The din of the flour mill machinery experienced over a lifetime numbs a worker's senses even as it seeps into his dreams. The constant rumble of blowers, roller mills, bells, and buzzers muffles thoughts beyond the work at hand. Twelve hours a day. Seven days a week. Incessant vibration of machinery grates at a miller's faculties like wheat through a grinder.
Still the toil brings honor. Flour mill workers take pride in transforming grain into flour, especially Minneapolis millers. For they helped give rise to a blend of labor, capitalism, and technology that captured the power of the Mississippi River to create the milling capital of the world. Time changes everything. Shifts in the economy post World War I triggered a decline of the Minneapolis milling industry.
Look at Hiawatha Avenue grain elevators now. See relics of the past watching over the future unfolding across the street where shinny electric train cars speed in near silence away from the grain economy into the future. What future might that be? Consumerism, Mall of America? Or are we watching a city re-discover its river, its immigrant heritage, and the need to connect communities?
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It's as if secret lair lies beneath Hiawatha Avenue between 26th and 28th Streets from which emerge people of the underground. South Minneapolis rail yards once commanded the area. No longer. The railroad tracks remain but rare is the sight of a train pulling freight. But rather the image is of pedestrians cutting across an open field littered with Light Rail construction debris. The door of a truck specially fitted to travel railroad tracks hangs open as if the driver suddenly abandoned his post. An underground plume of arsenic silently creeps towards the Mississippi, thanks to dumping from a former pesticide plant. A couple blocks away, west of Hiawatha on Lake Street, police run sting operations to snag prostitutes and their johns.
A young mixed-race couple slogs their way through deep snow in this DMZ between the haves and have-nots. The man has a large plastic bag full of belongings slung over his shoulder as he cradles a small cardboard box under one arm. The woman, her head bowed, struggles with a heavy suitcase.
Cars zip by. Everyone is going somewhere. I wonder. What destination does the young couple have in mind? What hopes and dreams do they see in the road ahead?