Education Restoration Preservation

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Recent posts:

Healy Block Residential Historic District – 3137 Second Ave So: Healy-Forbes House Healy Block Residential Historic District – Architecture Healy Block Residential Historic District – an Introduction Anders Christensen Receives Preservation Alliance of Minnesota Executive Director’s Award Anders Christensen’s Remarks on Receiving Preservation Alliance of Minnesota Award Healy Project Fundraiser at the Lowbrow, May 7th Winter Party Fundraiser December 2017 Talk: Preservation Advocacy, August 17th Open House at 1300 Mount Curve Avenue East Lake of the Isles Walking Tour May 21st New Research on the “Lost” Healy Block: Tour May 7th A Presentation on Master Builders Ingham and Parsons, Saturday, March 18th. Healy Project Winter Party Henry Ingham’s Yorkshire Healy Project Fundraiser at the Lowbrow, May 9th Healy Block Historic District Tour: April 17th Healy Project Holiday Old House Reception CANCELED–Healy Block Historic District Walking Tour–November 8 More Hauntings: Houses Built by Henry Ingham Healy House Hauntings Tour Intro to the History of the North Wedge North Wedge Architectural Walking Tour, October 3rd Healy Phoenix #2 Healy Phoenix #1 Report on the Event: A Great Dinner for a Good Cause A Child’s View of T.P. Healy’s Family Big Win for Healy Block Residents: Revised I-35W Expansion Plan T.P. Healy: Farmer, Commission Merchant & Wholesale Grocer in Nova Scotia Open April 25th: Restored 1885 House in Wedge Learn from the Past, Learn from the Present Grandstanding and Stonewalling at City Hall: Trashing the Public Trust Orth House Demolition An Open Letter to Minneapolis City Council Regarding the Orth House Demolition The Truth Will Out II: More Lies That Brought Down 2320 Colfax Avenue South The Truth Will Out: Lies that Brought Down 2320 Colfax Avenue South Judge Denies Injunction against Wrecking 2320 Colfax Avenue South Poisoning the Well: Testimony about 2320 Colfax Avenue South “City Ghosts” Visit Victorian House Historic North Wedge Walking Tour: Sunday, September 7th Combining New and Old: A New Vision for the Orth House A Place That Matters Healy Project Files Suit to Stop Demolition of the Orth House Happy Earth Day, Zero-Credibility City of Minneapolis Stop Demolition: Allow a designation study for the Orth House Perverting New Urbanism II: Greenwashing Demolition Perverting New Urbanism for Fun and Profit Size Matters: Development at Franklin-Lyndale DEN$ITY: Building Utopia in Gopher City Hypocrisy at City Hall: Planning Department Scorns Sustainable Development Déjà Vu All Over Again: Threats to Healy Houses Renewed Healy Project Special Kickoff Tour Saving Private Houses In Landmark Decision, City Council Stops Demolition of 2320 Colfax Avenue South What’s the Greenest Building? Who Lives in Lowry Hill East? Revoltin’ Developments VI: What You Can Do Revoltin’ Developments V: Sappy Citizens and Maudlin Attachments Revoltin’ Developments IV: Density and City Planning Revoltin’ Developments III: Density and Livability Revoltin’ Developments II: Healy Houses in the Wedge Revoltin’ Developments, Part I Healy Descendant Acquires the Bennett-McBride House On Memorial Day Lost Healys on the Healy Block More Lost Healys The Broom House: 3111 Second Avenue South More on Round Hill Happy Birthday, T.P. The Edmund G. Babbidge House: 3120 Third Avenue South Brightening the Corner: 3101 Second Avenue South 2936 Portland Avenue The Andrew H. Adams House: 3107 Second Avenue South Clones: 2932 Park and 1425 Dupont North The J.B. Hudson House: 3127 Second Avenue South Second Healy Family Home: 3131 Second Avenue South Schlocked: ‎2639-41 Bryant Avenue South 1976 Sheridan Avenue South: Preserved Exterior The William L. Summer House, 3145 Second Avenue South Two More in the Wedge Weapon of Mass Healy Destruction: I-35W Construction The Third: Healy Builds in the Wedge The Second: 3139 Second Avenue South Healy’s First House: 3137 Second Avenue South Anders Christensen, T.P.Healy, and the Healy Project

Talk: Preservation Advocacy, August 17th

Supporters of the Healy Project gather in front of the Orth House for a photo to be posted on the National Trust’s page, “Places That Matter.”

