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This the American Way: Deliberately make transit confusing and difficult to use, then the powers that be can say “see, people don’t take transit.” Minneapolis is playing this exact game with the Nicollet Mall, so it can become a permanent corporate events space tailored to suburban tastes.

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#OnThisDay Sept 27 1908: Republican presidential candidate William Howard Taft campaigns across Minnesota on a whistle stop tour. Introduced by Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Taft urges voters not to take a chance on Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan.

Taft stands on a podium without a lecturn in front of large crowds at Crookston MN. Library of Congress.

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"My clothes accidentally fell off."

Little Britain: Sir Norman Fry apology sketch. The perp reads an apology statement in front of his wife gritting her teeth.

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#OnThisDay Sept 28 1936: In preparation for its dedication, "The Pioneers" granite monument is delivered to Pioneer Square in front of the Main Post Office. At 14 tons it's probably the heaviest piece of public art ever conceived in the city, and certainly the ugliest.

the ridiculous granite monstrosity lies face down on the back of a heavy truck ready to be unloaded.

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#OnThisDay Sept 28 1955: The last baseball game is played at Nicollet Park, as the Minneapolis Millers win the Junior World Series 9-4 against the Rochester Redwings. Next season the Millers played at new Met Stadium in Bloomington, and Nicollet Park at 31st Street is demolished.

The front gate of Nicollet Park with crowds entering. Minnesota Historical Society.

spectators in packed stands. Hennepin County Library Collections

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Incredible and wonderful words.

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#OnThisDay Sept 27 1894: Theodore Hamm holds an open house for the major expansion of his St. Paul brewery, handing out free samples and beginning the long tradition of brewery tours. Hamm's has long been a popular Minnesota product, long advertised "from the land of sky blue waters" by a bear.

The grand victorian Hamm's Brewery covered in bunting, with the Hamm's home over looking it in the distance. Minnesota Historical Society

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#OnThisDay Sept 27 1935: Leonard Steuart, Imperial Potentate of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine for North America, presents a flag to honor the Minneapolis Shriner's Hospital on behalf of the president of the Pontiac Motor Company.

a group of men in suits and fezzes holding a flag while another group of men in suits and fezzes receives it.

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#OnThisDay Sept 27 1959: Surrounded by dignitaries, Mayor Paul Peterson slathers on mortar at the cornerstone ceremony for the new Minneapolis Central Library. When completed in 1961, the gold and granite modernist building transformed the "lower loop" and Nicollet Avenue.

black and white photo of a smiling mayor in a granite frame surrounded by smiling dignitaries.

The library as seen from the ritz hotel 1960s.

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The reason can be summed up in just 3 words:

"OH THE HUMANITY" as Luftschiff Zeppelin #129 "Hindenburg" explodes at Lakehurst New Jersey in one the world's most famous engineering disasters.

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A crowd favorite at Redbull Flugtag Minneapolis was team "Glide or Die!" on their replica of the Edmund Fitzgerald, complete with ship's bell and actual taconite pellets. The ship met its doom yet again, this time in the Mississippi River. All hands survived.

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The Spoon and Cherry themed "Raz Cherry Berets" team readies its craft to launch into the Mississippi River at Red Bull FLUGTAG

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Making transit difficult to use is the American Way. This particular routing of the new Green SWLRT on an abandoned passenger rail line satisfied both the Fed cost formula and the NIMBYs who didn't want it anywhere near them.

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Move over legacy media, this is the top notch investigative journalism this town needs right now.

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ChatGPT is nothing compared to the Patent Medicine ads from the 1880's.

Pratts Healing Ointment for Man and Beast - an smiling old man and a horse are in bed with the medication in front of them.

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BREAKING: I just know tomorrow's Red Bull Flugtag is going to be huge, because insiders at Pizza Luce Seward inform me they just got one of their largest pizza delivery orders in history from the ground crew assembling the site.

