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Feb. 11th, 2012
Always one for late revelations, I was thinking on the expensive disaster that is Block E. Urban development, former parking lot in downtown Mpls that was initiated to close down Moby Dicks, "a whale of a drink" because it concentrated everything that suburban white men profess to hate about a city, strong drinks, prostitutes, and your drugs of choice for sale from the nice men drinking at the bar. At least in my mythology, they tried for years to close it and failed, only to succeed by buying the place for Urban Renewal. For years, it rested uncomfortably as a parking lot, then in the boom years, with lottsa city money, they turned it into what every suburban white male lawyer thinks should be paradise. A slightly shady bar/restaurant (Hooters), a classy, waay overpriced hotel where they could take to bed the big busted waitress that they just picked up at Hooters and impress her with the minibar, a movie plex, a few cookie stores and ice cream stores they could dump the wife and kids at whilst they went waitress hunting, and a book store they lured into the place from a failing chain, oh, and warm, underground parking. Of course, like getting laid by a white suburban male lawyer, it all has failed spectacularly and at a high cost to the taxpayers of the city. Well, let's just bring back Moby Dicks -- at least you knew who the pimps, prostitutes, hustlers and drug dealers were. And, if they caused trouble in no-man's land, they got shown the door.