Take a look at a map of our city. Draw an imaginary east-west line through downtown. Then count the number of lakes on the north and south sides of the line.
The southside easily wins. So what happened to the Northside and Northeast's lake's? And why doesn't the Northside have picturesque ponds like the south side has in Loring and Powderhorn Park? And a winding and beautiful creek like Minnehaha? Why is their an Oak Lake Avenue on the Northside, but Oak Lake is gone? Why does 33rd Avenue North run down a valley from a low area just west of Lyndale to the river?
Dyna grouses about a lot of things, but grousing about the geography of Minneapolis has got to be the one of the most ridiculous things I've read in a long time.
Gol' darn those glaciers thousands of years ago! Why, those ice crystals must have beeb bigotted, wealthy ice crystals because they gouged out more lakes in south Minneapolis, and then when they melted, the darn water formed creeks and valleys there.
It would have been just as convenient for 19th century trash haulers to dump their loads in Loring pond rather than Oak Lake or the Bassett Creek bogs. The railroads could have just as easily built their shops and yards on the southside as the Northside.
Railroads were pretty much built where they were needed, where the ground made it easy to build them and where they could get the land. Ft. Snelling owned all the land up to St. Anthony Falls when the city got going. Maybe the fact that North is higher and dryer than much of the South had something to do with it? Much easier to build on dry ground. What about the rail yards in Northeast? Downtown Gateway district? Seward?
Take a look at the swank homes that line Lowry Hill and Kenwood around Loring Pond. Note the names of the WASP aristiocracy that settled their- Lowry, Pillsbury, Washburn, etc.. Please compare that aristocracy with the working class Jews, Blacks, and others who settled the near Northside. Is it any wonder that Bassett Creek's bogs, Oak Lake, and who knows how many others were filled with garbage and pollution? Is it no surprise that unlike the south side's treasured Minnehaha Creek the last mile of Bassett's Creek was confined to a sewer pipe so factories and warehouses could be built above it? And is it no surprise that while the south side's railroad was confined to a trench and near invisible, the Northside was splattered with giant yards and shops complexes?
That's a revisionist history.
Loring Park was built on top of what was the tamarack bog fed by Bassett Creek and was dedicated as "Central Park" on May 5, 1883 -- after the bog was carved up and carted away during the winter. It was renamed to Loring Park in 1890.
In the wake of a severe flood in the spring of 1913, flood control projects on Bassett Creek were started. Construction started late in 1913 on putting part of the river underground. The consturction halted during World War I and it wasn't until 1923 that the creek was buried. Since the population of Minneapolis jumped from 45,000 in 1880 to 129,000 in 1885, and most of the mills in the milling district also predate 1923, it's pretty easy to see that the creek was buried after the factories and warehouses, not so that they could be built.
The growing population of the region is also responsible for virtually all of the flood plain of Bassett Creek being filled with 10 to 15 feet of fill, and lots of now expensive real estate being built on top of that, and not just in Minneapolis.
Yes, the Heritage Park area is polluted. Yes, it should have been cleaned up long ago and certainly before the Heritage Park projects. But slamming people who live south of a downtown east-west line, in the Lowry Hill, Kenwood and Loring neighborhoods, using epithets liks WASP artistocracy, and impugning the Lowry, Pillsbury and Washburn families is hardly a productive solution.
Chris Johnson Fulton
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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