Champagne Toasts As 400 31st. Ave. N. Goes Down

Photo By John Hoff

My day started with third-hand government cheese but culminated in champagne. Jeff Skrenes called and wanted to know if I was in the area with my camera. He'd...

...left his at the office, and word came the ugly little house at 400 31st Ave. N. was not only demolished, but was pretty much a barren hole in the ground. I told Jeff where I was, and he swung by. He had a block of government cheese with him, which a relative had given to his mother, who gave it to Jeff, who gave it to me. Jeff knows I am a waste-not, want-not kind of guy, and get a spiritual high off eating leftovers in preference to anything else. So he handed me the block of cheese in his vehicle, and we rushed to 400 31st. Ave. N.

"Patty Cake" was at her house, which is now a little urban island with wreckage from 3119 4th St. N. on on the North, and a big hole in the ground from 400 31st. Ave. N. on the south. As the backhoe ripped into earth, extracting every last accursed fragment of the decrepit old house, the warmer soil beneath sent up eerie white vapors. It reminded me of somewhat corny movies and music videos about Arthurian legends, with the heroes appearing from lingering white vapors that blanket the floor of the forest but are really, you know, generated from special effects "fog machines" using dry ice.

Click here for a sample music video. It was like THAT. This is our Eco-Village, being born out of battles with slumlords and crack heads. Decades from now, this struggle by those who believed in North Minneapolis, and said "I'm in" and fought feverishly to revitalize this place, will be the stuff of "urban legend" but for now the "true believers" plod forward toward utopia.

Patty had been saving champagne to toast the demise of 3119 4th, but it turned into a double celebration with the destruction of 400 31st. Ave. N. I won't say if the champagne was fake or real...there was, as a matter of record, some fake stuff "Patty" bought at the "used food store"...but history shows there is de facto official tolerance of brief champagne celebrations by neighborhood activists at the site of former crime-ridden structures. So there.

The Polish lady gave us some Polish sausage, which became breakfast for both me and Jeff, gobbled down cold. The Polish lady pointed out the sausage was so much better warmed up. I said it was just fine cold, too.

Patty, Jeff and I poked amid the rubble of 3119 4th St. N., sipping whatever it was we were sipping. Jake and Gabe arrived with the video camera, so we had some fun with that. The backhoe taking down 400 31st. Ave. N. broke a tread, as though the nasty old building got in one last lick. We are still waiting for the rubble of 3119 4th St. N. to be carted away. It is full of metal, but no scavengers have come for it...this is how quiet and law-abiding our corner of the neighborhood has become. Even the scrappers stay away.

Jake from 612 Authentic pointed out that only a few months back, this building was full of people. Now it's a pile of toothpicks. Exactly. Things are changing THAT QUICK.