The poet Wallace Stevens says that space is not filled with objects, it is filled with the meaningful relationships among people. The same can be said for the skyways. They are not objects containing and linking more objects and objectified people. They are containers and connectors of relationships, past present and future. I walked them yesterday on the look-out for anyone who fit the description of "zombie." I didn't find a single human being who was dead-eyed, cold, grey, controlled by external forces of evil.
If strangers do not stop to interact casually with you on the skyways, it is because they have short lunch breaks, and often have to bring fast food back to their desks.
Yesterday I saw several young families with children in strollers or in tow. They didn't look lifeless. Kids really dig the skyways, both for the vantage over the streets and sidewalks that give them plenty to gawk at, and the open space and revolving doors that challenge their sense of adventure. Skyways aren't built to amuse children, of course.
What has been missing from the discussion in public so far is the compartmentalized social aspects of downtown. Outside of major sporting events, you don't have areas where there seems to be a real mix of populations, except down by the Target store on Nicollet Mall.
There are residential areas that are far removed from the entertainment areas. And most of the skyway system serves the working commuters who represent a narrow spectrum on the band of urban demographics. Is it fair to call them zombies? Is it fair to judge the people who you see using the skyways because they don't have much time when you see them? We don't have an idle urban culture in Minneapolis..at least not in the visible form that is signature of Paris or New York or LA. But the focus of criticism I have heard so far seems to be on the colorful aspects of cafe culture or the location-determined economics of impulse shopping. Really? Is that what we are trying to encourage above all else?
There is something else here that needs to be said. The skyway critics aren't even talking about the real skyways. They are talking about a shibboleth called "skyways" that exists in cocktail party conversations and sound byte colloquiems of news anchors, political candidates and flyoverland elitism -- the skyways of habitrail mindlessness, of midwestern parochialism, of unsophisticated rubes. If you go out and start walking around, you won't find those skyways on the real map.
How much time have the critics spent on the skyways? Have they looked around with the simple curiousity of a child, or the discipline of a cultural anthropologist, or the creativity of an artist, or the vulnerability of an handicapped or elderly person on their own? The best stories I have heard have been about people forced to find themselves, and, finding themselves on the skyways, they found a lively city to see and reflect on, not just chrome and glass.
Let's quit talking about the skyways in cartoon terms. It is a disservice to the workers who benefit consistently from their utility, and it is an disservice to the intelligence of looking beyond the cariacatures. Look for yourself: see the faces, the real artistry of the building interiors, the real effort of the entrepreneurs that line the arcades between bridges.
If Videotect started the conversation on a kind of goofy, energetic note, let's find ways to keep it going. That would be a good thing. It would do justice to the real quality of human relationships that are forged here in the midwest, the kind of qualities that make the skyways ultimately worth thinking about.
If strangers do not stop to interact casually with you on the skyways, it is because they have short lunch breaks, and often have to bring fast food back to their desks.
Yesterday I saw several young families with children in strollers or in tow. They didn't look lifeless. Kids really dig the skyways, both for the vantage over the streets and sidewalks that give them plenty to gawk at, and the open space and revolving doors that challenge their sense of adventure. Skyways aren't built to amuse children, of course.
What has been missing from the discussion in public so far is the compartmentalized social aspects of downtown. Outside of major sporting events, you don't have areas where there seems to be a real mix of populations, except down by the Target store on Nicollet Mall.
There are residential areas that are far removed from the entertainment areas. And most of the skyway system serves the working commuters who represent a narrow spectrum on the band of urban demographics. Is it fair to call them zombies? Is it fair to judge the people who you see using the skyways because they don't have much time when you see them? We don't have an idle urban culture in Minneapolis..at least not in the visible form that is signature of Paris or New York or LA. But the focus of criticism I have heard so far seems to be on the colorful aspects of cafe culture or the location-determined economics of impulse shopping. Really? Is that what we are trying to encourage above all else?
There is something else here that needs to be said. The skyway critics aren't even talking about the real skyways. They are talking about a shibboleth called "skyways" that exists in cocktail party conversations and sound byte colloquiems of news anchors, political candidates and flyoverland elitism -- the skyways of habitrail mindlessness, of midwestern parochialism, of unsophisticated rubes. If you go out and start walking around, you won't find those skyways on the real map.
How much time have the critics spent on the skyways? Have they looked around with the simple curiousity of a child, or the discipline of a cultural anthropologist, or the creativity of an artist, or the vulnerability of an handicapped or elderly person on their own? The best stories I have heard have been about people forced to find themselves, and, finding themselves on the skyways, they found a lively city to see and reflect on, not just chrome and glass.
Let's quit talking about the skyways in cartoon terms. It is a disservice to the workers who benefit consistently from their utility, and it is an disservice to the intelligence of looking beyond the cariacatures. Look for yourself: see the faces, the real artistry of the building interiors, the real effort of the entrepreneurs that line the arcades between bridges.
If Videotect started the conversation on a kind of goofy, energetic note, let's find ways to keep it going. That would be a good thing. It would do justice to the real quality of human relationships that are forged here in the midwest, the kind of qualities that make the skyways ultimately worth thinking about.