The story of the fall of the Orth House will be told as part of a talk and exhibit on preservation advocacy sponsored by Preserve Minneapolis and the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota.  Anders Christensen of the Healy Project will narrate the two-year- long fight to save the 1893 Healy-built house from demolition.  The story of the Orth House, along with other stories of preservation advocacy, will be part of a talk and discussion at the Hennepin History Museum, 2303 Third Ave. South. Thursday, August 17th, 6:30-9:30 p.m.  The museum is hosting an exhibit of these stories beginning August 10th.

The last photo of the Orth House before its demolition.

If you can’t make it to the talk or exhibit, you can read about the fight for the Orth House, its demolition and the aftermath on posts on this blog.  It’s a story that’s painful for those of us who fought to save it. . . .and a story that members of the City Council, City Planning, and local developers would like to forget.  But it should and must be told.

Down it goes.

The deck is almost always stacked against old historic buildings when developers take their promises of higher density and higher tax base to City government.  The big triumph over the small, the new over the old, the affluent over those of modest means. The Healy Project will keep fighting as long as old buildings are threatened. And they will always be threatened.

T.B.

Last week I had the pleasure to be at a lecture-discussion on development and urban planning.  Featured speaker was Philip Space, internationally renowned architect from Gopher City, Minnesota, who was here to promote his new book, “Highrises for Huddled Masses.”  Accompanying him was Gopher City mayor, Justin Theory. When Space concluded his lecture on “Architecture of the Last 30 Seconds,” he and Theory treated the audience to extemporaneous comments about developments in Minneapolis.
PHILIP SPACE:   There sure is a lot going on in Minneapolis—architecturally speaking, that is—and I’m proud to see my density dreams starting to be realized.  So many of the city’s new highrise buildings are perfect examples of what I’ve been trying to achieve in Gopher City: the eradication of individual style and disturbing references to the past.  What better way to help bring urban residents into this great 21st century than cramming them into apartment blocks containing nearly identical units? When I look at the dozens of new highrise apartments and condos going up all over South Minneapolis, it just about takes my breath away.  With all these shiny new units to choose from, why would anyone choose to mess around trying to keep up an old house and garden requiring constant maintenance?
     I hear that some slum-lovers are making a stink about the planned demolition of a broken-down 1890’s house by some long-dead builder in a Minneapolis neighborhood with the silly name of The Wedge. The house would be replaced by a fantastic “green” four-story multifamily apartment building.   No one but these zealots cares about this old flophouse–except maybe the tenants–and no one cares about them, either.  
     These outdated wrecks need to be cleared away to make room for the dense, cosmopolitan city of the future.  As Gopher City developer Bill Demhigh likes to quip, “I never saw an old house that didn’t look like a building site to me.”  Demhigh, by the way, recently won Gopher City’s Cue Ball Award for the developer who knocks the most buildings down to put his in.
SPACE:  There’s no place for monstrosities such as the house at right in the dense, competitive city. Down they go for clean, lean highrises like the one at left.
JUSTIN THEORY:  What a card that Bill is! But seriously, as I’ve said many times, cramming all the neighborhoods around the urban core with high density apartments and highrise commercial buildings is the path to making our city into the competitive global city of the future.  All this clutter of old houses, small businesses, and low-rise apartment buildings needs to be cleared away, as they only remind citizens of past glories that are long gone.
      Some members of the Gopher City Council and I understand that economic development is the only hope for the future of our great city.  In effect, as city officials, we sit on the board of directors of a big development corporation. As such, we need to be ever-mindful of the needs of moneyed interests.  Besides, after we leave office, there may well be a lucrative job awaiting us in the private sector.
      Phil hit on a real sore point with us when he mentioned these melodramatic nostalgia buffs who cry over the destruction of some ramshackle old dumps that they think are “historic”  What a joke!  These dewy-eyed sentimentalists with their emotional attachments to some crummy old buildings make me sick.  Don’t they understand that what we’re doing is building a competitive global urban city designed by experts like Phil here, on the finest modern principles?
THEORY:  With our planning and vision, this is what the new Gopher City will look like in ten years.
             Another bunch of cranks are these citizens’ groups, always harping about their petty problems.  Their selfish concern with public education, safe streets, and affordable housing is the worst sort of parochialism.  If they’d just shut up for once and let us, the city officials, run the show, we’d have a competitive city rebuilt in no time.
            Why should we listen to all this provincial carping when we obviously must think about the future—especially our future when we leave office?
     We in Gopher City government know that these slum-loving lowlanders with their crazy prejudices and rugged individualism could easily destroy the global city we’re working so hard to remake in our image. It’s very important to get this intransigent bunch into big high-rise apartment complexes and these small independent business people under the single roof of an urban shopping mall so we can control them better.  Consolidation is our primary goal.
            Those that don’t like being consolidated can be run out of town or out of business, or both.  The poor, for example, don’t contribute much, if anything, to the city economy. I think the City of Minneapolis should be commended for its foresight in promoting the construction of luxury condominiums and apartments, for these will attract rich people from all over the state and nation.  Rich people pay more taxes and higher rents, and consume much more than poor people, so their presence is an enormous boon to the economy.
            Rich people are hurt by inflation, too.  A million just doesn’t go as far as it used to. By helping the rich, we help ourselves.  But the poor give us nothing but headaches. Poor people, you know, have been bellyaching about heating bills.  Well, if they can’t afford to pay for fuel, they should move south.

