Milltown

Ready for the wrecking ball or gentrification: old mills of Minneapolis.

Honest scraps

Not exactly local, but here's a favorite of mine from Perugia, Italy, 2007.



I include it here because I found in the Minneapolis Walker Art Gallery today Raymond Haims (1926-2005), who had a pieces found art made up of sheet metal covered with layers of poster, similar to this one:



The art of entropy!

Brick: Minneapolis Tableaux

The icing to a long weekend in the Twin Cities for a family reunion: wandering the Minneapolis "warehouse district." Thanks to cousin Fred for the Nikon, since I forgot to pack my Canon!


The Parking Hut



The Garage



The Shirt



The Chairs

The Village Gray

What with the imminent demise of the one grassy park in our neighborhood, it's clear that the "village green" as a public gathering space is being phased out in favor of the "village gray."



Thanks to Red Apple Elegy for the photo! Please visit that site for more info about the threat of artificial turf and the rest of the Newport Hills Park debacle.

Wasted Space?

There's an attitude prevalent among some in our city that a park is not fulfilling its purpose if it's not stuffed with people (such as soccer players) at all times, and therefore we ought to install artificial turf playing fields to increase usage.

Our neighborhood, Newport Hills, has a single 4-acre park under this threat (under the guise of being an improvement). One of the many, many things the plan fails to take into account, not the least of which is the toxic qualities of the stuff, is that the elderly, the very young, the handicapped, and the large population of citizens who are not sports players not only do not benefit from an artificial turf field but are deprived of their grassy landscape which they can walk or roll around on, smell, and not least of all simply enjoy the restful nature of. Operative word, "nature."

The following are scenes of "fallow" parkland. Should they be ripped up because no one is currently there?