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There Goes the Neighborhood
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Minneapolis City Pages, August 10, 2005
by Jim Walsh
There's nothing pedestrian about the bike messengers of Minneapolis,
least of all their names. Crazy Amy, Pistol Pete, Fritz, Zooey,
Cricket. The list goes on. For the past seven years, they and dozens of
other bikers and their friends have made a family in the lofts that sit
above the corner of 10th Street and Nicollet Mall.
To the messengers, the studios have been a haven. After delivering
legal documents, film canisters, and all the other stuff that keeps
commerce lurching along, the bikers would trudge up the stairs to their
hub-away-from-home. There, they would have a cup of coffee, watch TV,
read, listen to music, or microwave a burrito. After work, they'd have
a beer, make art, plan bike races, write songs, or crash on the couch
before hitting the road again.
No more. The farewell party lasted three days. There was an art show,
featuring messenger/painter/sculptor Amy Campbell's work. A rockabilly
band played. Someone shot off bottle rockets and low-grade fireworks
over the mall, to the consternation of some neighbors.
The marathon celebration came only a month after tenants of the
building learned that everyone was being evicted, that the lofts are to
be torn down. In their place: the Nicollet, the much-ballyhooed
53-story condo development, which will sit across the street from
another conspicuous new addition to the downtown skyline, the Target
tower.
The corner used to have some charm. The old record store Let It
Be--which attracted a steady stream of music lovers, working DJs,
out-of-town musicians, and paraphernalia hunters--now sits vacant, like
a ruined ship at a fancy marina. If you spent much time on the corner,
the bike riders were a familiar sight. In the summer and spring, you
could see them killing time perched on the windowsills with their
sinewy biker arms and incongruous cigarettes.
That's what Cricket was doing Friday evening as the sun went down. Ben
tapped the keg. Crazy Amy played DJ. "This has been the center of the
universe for the messengers in Minneapolis," said Cricket, gazing out
at the happy-hour crush at the Local and the Dakota Bar and Grill on
the street below. "Pretty much a gathering spot; a place to crash if
you don't want to crash your bike after the bar. I've spent an hour or
two a day here for the past seven years, so the last couple days I've
been thinking about all the things I've done here, all the times I've
spent here, the people I've met, the bikes I've fixed."
"This is one of my favorite places in Minneapolis, ever," said Crazy
Amy. "I spent thousands of hours here with my friends, and they'd
always fix my bike if I brought it here. They share ideas and help each
other out. You could come here no matter when, and you knew there would
be some people you'd know here."
No one's complaining, really. Bike messengers are nothing if not tough
and adaptable. There are some barbed observations about the
gentrification of the city and "condos springing up in this city like
toadstools" (Ben). But everyone in the building has been on a
month-to-month lease since the start. They harbored few illusions. The
jig could be up any time and they all knew it.
Still, the history goes back a ways. In the late '90s, the studio was
home to the 40-member Minneapolis Bike Messenger Association. Bikers
would pay 20 dollars a month for use of the place. Eventually, the
landlady evicted everyone because the parties got too wild, but sure
enough, the bikers returned and the congregation continued.
Campbell has been in the main loft for three years. It smells of wet
ashtrays, bike grease, oil paint, and burnt microwave popcorn. "It's
like a lifestyle," she said, as her neighbors packed art supplies, bike
tools, and dishes. "If all your friends ride bikes, you can all go ride
bikes together. You ride your bike for a living, you ride your bike to
get around, you ride your bike for fun. I'm a princess, man: I paid
$400 a month for a studio with huge ceilings and windows on Nicollet
Mall. You can't beat that, and that's why I've been here so long.
"Becoming a messenger changed my life drastically. I quit my job at the
Metrodome, went to the university, and started doing my art. I met so
many talented kids. It changed me. I'd be really stressed out about
school or this project or that, but my mentality was like, if I was
tired and I had one more delivery to do or one more drop to do, I would
just tell myself, 'You can do it, girl. Just pretend it's one more
drop. One more delivery. You can make it, you'll get to class or
whatever on time.' Like now when I see a yellow light, I'll just hustle
up and try to make it."
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