So I decided to come back in broad daylight to see the house at 3016 N. 6th Streeet. The photo above is actually a house on the same block, 3010, in much better shape. Interior photos show the sink is, like, missing...note holes punched in wall. (Exploring for the copper pipes?) But the wooden flooring in there is spectacular, according to the photos.
One advantage of daylight is I can see broken glass with my eyes instead of hearing it crunch under my feet. Note to self.
In daylight, the house at 3016 N. 6th looked better in some ways, but in some ways worse. I did take an opportunity to explore the immediate neighborhood, walking around the whole block.
More houses were vacant than occupied, and even the houses which weren't boarded up didn't show signs of activity. For all I knew, I might have the whole block to myself like Bruce Smith in I Am Legend. (Charlton Heston in Omega Man before that, a movie much revered in the Hoff family)
I recognized some of the houses on the block from images I had seen on the MLS. I think one of the houses was the place I dubbed "Water World" because of the story the real estate agent told me of copper pipes being stolen, ripped so violently near the water meter that the house had flooded though the water was turned off and, much worse, it was difficult to get the city to do anything.
Try shutting the water main off FROM THE STREET in the middle of a Minnesota winter. How will you thaw the ground? Blow torch? Build a fire on top of it? 100 men all in a row, relieving themselves, ahhhhh?
Ah, "More To Life." I can feel my Twin Cities pride being kindled within me from the recent branding effort, or is that just the thermal underwear I have on?
Walking around the block, I took note of litter...I could spend an afternoon picking that up.
Perfectly good pitcher sitting near the steps in front of a vacant house, like somebody sat there for a long time drinking Kool-Aid, then left the pitcher. I could pick THAT up, too, and then it would be MY Kool-Aid pitcher. MINE! MINE!!!!!
Sidewalks...unshoveled, coated with ice. Well, the army left me with a bad back and leg. This wouldn't be easy. Then again, the docs say I need to do therapy. I could think of it as therapy. I can't stand to exercise without accomplishing some task BESIDES the exercise. Pay me a dollar an hour to pick rocks, and that's fine, but don't make me do freaking push-ups.
The army was different. I always figured "I'm getting paid to do push-ups." And it was different when I was 16. I was motivated to have biceps...
I walked up to some houses to read the notices which had been posted. I figure the notice is there for me to read, so it's perfectly OK to walk up and read it. Besides, the city told us to "adopt" these places, and my "scoping out" is prelude to adopting, like checking out the babies in the Third World Orphanage.
Perhaps I will be ambitious in my adoption, like Angelina Jolie, and adopt my whole block when I find my place on the North Side. I could also adopt the sides FACING my block, since I'd be walking around the block, anyway, and I'd see what was directly across the street.
That would add up to, in effect, two blocks of houses.
I stopped dead in front of one house on 31st, I think it was. A large assortment of ice-caked teddy bears and wilted flowers crowded the front step. There were no candles, though. I figure homeless people thought they needed the candles more than the dead.
A man walked by and I asked him, "Excuse me, sir, are you from around here? Do you know what happened at this house?"
He shrugged and speculated "somebody died," but otherwise had no knowledge.
If you are going to erect such a memorial, I think, make sure there are words so somebody understands what the story is. If I lived around here, I would have to find out the story, and add the words, so the lesson of overwhelming grief-- whatever its source might be, though firearms are strongly suspected--would be clear to the passerby.
Inside the house at 3016, before I left, I found a penny in a closet upstairs.
"Well, what do you know?" I thought. "Johnny Northside got the last bit of copper out of this house."
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