Let's start this week by visiting Minneapolis! From 1968, the year I was born!
This makes the city look very white! It's so white that it makes Des Moines look like Miami.
Let's fast forward 6 years, and lo and behold, we got the first skyscraper, the IDS Tower.
This is an interesting video when compared to the previous one from 6 years earlier, but you can see the identity crisis the city is going through as it barrels through the 1970s. It was clearly trying to shake its small city vibes, with a lot of people doing "back in my day" observations, while they ignored the diverse problems emerging within the metro.
It should be noted that the modern Republican complains about how the city is dead. They make this argument because the one street, Nicollet Mall, is a much quieter street today than it is shown in this video. For 150 years, Nicollet Mall was the prime shopping district of the city.
But two points Republicans want to leave out. The Mall is a lot less busy today because of the death of retail stores everywhere! It's not Minneapolis' fault that modern times did in Macy's, Donaldson's, and Montgomery Ward. The Dales shopping malls, and eventually the Mall of America, are far more responsible for retail leaving the downtown.
The other thing Republicans leave out is that while Nicollet Mall was undeniably busy in the 60s, 70s, and 80's, the rest of the city was not! Most of Washington Avenue was empty parking lots. North Loop was empty buildings and rats. No one wanted to try to go north of the river. And the cute neighborhoods of today were much less vibrant back then.
The 1974 prediction segment of what the city would look like in the future is wildly off.
Call MST3K for a much-needed local riff on these.
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Edouard Manet is one of my favorite all-time paintings. It's a fun look at life in the 1880s and is lively and vibrant.
It's also off a bit. A lot is going on in this painting. The channel ArtDeco breaks it down.
That's it for this week. Have a great weekend!
Make sure to stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
