[Mpls] Riverview musings

[Fredric H. Markus]

I took a close look at my metro street map that shows park areas along the Mississippi Corridor, having in mind the comments from both sides of the Mississippi about the value of river-oriented public recreation land use as a community-building asset. There certainly is a long gap in green space on the west descending bank that would be punctuated nicely by a park at the Riverview site. It’s not as if there were no previous grasp of this riverine potential, both in the text of the area’s master plan and in earlier large-scale examples that give river’s edge public recreation pride of place in the St. Anthony Falls Historic District and points further downstream.   This addresses an incomplete vision left over from the 19th century. Grand rounds parks, the chain of lakes parks, and the Minnehaha Creek park areas have long advantaged our quality of life and the map shows many additional parks scattered throughout the city’s neighborhoods. But as often proved the case along many of the nation’s waterways in the 1800s and into the 1900s, the Mississippi was seen primarily as an industrial asset and not as a defining geographic feature on other cultural grounds. For many decades in Minneapolis, we looked away from the Mississippi, not wanting to focus on messy industrial uses. For example, railroad trackage was a significant part of this earlier arrangement as a preponderance of goods came into the core city via rail along the river’s edge servicing warehouses and factories.   Those times are rapidly passing from view. Much of this activity has moved to outlying regions. High-end housing has become the replacement growth industry at river’s edge starting at the upper lock and dam and moving upstream on both ascending banks.   I submit that the 19th century vision that reserved land for public enjoyment in perpetuity should be revisited in the evolution of the Upper Corridor’s environs – we have been sturdy exponents of this egalitarian notion in the renewal of the St. Anthony Falls Historic District and we should continue to promote this enlightened view of the Mississippi’s significance at the Riverview site in particular. It is simply not all right to let such an anchoring parcel fall into an exclusionary use of the riverfront. We dodged that bullet on Nicollet Island and we again have the opportunity at the Riverview site to be forthright about sharing our life along the Mississippi across our many constituent communities.   When the Bicentennial Commission used its entire budget to purchase the Bicentennial Park at the south tip of Nicollet Island, there were some short-term financial challenges for the Park Board – but look at that area now!   My point is that when an entire community turns its collective attention to the Mississippi River, great things happen. Generations of citizens are advantaged.   Completing a 19th century vision by celebrating our extended riverine community along the entire river corridor complements a similar largeness of vision in our sister city and suggests to the world that there is much more to the Twin Cities metro region than the commercial delights of the Mall of America and other suburban blandishments; that there is a unique sense of history and culture in our core cities centered on the original reason for our placement here namely the Mississippi River, the Father of Waters; and that we recognize this defining presence in our lives on behalf of all of us – not just a privileged few.   Fred Markus Horn Terrace Ward Ten