There seems to be new construction going up everywhere in
this city lately. For a lot of reasons
it pisses me off; it takes longer to drive some places, and it feels like
nothing is ever complete. But to an
extent I appreciate that lack of completeness. This city is never satisfied and we’re always
reaching for something more. That shitty
bar Cowboy Slim’s down on Lake was dynamited for what will be some more highrise
apartments and an even denser population in this most noticed part of
Minneapolis, Uptown.
Another
big new addition to Uptown is the Mosaic parking structure, Bar Louie, the new
Greenway bridge and entrance off Girard Avenue and a bunch of new fun stuff in
that same area. One of the most fun
additions is a giant brick head facing south just across the bus road from the
Greenway. My housemates and I have come
to name him Cornelius Uptown. He’s a
statue erected to the memory of the hyper-intelligent alien who landed on this
spot to found Uptown in ancient times.
He had two golden surfer angel servants (best way to describe them) also
commemorated atop two incomplete looking pillars which lead into this
somewhat-abbreviated park. And a model
of his spaceship is a short ways down the path in the form of a spherical
interpretation of the type of trolley car this area used to be famous for.
This
story has given me endless enjoyment every time I pass to the extent that I
have even made it one of my security questions at work to access my password
account in the system (“Q: Statue south of the Greenway?:” “A: Cornelius”)[i]. It’s a story that really only we know, so
logically I tell anyone visiting the area willing to listen. But I also want to break down exactly why
this is funny. Many questions arise in
the telling of this story which are better left unanswered: Why does he have the name Cornelius? Wasn’t Uptown just named such because it was
Up from Downtown? What do you mean Uptown
was founded independently of the city of Minneapolis?
The
logical answer to all these questions is Shut Up. But seeing as if I was an outsider I would be
asking them at least internally, if not externally, I plan to answer them all
once and for all to everyone. His name
is Cornelius because that is the name of all those probably-important ancient
(like, at least a couple centuries past) historical leaders or explorers that
we vaguely remember. So that applies
even if he was an alien from another planet.
Because, of course.
It’s
better that we gave him the last name Uptown, because firstly, it’s based on
the assumption that aliens have last names and that they, like us, name things
they find after themselves (both correct). In the show Recess (One Saturday Morning! ABC! Today!), the
kids went to Third Street School. Later
on we find out that one of the most important men in their town is Thaddeus T.
Third III, and so presumably Third Street is named after his Grandpa. Uptown is named after an alien from another
planet with the last name Uptown.
But
answering the last question reveals a little about the place we live, too. Was Uptown founded independently of
Minneapolis? For all most of us care, it
might have been. We have an identity
with the area possibly as strong or stronger than with the city. So we don’t just live in Minneapolis- we live
in Uptown. And yea, there’s a certain
black-hole aspect to the area. But I’ll quickly admit that my favorite readily-
available beer is named after another part of Minneapolis.[ii]
