David Brauer has a great idea for a statue or bust of Nellie Stone Johnson. My main point in writing about Mary Richards was the feeling on my part that we have a dearth of symbols in our city commemorating our past and the people who came before us and to celebrate Mary Richards, a fictional character, without or before, honoring the real people who built our city is beyond comprehension to me. When I mentioned Judson Bemis' accomplishments in life I failed to make mention of the fact that he was a Chairman of the Board and a longtime trustee, plus I suspect a benefactor, of Fisk University and served on the board of the United Negro College Fund. Both these people we can take pride in as a city. The idea of Mary may have been more palatable without the "attitude" of Ms Altman. I suppose since more people will respond to this it necessarily somehow elevates it in value to our city. Yes, by all means, let's appeal to the lowest possible denominator. With this attitude is it any wonder that more children could identify Joe Camel than whomever it was people used at the time as an example of the evil marketing of the cigarete companies. The Mayor likes to refer to Minneapolis as a 24 hour city (I guess she's taking into account Yoshiko's, Deja Vu, etc, Embers and SA); let's make the Mary thing a 24 hour multi-media event with a TV in the window of Dayton's playing a loop of old MTM shows. We could hire local actors or celebrities on special occasions to act like Mr.Grant( I'm thinking Mark Yudof here), Ted( how bout Don Shelby), Murray...Well you get the idea. It could be a real Minneapple thing (thank you Joel Conner,not). As to David Brauer's contention that Nicollet is the shopping street I don't know what to say. I remember a city planner person or city official refer to Nicollet as the shopping street and Marquette as the banking/business street. That was in the early 90's. By the late nineties that had changed it seems, no doubt due to the capriciousness of city planners. Who can argue with whimsy? Have at it! Tim Connolly, aka Dr. Sardonicus Downtown Minneapolis, just a stone's throw from you know who! P.S. I can't help myself! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
