Category Archives: Twin Cities

Politics, Twin Cities

Police Raids on Protesters in St. Paul

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If you don’t follow my Twitter updates, you probably missed much of the hubbub over yesterday’s police raids in the Twin Cities. In anticipation of the Republican National Convention, police have been raiding homes, detaining people and pulling over buses. Most of yesterday’s raids centered around a self-described anarchist group, the RNC Welcoming Committee. Five or six of their members were arrested on charges of conspiracy to riot and a number of weapons or potential weapons were seized (among them what could be some regular household items, what actually are weapons [slingshots mostly] and what’s just bizarre—buckets of urine, later explained by protesters to be a gray water system and not actual urine).

It’s all kind of bizarre, and as early stories come in it’s hard to know who to believe (like I just blogged, nobody just disagrees, we have to insult, mislead and insinuate).
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Art, Twin Cities

Start Seeing Art’s Downtown St. Paul Art Map

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Protagoras by Charles GinneverOn Saturday I posted the Downtown St. Paul Art Map on Start Seeing Art. It’s a free, printable, 7-page PDF map that features outdoor sculptures and murals in the downtown area.

I’m intentionally putting it out just before the Republican National Convention comes to town. Hopefully it will draw some attention to some of the amazing public artwork we have in the Twin Cities. The map itself isn’t very pretty (I’m no designer, and I didn’t even try to be), but it does include 85 works of art and pictures of each one (OK, 84 pictures. One sculpture is supposed to be placed any day now and I don’t have a picture of it).
Continue reading Start Seeing Art’s Downtown St. Paul Art Map →

Twin Cities

What To Do With Como’s Pedestrian Bridge?

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Pedestrian BridgeThe St. Paul Real Estate Blog recently covered the abandoned pedestrian bridge in Como Park. If you’re not familiar with the bridge, it’s near the intersection of Lexington and Horton by the old Streetcar Station building. Built in 1904, this was the grand entrance to Como Park, where guests would arrive via streetcar and then take this pedestrian bridge over the tracks and into the park. But when the streetcars disappeared the bridge became useless. With the tracks gone it seems to be a bridge over nothing (there’s even a sidewalk that runs parallel to the bridge, making it seem even more useless) and has fallen into disrepair. Now it’s fenced off to keep people from being injured by falling concrete.

Weekly guest blogger Erik Hare asked how the crumbling bridge might be saved. The problem, as I pointed out in the comments, is that the bridge has no purpose. If it were to be saved, it would need a purpose.

So what can we do with an old bridge to nowhere?
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Art, Twin Cities

Start Seeing Art Passes 300 Works

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International Academy LEAP student self portraitThis week my little side project/hobby, Start Seeing Art, posted its 300th work of public art. No wonder I can’t write a book, I’m too busy with art.

The project’s been a lot of fun. I get to check out cool artwork in the city and I usually bring my daughter along to climb on the sculptures (her most recent favorite is the one she called a “sculpture boat” even though it looked nothing like a boat).

While I do have Google ads on the site, it hasn’t been much of a money maker (maybe $10?). And I don’t expect it to be, at least not yet. It’s really too niche of a site for Google to work well and I need more traffic to attract my own ads. So in the mean time I’m just doing it as cheaply as possible. That means using WordPress and a couple plugins to make it work, though it doesn’t function as cleanly as I’d like. I also haven’t bothered with a real logo or a slick design. I’d love to make a lot of changes, but I can’t justify the time or the money. It’s a real bootstrap project, and for now I’m just putting the time into content. I think the content makes all the difference. When you have 300 works of art it suddenly becomes a lot more useful.

So we’ll see where it goes. Though currently I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the photos I’ve taken. I guess it’s better to load up on photos in the summer when it’s nice, and then when it’s not photo weather I can post them all to the site.

Business & Marketing, Twin Cities

Director of Marketing Insults Journalists

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Heard a story on NPR today about St. Paul being in the spotlight for the Republican National Convention. The part of the story that stuck out to me was when Erin Dady, director of marketing for the City of St. Paul, made this assumption about the national media:

“I would guess a significant percentage of the 15,000 members of the media who are coming to town couldn’t even locate St. Paul on a map,” she says. “So, what better way to tell our story to the world than to have 15,000 members of the media here in town? It’s really priceless media attention.”

Maybe Dady has some research to back up that assumption (in which case, why not use the research instead of speculating?) or maybe she’s referring to the fact that national reporters seem unable to distinguish St. Paul and Minneapolis (though that has little to do with locating St. Paul on a map)—I don’t know. But however you spin it, it seems like a really dumb idea for the marketing director of St. Paul to insult the intelligence of 15,000 journalists who are about to descend on our city.

Twin Cities

Demolition of the High Bridge Power Plant Smokestack

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Earlier this week I talked about the demolition of the High Bridge Power Plant smokestack. Well, today was the day.

Smokestack go boom.

You can check out my before and after pictures, but the real excitement is the video. I missed the opening blast, but it took plenty of time for the 570-foot smokestack to fall. Lots of folks showed up for the demolition, and a lot of us on the High Bridge had to get out of the way of the coming dust. I think I got some smokestack in my eye. The bridge shook with the initial explosion, but the final thud of the smokestack hitting the ground was wild.


Demolition of the High Bridge Power Plant Smokestack from kevinhendricks on Vimeo.

Both Bob Collins’ News Cut blog and Teresa Boardman’s real estate blog have coverage.

Twin Cities

High Bridge Power Plant Smokestack Coming Down

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Downriver On Saturday, June 28 Xcel Energy is going to blow up the tallest thing in St. Paul’s skyline. The 570-foot tall smokestack at the High Bridge Power Plant is scheduled to be imploded on Saturday at 7:30 a.m. The old power plant is being replaced by a newer, more efficient plant. The smokestack will come down despite pleas by locals to preserve the landmark, which was built in 1923.

The party’s kind of early on a Saturday morning, but I’m thinking of checking it out. How often do you get to see an implosion?

Update: Read my entry about the smokestack coming down. And according to Nick Coleman’s column, the power plant was built in 1923 but the smokestack was built in 1972.

Twin Cities

$2 Million Stairway

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Stairs to the BluffI recently heard that the stairway on Wabasha Street that climbs the bluffs on St. Paul’s West Side was being torn down. The stairway, built in 1916 and known as the Green Stariway, suffered damage when a massive limestone rock fell 80 feet from the top of the bluff and slammed into the stairway. Due to structural damage the stairway was closed and removed.

It’s sad to see such an iconic and convenient stairway go.

It’s the latest addition to the “crumbling infrastructure” line politicians are pitching right now (6 bridges in Minnesota are closed or restricted right now). But what’s funny is that city engineers have been requesting funding to replace the bridge for 20 years. Annual maintenance on the stairway has cost $16,000 per year and in 2007 approximately $60,000 was spend for maintenance rehabilitation. There’s currently a funding request being considered to rebuild the stairway for $2 million.

Those are some pricey stairs.

Twin Cities

Sesquicentennial-tastic

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On Sunday the frozen state of Minnesota turned 150. It’s our sesquicentennial! I’m an old pro at this, having lived in Michigan during their 1987 sesquicentennial (which means I can pronounce sesquicentennial, but can’t spell it without help). Some have argued that nobody really cares about 150 years of statehood. But I say it is a big deal, especially if you let me learn for free.

That’s right, on June 1 you can visit all Minnesota Historical Society sites and museums as well as Minnesota State Parks free of charge. Now that’s a celebration I can support.

But seriously, it is kind of cool. It’s fun to explore local history and understand how things came to be. Of course it shouldn’t be a chance to whitewash history—not everyone is eager to celebrate the sesquicentennial. After all, there have been people in Minnesota for far longer than 150 years and we didn’t exactly ask politely if we could have their homeland. Plus we have the distinction of being the location of the largest mass execution in U.S. history (how’s that for a tourist slogan?). That execution, by the way, involved military tribunals of questionable fairness, was personally reviewed by Abraham Lincoln, and ultimately only 38 of 303 death sentences were carried out, thanks to Episcopal Bishop Henry Whipple’s pleas for leniency (go Episcopalians!). As hard as it is to read about these sad moments in our history, it’s encouraging to read about people like Whipple who stood up against racism and violence.

Sometimes history’s lessons are somber, but they’re still important.

On a less somber note, I am disappointed we don’t have better sesquicentennial swag. Where are the yo-yos?

Since this is my second sesquicentennial, I thought it might be interesting to move around and celebrate sesquicentennials as they come. If that sounds like fun to you, you better head to Oregon in 2009, Kansas in 2011, West Virginia in 2013 and Nevada in 2014. You could also celebrate centennials in New Mexico and Arizona in 2012, but that’s not as fun to say.

Art, Twin Cities

Caponi Art Park

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Caponi Art ParkLast weekend I went to Caponi Art Park in Eagan, Minn., to check out the art. If you’re not familiar with it (I wasn’t), artist Anthony Caponi bought a chunk of land in the 1950s and build his home and art studio there. He started turning into his own personal art park and eventually secured a deal with the city and county to turn it into an official art park (MPR and Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine can summarize it better if you like).

It’s basically as far as you can get from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden’s manicured lawns and squared-off bushes without just dropping sculptures into the woods. Caponi has been shaping the land for 50 years, putting in paths, walls and even a ‘theater in the woods.’ And he also dropped sculptures all over the place, at least two dozen of them. The result is that you’re walking along the path and suddenly come upon a sculpture. Or you’re scratching your head and wondering whether or not that’s art. (Side Note: It reminds me of a friend’s farm in Frederick, Wis., where an artist family member installed sculpture. The tour consisted of “this is art,” / “this is old farm equipment,” and without the helpful guide you wouldn’t know the difference.) Parts of the park are like traipsing through the woods, while other parts feel like you’ve stumbled into the Shire.

Some of the especially cool artwork includes Struggle of the Elements, Snake, Monument to a Lumberjack and Walk in Outer Space.

Bottom line: It’s a cool park to visit (check out my set of pics).