Holy Time-eater, Batman!

By Myrtle Schmeckpepper

The West Hotel, which used to tower over 5th and Hennepin. I'm slobbering all over turn-of-the-century downtown right now.

This is some dangerous business I’ve gotten into. I’ve always thought I nurse an unhealthy level of obsession with details and certain subject matters–old-timey things and local trivia being two big ones of late. To this end, I caught onto a series of Web sites detailing the old-timey architecture of Minneapolis; past, present, and demolished.

Hi, I'm James Lileks. I like old stuff too!

Very interesting stuff, and described in the fun, irreverent voice of Strib columnist James Lileks.

‘Gee, this is a fun way to spend a few minutes on a Friday afternoon,’ I thought.

Then I started peeling the onion. A) This guy is all over the internet, and B) He makes my obsessions look practically ADD in comparison. Take the red pill and follow me down the wormhole, if you will:

Here’s his main “Minneapolis” Web site. Nested inside are five different sites, each devoted to the architectural history in different aspects of our fair city. Inside each of those sites are a half-dozen to a dozen slide shows on the notable buildings contained within.

• There’s Downtown: the granddaddy of the sites, with 40 (count ‘em, 40!) or so slide shows illustrating the greatest architectural hits of then and now, lovingly scanned by hand. All your old pals are there: city hall, Wells Fargo/Norwest, and my personal favorite–scrappy, egotistical little Foshay. Fo’ sho? Yes, Foshay. 
  

  I was the tallest cat in town for a while, I swear!

• There’s the Long Gone section, which–dear god, I didn’t know how deep this goes. The title explains it all, but Lileks (bless him) further breaks our dearly departed structures into more subcategories: Office Blocks, Hotels, the Gateway District, Theaters, Nicollet Ave.–Oh, dear, I’m going to need some smelling salts.
• There’s the University–perhaps we’ll find out how Dinkytown got so dinky.
• The Lakes! My local-trivia sense is tingling.
• And finally, Modernism. Not my favorite (so angular! so unadorned! so avocado!) but still interesting.

I’ve made it through downtown so far, and I figure I’ve got a solid 12 hours of timewasting left in these bad boys, easy. But the thing is, he’s continually updating and adding to them! It’s a Sisyphean task, keeping up. Hats off to you, Lileks, you are the master. I hope that one day I can be as fixated and focused as you. But until then a warning to everyone else:

Don’t click on The Leamington post. You’ll be there for days.

Rate that Lake – Brownie Time

Theoharides

Summer is here, Summer is here. Sound the bells, or if you live in my neck-of-the-woods, the tornado sirens, and embrace the arrival of pleasant weather, skirts (fun for the girls and for the boys), and of course the advent of lake season. All of which makes now the perfect time to rate the lakes of our great, waterlogged hub.

My rating system, as always, is the essence of sagacity and virtue. In other words, I think you can guess where I pulled it out of. When rating the lakes, I took into account four categories: the aesthetics, because lakes, like beauty contestants, only win if they’ve got the goods; the “serenity-now” factor, or how easy it is at each lake to forget about long winters and daily stress; the people watching, oh you know you enjoy it too; and recreation, ’nuff said. Each category was rated on a scale of one to ten. Ten being the high, one the low, and the score were averaged for a grand Rate that Lake score. Most likely I will offend, and I anticipate debate. Tell me what you think. Rip on my rates. Rate on my rips.

Each post will cover one lake, starting with…

Brownie Lake – 2.5

Previously known as Hillside Harbor, Brownie may reside at the northernmost point of the chain of lakes, but it is by far the worst of the bunch. Lets just put it this way—you would have to indulge in a particular kind of brownie to enjoy this lake.

Aesthetics: 2 – A small puddle of murky water bordered by a railroad embankment and an I-394 overpass. Only appealing if you’re Sarah, as in Plain and Tall, and haven’t seen water in months.

Serenity-now: 2 – Roadways and train tracks abound. More like, serenity-how.

People Watching: 3 – Points for the abundance of bicyclists, but not much else to see.

Recreation: 3 – According to the official Parks & Rec. site, the lake provides for fishing, non-motorized boats, and archery. Frankly, would you eat those fish?, paddle those boats?, or shoot those arrows?

NBA Draft – T-Wolves Making Moves

The kings is dead, the king is dead. The days of Kevin “up and under blow our cover” McHale running the show for the T-Wolves are over. Despite, K-Love’s tweet’s of protestestation–thank god. For the first time, in a long time, the T-Wolves under the direction of new GM David Kahn, appear to have made the right moves in the NBA draft. After they moved up in the draft with their trade of Mike Miller and Randy Foye for the number 5 pick, I was concerned they would end up choosing James Harden. Luckily, Oklahoma made that mistake for us. Lets break down our first round picks: