Glad to know that newbies to northeast and those from other parts of town
find ways to enjoy themselves in one of the oldest parts of the city. Thanks
for coming. Comments:
1. PLEASE do not use the term "nordeast." If you have a hard time with "th,"
practice on soudeast until you get it right.
2. If you were looking for more activities for kids while hopping around the
6th Annual Art-A-Whirl events, you could have made a short detour to Boom
Island and joined about 400 people for the Mississippi Corridor Neighborhood
Coalition's (MCNC) 8th Annual River Clean Up on Saturday. Ronald McDonald,
Crystal Clear the Water Princess and BIlly Bass the Fish were big hits with
the kids. Adults could have tapped their toes to Paul Metsa's brilliant
guitar licks and "Lonesome" Dan Kase's great blues numbers. And everyone
could have had a half-price boat ride on the Ansom Northrup. We would have
expected you to pick up a few bags of trash, but what the heck. Maybe next
year.
3. Should we be happy about Walt Dziedzic's pride in the "doomed" (a.k.a.
domed) park at Bottineau? I think not. We were sold a bill of goods by Walt
and the rest of the Park Board. When our building was torched by vandals, it
took nearly two years before a shovel was turned to replace it (compare that
to the 3-4 month rennovation at Creekview in Camden after a similar fire).
We are getting half the size of the former building (which was too small to
serve our needs) and a dubious (hardly innovative) domed field house that
even Walt admits will have a fifteen year maximum shelf life (assuming no
crazie gets near the fabric dome with a zippo lighter or spray paint first).
Given the Park Board's 30-year replacement cycle, where will Bottineau be in
15 years? It is the closest park building serving Sheridan, Holland,
Bottineau and Marshall Terrace neighborhoods. The gym, which should have
been in the Bottineau Park building, is housed at the Eastside Neighborthood
Services building a block away with no guarantee that the community will
have access to it. Who plans this city? Annie Young should know better --
she even intimated a year ago or so on this list that the Park Board would
not go along with Walt's folly when I blasted the domed park plan. But Walt
said that was the best we could get, and residents didn't yell loud enough
that we deserved better.
4. So Walt is now a river spokesman. Hmmmm. This is the guy who voted for
and still supports the metal shredder on the river. He worked to defeat
Patty Hillmeyer for Park Board who devoted 24 years to riverfront park
development. He stopped a flower planting at Edgewater Park (a riverfront
park) last year, then resurrected it under his auspices during an election
year. No northeast politician, including Walt, worked with MCNC to make its
award-winning Marshall Street Historic Walking Tour an annual event.
5. We like to have people visit us. We like it that you like Art-A-Whirl. We
forgive you for thinking Walt Dziedzic is the only historian and
spokesperson for our community. We hope you will come back to Jax Cafe,
Gasthof, Jacob's101, our historic churches (see below) and our emerging
ethnic businesses on Central Avenue. Did I mention that we have the
Mississippi River?
6. Okay, here's a commercial. One church in northeast, St. Hedwig Catholic
Church (which just happens to be my church) sits within the shadow of the
Excel/NSP RIverside plant and began serving the working class Polish
community on Christmas Eve in 1914. It has the history of "lower" northeast
depicted in its stained glass windows. When it remodeled its digs ten or
more years ago, its paster (who just happens to be my brother) suggested
they install some stained glass windows that would depict the history of the
community. Designers were asked to incorporate the history of railroading,
milling and lumbering into the designs, along with the traditional religious
symbols. Many of the first parishioners worked at these businesses. A river
theme, tieing the Mississippi and the Tiber River in Rome, also was
incorporated into some abstract designs. A parishioner, John Katrinak, made
the windows. Boom Island, the Grain Belt sign, a locomotive and other
landmarks can be seen in the windows of this modest church building at 129
29th Ave NE. It was part of the Marshall Street Historic Walking Tour a
couple of years ago. But it's not on any Trolley tour, it is not on the
Art-A-Whirl map, you have never seen a story in the Strib or the
Northeaster. But you heard it here. Stop by some time.
7. Then there is the Town Pump, now inauspiciously called the Yacht Club,
which was once owned by my dad during Prohibition . . . but that and other
stories await another post.
Fran Guminga
Bottineau, Ward 3
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