The Cracked and Polished Surface. - 1

Cities are growing things. They boil up from the ground, springing up around rivers and spreading. The first elements that come are wooden, basic frameworks plunged into the ground to shore up human life. Then plaster, and brick, and stone on top of stone, Concrete and steel all piled on top of each other.

I began my day with a sandwich, and looking out the window, it's hard to tell how a city grows, unless you look carefully.

A clean and polished building stands on a busy street, with a chain bagel shop across the street. The whole intersection could have gone up overnight, at first glance. But the street is in need of repair, and the bagel shop is a different style of architecture than not only the building across the street, but even it's lower floor was gutted and replaced with something newer than the top.

I traveled just down the block, and came across a classic place, Nye's Bar and Polonaise. This plastered brick building is a holdover from a classic time, and it's wooden motif on the side wall belies that age, something old that carried over into today only in it's perseverance through time.

 

Just up the hill from Nye's is a Lutheran church, holdover from the founding heritage of Minneapolis. This church dates back to a classic period of the city, though it has been renovated over time the style of the building is very old, this fact didn't strike me in any strong way until I noticed that behind the spire of the church was a modern (probably post-modern, point of fact,) Hotel building. The hotel overshadows the church, and while the spire of the church must have been designed to stand high and be visible over the city, as the world developed around it the city rose, and the church was buried in the skyline.

A Humorous aside, as I came down the hill again, west of Nye's now, I noticed another element of the city that had grown up around an older element. The street around Nye's had been designated "one way,' and the point next to the Nye's sign was a 'Do Not Enter,' road.

The sign for this road was just high enough to make a poignant statement about modern abandonment of what is old. Progress, it seems, is built on the bones of what came before.

(end 1)

C. Art. Price