If you’ve ever visited one of those sad deindustrialized cities with a moribund core, you know how they tried to bring the downtown back: banners and trees. If not trees, then flower baskets hanging from ornamental light fixtures. But certainly banners. If you hang something from every block that says History District or Pennsylvania’s Culture: On the Grow or Home of the 2003 Upper West New York Jazz Festival people will come back.
But they don’t. I wince when I read about beautification programs, like this one. Downtown Minneapolis isn’t dead – but when they start talking banners and trees, I can hear the mortician rummaging through the drawers for the right shade of lipstick. I’m all in favor of making Washington Avenue look better, but it’s been getting there on its own for years. Who ruined it in the first place, after all?
A little history. Here’s Washington Av, looking towards Marquette. It’s 1894.
The avenue ran parallel to the river, and the commercial district grew up along this spine. But it soon pushed west; all the fashionable shops began their march up Nicollet, and Hennepin was the preferred locale for sturdy office blocks and bright new theaters. The area fell, and fell quickly. By the end of the 40s it was bum-choked, unsafe, lined with pestilential flophouses, its alleys filled with heaps of busted bottles. Skid row. It looked cool at night, in that B&W film-noir sense:
Rough crowd, though:
This wasn’t what the city fathers had in mind, and faced with suburban flight, they decided on drastic medicine: knock it all down.
We’re lucky that they saved some landmarks – the train station, now a hotel and skating rink, and the old Federal Building. The destruction stopped north of Hennepin, though, and the giant old warehouses have been reclaimed and rehabbed. Most of the development that was supposed to fill in the gaps never happened, and the southern downtown end was shabby and dispirited for years. But it’s different now: the Guthrie and new condos have changed the street completely, and it’s done so well you’re surprised to find anyone’s worried about Washington Avenue at all. Said the Mayor, when unveiling the new plan:
“When friends come to town, how many of you say, 'You've got to come down Washington Avenue,' " Rybak (said) as he unveiled his vision on Tuesday. "Well, we should be able to say that when you come to Minneapolis, 'You can't miss Washington Boulevard.' "
I always take people to Washington Avenue. It’s a great example of a street that took two near-fatal hits – urban renewal and a freeway - and came back.
If nothing else, it’s a lesson in urban planning: Anything you impose on the street – in the name of good intentions, of course – will later be undone by someone, in the name of good intentions. Personally, I don’t want it to be the Champs Elysees; I want it to be Washington Avenue, which it’s been all along. Despite our best efforts. I wish them the best with this, but I suspect the street would do just fine on its own. And none of it will matter if it’s not safe at night.
An excellent book on the subject can be found here - amazing photos, great history. The Strib’s own Roadguy blog weighs in here; the project’s website is here.
You would think...
...that these "City Fathers" had never read Jane Jacobs, or any of the few dissenting voices against '60's urban renewal. They have largely been vindicated.
I wonder who actually benefits from these sort of large-scale imposed projects. It seems to me that they are always attmepting to sanitize the city for the benefit of the suburbanites.