It’s May, and this northern city is finally greening. The buildings, the built world, are the same, but the infrastructure of trees, dozing during the winter months, is rousing. Spring has moved northward on its own mysterious, rhythmic, and dependable calendar. It...
It’s almost axiomatic now to think unpleasantly about downtowns. They’re this, they’re that, they’re the other thing. Unappealing, worsening. Here’s a contrary view, from my desk in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota on a regular old Tuesday morning, a cold spring day....
Seek and find this remarkable view of downtown Saint Paul, from the public dock on Harriet Island. (Directions below.) Go at the end of the daylight one of these cool fall evenings. The sun goes down, somewhere over toward the Cathedral, and the skyline comes up...
I enjoy city banter, and the little moments of urban connection it makes. It’s downtown, and it is also somehow small town. Hello to Mr. B, whose barbershop opens onto the skyway. Hello to Granville the shoe man, and to Rodney the young security guard, and the...
