinese lunch at Shuang Cheng that costs less than six bucks and wasn’t cooked an hour ago.
The tourists who visit the city daily for their wages or nightly for their entertainment don’t sleep here and don’t pay the day-to-day toll exacted from the people who live here. Instead, they take what they come for, retrace their paths home, cluck their tongues at our problems, and only rarely partake of our real treasures.
Each day here is an exercise in ambiguity. My commute to our Warehouse District office is short. I can follow one route that never leaves city streets. That path passes the three cathedrals that reach up to God from their plots on Lowry Hill, then curves behind the Christian mission. There the sidewalk is lined by shopping carts full of scrap and their custodians, who sit on a low concrete wall, smoke cigarettes, and wait for their next meal.
Sometimes I vary my route and enter the freeway at the Basilica entrance to skirt downtown for one exit. I usually take a long look at the suburban commuters at a dead stop in the oncoming lanes. They are all angry, I imagine, as they wait for their turn to exit into a high-rise parking ramp and begin their daily visit to purgatory in the city. They don’t see the line behind the mission, but I expect some may be panhandled at lunch time or hear the dreadlocked drummer in front of the Target store on Nicollet Mall.
The suburban tourists sometimes venture downtown at night, too, and lap up Cold Stone ice cream or Applebee’s margaritas on the second floor of Block E. Some grab a burger and beer on First Avenue before a Timberwolves game. You don’t see the same scrubbed faces so much at Café Brenda, though. There you know nearly everyone, at least by face, because they are from the neighborhood. They are the people who have perhaps seen Kevin Garnett going into a dance club in his impeccably fitted five-button suits, but have never seen him in his baggy white basketball shorts.
One suburban tourist was killed this summer on First Avenue, hit in the head by a bullet that wasn’t meant for him. Another man from out of town was shot dead by a robber as he left an Uptown restaurant. Forty others who lived here have been murdered in the city this year. Hundreds have been wounded. The reactions to this vary from resignation to outrage, from mere sadness to fury. My city friend who was robbed at gunpoint last week in Uptown says it was “no big deal. He only got twenty bucks.” My other Golden Valley friend, whose wife and daughter were subjected to some obscene suggestions when he brought them to a Hennepin Avenue musical last year, says he will never come downtown at night again.
The people who live in the city pay a price. The cacophony of the streets assaults us daily. We know nearly every walk through downtown is going to mean, at best, being panhandled at least once, or, worse, being actively menaced. Most busy intersections feature mendicants with cardboard signs containing a “God Bless” and a short plea for a donation. Our City Council members didn’t bother to offer an apology when they told us last week that our property taxes were going up eight percent. Any available additional revenue would be used to hire more police. The amount available is limited, however, by the many bad decisions the city has made in the past. We pay off the purchase of Kevin Garnett’s showcase arena, yet provide scant playgrounds for youth soccer. We finance downtown office towers while most of our branch libraries are open three or four days a week. There was a bullet hole in the second-floor window of the Central Library before it even opened in May.
But this is what we pay for having sidewalks in front of our homes. In my neighborhood, we’re thankful for quirky restaurants like Auriga, which you can walk to for an imaginative pizza and Malbec by the glass after 10:00 p.m. Though the drug dealer next door in a Northeast neighborhood does a brisk business every night, we can still walk to the 331 Club. In Southeast, we can get a three-course Chinese lunch at Shuang Cheng that costs less than six bucks and wasn’t cooked an hour ago.
The tourists who visit the city daily for their wages or nightly for their entertainment don’t sleep here and don’t pay the day-to-day toll exacted from the people who live here. Instead, they take what they come for, retrace their paths home, cluck their tongues at our problems, and only rarely partake of our real treasures.