SPACE:  I’d like to go a few steps further and suggest, as I did in my article “Instant Obsolescence,” that we build to tear down. Every new building should be as cold, impersonal, and ugly as possible so that sappy citizens don’t develop any maudlin attachments to them.  Classical architecture aimed for beauty, solidity, and performance, but this thinking is clearly out of line with modern economics.  We should construct buildings that can and should be torn down as soon as they go up.
            Fixed cranes scattered throughout the city would aid in the ongoing demolition and continuous building boom which will eternally produce revenue for city government, banks, and developers —while keeping the building trades, contractors, and us architects happily busy.
            Modern architecture reflects the vast superiority of the present to the past.  What the modern global city must demonstrate is its consolidated power and wealth.  What better way to show this than through the serene, faceless skyscraper that reflects in its mirrored purity the egotistical past atrocities of individuals (like the Foshay Tower, for example)—or through the monolithic high-rise which dwarfs all the untidy clutter of history in its titanic shadow?  (Enthusiastic applause.)
SPACE:  This is an example of a real, competitive global city, Hong Kong.  What an inspiration!
      Well, time’s running out, so let me say in conclusion that you and your city planners are to be congratulated for the amazing job you’re doing with economic development and urban planning for the competitive global city.
      Take care…and keep thinking high and dense!

–T.B., with thanks to Sinclair Lewis and Stephen Colbert 

      One of the boasts of contemporary urban planners is that high density brings to the city a variety of benefits, such as energy savings,  public transportation, and a boost to the local economy and city tax coffers. The four-story Lander development that seeks to replace the two houses at 2316-2320 Colfax Avenue is a harbinger of higher density in the apex of the Wedge. This increased density will have a long-term impact on livablility in the neighborhood. While it is true that higher density can mean a more efficient use of resources, it can also bring social ills, such as the displacement of tenants of limited means and families with children, as well as the destruction of community identity.

The Hegg Building, Purcell and Elmslie, 1915, demolished for K-Mart, 1980. An example of thoughtless redevelopment.

     I have lived in Lowry Hill East since 1976. The ‘Seventies witnessed an ongoing struggle between Wedge residents trying to make this an attractive place to live and the forces of urban decay–prostitution, drugs, delinquency, and heavy commuter traffic.  Most of the new homeowners were attracted to Wedge houses because: 1) real estate was relatively inexpensive, 2) the old houses had architectural charm, and 3) a lively, politically savvy community had taken root in the form of LHENA.
     But even though LHENA accomplished much at City Hall (partial downzoning and traffic reduction for two), individuals as well had to step up and do battle. One example was on my block of Emerson Avenue. In the early 1980s, an old couple cashed out their duplex two doors down from my house to a slumlord.  The duplex became a drug warehouse, with more than 20 unrelated people inhabiting the lower unit.  Taxis and cars pulled up at all hours of the day and night, picking up packages.  Drugged out tenants harassed all their neighbors with rude comments and raucous behavior. My next door neighbor at that time was an IRS agent, completely unfazed by having to work his way through multiple levels of government.  It took a whole year, but one day Minneapolis SWAT turned up and hauled away the drug warehouse people in the duplex, and the slumlord became the target of an IRS audit.

