On Sunday, June 22, 2003, at 10:44 AM, Mark Snyder wrote:
I don't choose organic cotton whenever possible because I'm worried about
being exposed to pesticides. I choose it because I'd rather not purchase
products where farmers and farm workers, their families and those who live
near the farms are being exposed to large amounts of toxic pesticides.
Mark, thank you for helping to edumicate us dumb Northsiders. BTW, cotton is pretty much picked and processed by machines rather than humans nowdays.
I've read that approximately 300,000 farm workers annually are diagnosed
with illnesses related to pesticides exposure in the United States.
Given that we have only a few million farm workers it sounds like were going to be running out of them in a few years... better check your numbers.
Sears actually offered lower prices than several other retailers.
My last washing machine cost me a hundred bucks less than Sears' best price.
a Craftsman lawn mower that I remember my grampa using when I
was a little kid. Since I'm 31, it's got to be around 25 or 30 years old.
Aside from oil changes, blade sharpenings and maybe a few tuneups, it's
never needed any work and it still runs perfectly fine, though it does
probably require an extra pull or two on the starter cord than when it was
new.
At one time Sears stuff was pretty decent quality and there parts and service operation was the best in the business. Those qualities were deemed to be unneccessary expense by more recent Sears management and largely eliminated.
Anybody got a story like that about something they bought at Fleet Farm?
Plenty of decent stuff- Milwaukee power tools, Carhardts, etc.. I'm peeved that they switched from domestic to Chinese suppliers for their private label gloves though. They tried this with boots and it didn't work...
That's when I learned that paying a little more for quality isn't such a bad thing.
Price is not a good predictor of quality- look at some of Consumer's Unions ratings if you don't believe me.
Any other union big box retailers out there that Broadway
should seek? From what I've seen, such retailers usually pay out lousy wages
and are also generally strongly anti-union.
Well, sounds like you don't want any more retail jobs, so how about expanding the rail yards and maybe putting in a big new flour mill, cereal plant, and wholesale bakery?
So let's see just how this works: We have a community with mostly low-income
folks, so we try to draw in a big box retailer that offers low-priced goods
that these poor folks can afford, but then of course, that big box retailer
pays squat, so we end up stuck in a fairly vicious cycle, don't we now?
And your beloved little co-op yuppie food store pays squat too.
And none of them have natural food co-ops in their communities now, do they? So if one were to locate on West
Broadway somewhere, then in retailer language, that's what's known as a
"destination" for drawing folks into your community. Because do you know
what those folks are doing now? They're traveling through the Northside to
I-94 without stopping and then heading down to the Wedge.
Mark, we have plenty of empty storefronts on West Broadway and your yuppie co-op is welcome to them. Just don't expect any city subsidy and don't expect the city to keep CUB and other competitors out for your yuppie co-op's benefit.
And these are the kinds of folks I'd think the Northside
would like to have more of. After all, one of them is a med student at the U
who is about to start her rotations and the other is going for his PhD in
history.
We also have plenty of empty houses here and your friends are welcome to them. I don't expect they'll last long though.
"[Walker] claimed that the vitality of established smaller scale businesses was
bruised when Target established the Broadway store - now the shopping
facility is closing, she added, 'the area is even worse off than before
their arrival.'"
I'm old enough to remember what wasn't on the Target site before Target. The largest building was Northside Mercury, which had already rebuilt after the fire and moved back into their old building across Broadway, so that building was already empty. The Post Office was already moving out and consolidating with the Camden station at the current Lowry Avenue location. The only other business I remember on the Target site was a tiny resturant and barber shop. The resturant could never compete with Bernie's across the street and was empty by then, and I suspect the barbershop was too. So Target caused little or no displacement of small businesses when they came in.
I ask for some good things that might draw people to the Northside and this
is the best you can come up with? A grocery store that's not open yet and an
Asian takeout place in the middle of an urban strip mall?
I realize that's not up to your sophisticated tastes, but hey, we're just dumb Northsiders.
Geez, Dyna! What about Lucille's Kitchen,
Been there, and it's not on Broadway.
Caf� Tatta Buna,
How much is coffee gonna cost me?
Tooties on Lowry,
No complaints.
Theo Wirth Park,
Know it well.
Homewood Studios on Plymouth Ave,
Sorry, I can't afford art and us hick Northsiders wouldn't appreciate it anyway.
the new Houston's Neighborhood Market on West Broadway, just past Penn Ave?
Haven't shopped there since it was Red Owl's competitor to CUB. At present it's morphed into a convience store, I'll withhold judgement on what Houston will do with it until they're done.
What other good places are there to talk about on the Northside? Anyone?
Sorry, we're just a bunch of dumb hicks who wouldn't know culture if it ran over us. Don't get us started on the Camden Aurocamp, Soo Line, Webber Baths, Bassett's Creek, etc.. or we'll talk your ear off though.
Yeah, this is the kind of mindset that's really going to help West Broadway
and the Northside realize it's potential.
Mark, thanks for giving me credit for singlehandedly destroying the Northside by not dumping a couple hundred thousand into an old house only to have it torched by the gangbangers. Never mind the destruction I'm causing by not paying inflated ghetto prices at the local convience stores/fences.
Sunsets restaurant on pedestrian-friendly new Lake
Street in Wayzata along Lake Minnetonka. Even some of suburbs now are
embracing the concept that people LIKE the idea of being able to actually
walk someplace to eat or shop. The streets have one (that's right, one!)
lane in each direction and traffic flowed smoothly even though the area was
bustling with activity from the various shops, restaurants and folks
visiting the lake.
Due to being a Northsider I have no experience with Sunsets or the local boutiques. However, I have had the adventure of trying to haul the mail out of this cute little bit of "new urbanism" by the lake. We have enough trouble making the turn off that narrow Lake Street to get to the Wayzata Post Office even with our smaller trucks. Then we try to back up to the loading dock at the Post Office while the locals try to drive expensive luxury cars and SUVs into the back of our truck. Attempting to save these wealthy idiots from themselves, we honk the horn while backing and often have to get out and remind said wealthy idiots that we need to back up where they're in the way and thing would go much quicker if they got out of the way and let us get our job done. About this time the twit that owns the recording studio across the street comes out and complains about all the horns honking, Give me a proper big box loading dock any day!
If Wazayta can pull this off with their Lake Street, why can't Minneapolis
get by with two lanes on ours? Go STRIDE!
Because Wayzate has a parallel 6 lane freeway a few blocks away and Lake Street doesn't- unless you want to revive the 29th Street Crosstown?
Another uncultured dummy from the Northside, Hawthorne to be exact...
Dyna Sluyter
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
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