     However, most of the battling was done by homeowners in the northern R-6 part of the Wedge, the higher density area.  To protect themselves, their families, and property, homeowners monitored badly managed apartment buildings and rooming houses, calling in the police and City housing inspectors..  But often, City agencies weren’t able to stop the problem, forcing residents to act on their own.  In one memorable case, a two-and-a-half story walkup on Bryant Avenue had become home to prostitutes who had frequent noisy nocturnal customers. One of these guys showed up like clockwork on weekends, creating a disturbance in the wee hours of the morning each time.  After a number of strategies failed to stop him, one night the owner of the house across the street got in his car and followed the John to his home in Golden Valley.  There the homeowner confronted him with the news that if he, the John, ever made a disturbance in the Wedge again, the homeowner would be coming out to tell his wife and children of his activities.  The John was never seen again.
    Through these and similar heroic efforts, the homeowners of the Wedge, along with their allies among renters and landlords, have made Lowry Hill East one of Minneapolis’s most desirable places to live and work. In so doing, they have made considerable investments of time and capital. However, with the proposed displacement of two houses by a new apartment complex, it seems that the neighborhood is becoming a victim of its own success. Lander has redeveloped the southern Greenway part of the Wedge into many apartment, townhouse, and condominium units.  Now Lander, along with the City, is planning to start the redevelopment of the apex into another high density area. Have these homeowners fought this long battle to save the neighborhood and its houses, only to be exploited and ultimately driven out by the City?

The Francis W. Little House in Deephaven by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1912-1972.  Demolition, like extinction, is forever.

      Sometimes it’s enlightening to see one’s neighborhood through the eyes of outside observers. On one dark November evening last year, I took a shuttle from the airport to my house.  I was the only local resident aboard the shuttle; the other eight passengers were business people headed for downtown hotels. Despite my request to stop, the driver overshot my house by about a half block. As I tried to exit the van, the other passengers insisted that the driver back up to let me off directly in front of my house. Why? To them, the place looked very scary, and they were sure I’d be in danger out on the street.  As I clambered from the back seat to the door, I tried to assure them that I would not be mugged on my way to the corner.  But it was no use.  People see things through the filters of their preconceived notions and experience.  To them, this was the old inner city, alien and terrifying.  I’m sure some of them would have been all for razing the entire neighborhood and building shiny new glass, brick and metal condos and apartments in its place.
      This kind of skewered view of the neighborhood is one of the reasons that I am not impressed by the arguments for higher density by those who live in low-density neighborhoods of the city. As one who has lived in the Wedge for 36 years, I’ve seen the attempts to remove “urban blight” first through the building of small walkup apartment buildings, and now, through the construction of apartments and condos for the affluent. 
     The Wedge already has its fair share of high density housing in the Lander Greenway developments and the apartment buildings on and near Hennepin and Lyndale Avenues.  Those who want higher density in the apex would be more convincing if they themselves lived in high density areas.  Put your money–and home purchases–where your mouth is.  Only those who have homes in high density areas can understand the day-to-day trials and challenges: the traffic snarls, snow emergency melees, street noise, loud parties, drunken revelers, etc. As density increases, such areas become less attractive to families, who understandably prefer to raise their children in neighborhoods of single-family homes.

This new FLUX luxury apartment building in Uptown (just three blocks from my house) with concierge, pool and heated parking, is billed on the developer’s web site as “multifamily” housing.  I wonder how many families with children actually live there–or would want to.

      As an election judge in 10-2, I got to see hundreds of my neighbors–people who stood in the cold and rain for an hour or more to exercise their right to vote. Young and old, gay and straight, professional and blue collar, handicapped and able, affluent and poor, married and single, native-born and naturalized, of all colors and races–they represent what makes the Wedge a great place to live.
     I say again, if 2316 and 2320 are wrecked for the four-story Lander apartment building, it will be the harbinger of more of the same. Density doesn’t always mean diversity. Keep tearing down houses for condos and apartment buildings and inevitably some groups will start disappearing from the mix–families, old folks, people of modest means.
     If the Lander project goes forward, it will send a clear signal to those who hope to redevelop Lowry Hill East into a high density Eden: Gentlemen, start your bulldozers.
Next: Theory and Practice in Urban Planning. 
–T.B.