View of the huge riverside venue with cranes tents and vehicles as seen from Bridge No 9

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🌬Breeze @cool-summer-breeze.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"Father Hennepin Discovering the Falls of St. Anthony", by historicist Douglas Volk, a founder of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Specifically commissioned for the Minnesota State Capitol in 1905, the huge painting is so racist it was removed and put into a special timeout room in 2017.

painting of the father holding up a cross over the falls, while half naked native americans crowd around his feet. Minnesota Historical Society.

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Reposted by Vince Mpls

This is the Stolen Neighbors Quilt. Each of the 11,000 squares represents a person taken by ICE in Minnesota.

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#OnThisDay Sept 24 1904: Old Main on the University of Minnesota campus is consumed by a massive fire. Completed in 1875, the building also housed the English, German and Mathematics departments. No one was injured, though notably the 1800-volume German library was destroyed.

the handsome 4 story stone building in ruins, with passersby and a horse carriage. Hennepin County Library Digital Collections.

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#OnThisDay Sept 24 1909: At 4:20am, two sleepy attendants at the brand new City Light Station Dam in Otter Tail County, Minnesota, notice the lights fading and water flowing over the powerhouse floor. Realizing something is very wrong, they make a run for it. 🧵 1/6

the little concrete dam next to a 2 story brick powerhouse in happier days, 1908. The rail line is a left. Text on photo reads: CITY LIGHT STATION FERGUS FALLS. MINN.

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Ah, the Germans. You just can't stay mad at 'em.

Homer Simpson at the german beer garden issuing the immortal words.

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This Chicago Great Western Bridge used to have a whacky swing span directly under the old Robert Street Bridge. When the new Robert Street was built in 1926, the rail bridge was also rebuilt, raised 16', with a lift span further into the river. It's now one of only 3 lift spans on the Mississippi.

The two steel bridges atop one another, 1885.

a canoe perspective of the 1920s' lift span, courtesy of my old friend Robin Garwood, when he went on his Mississippi River Journey a few years back.

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"Next on NPR Newsmakers, we ask the big question 'is Andrew Tate misunderstood?' The pivotal prison interview is coming up right after the news! But first, please consider donating generously. For the price of a cup of coffee each month, you'll get a free MAGA-themed tote bag."

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#OnThisDay Sept 24 1965: A massive blaze destroys the Old Dutch factory in downtown Minneapolis. Built in 1890 as the Corn Exchange, the 7-story building had been converted to fry and bag potato chips in the 1950s. 150 firefighters respond, fireman Charlie Birkeli is killed. All employees escape.

looking like ruins from world war 2, the burnt masonry shell 7 stories tall is sprayed with water.

Minneapolis firefighter Charlie Birkeli carries an infant to safety from the burning Doctors Memorial Hospital in 1956

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In all fairness to this analogy, WedgeLive also didn't squeeze the police Chief's thigh at a bar and ask if he wanted a ride home.

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snackerü @snackeru.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Great day for biking around Minneapolis, starting on the Cedar Lake Trail. The asphalt path is on the former right of way of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway, built 1873, and the active line at right was once the St Paul & Pacific, which reached this side of the river in 1867.

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Reposted by Vince Mpls

They are building the platform for the Red Bull Flugtag this Saturday at Bohemian Flats park. Should be a fun time.

A platform with a banner that reads RED BULL and a boat on water. A bridge spans the river, and buildings and trees are visible in the background.

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Chief O'Hara did not "address" the issue, he straight up refused to answer any questions from elected officials about millions in police overspending. This is at best sloppy, and at worst deliberately misleading, reporting by Jessica Hart. We expect better from you @kare11.bsky.social.

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This is the Top Pro Tip in all of western Minneapolis and its environs.

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#OnThisDay Sept 23 1857: St Paul businessman and pioneering aeronaut William Markoe makes the first successful balloon ascent in Minnesota, carrying him and a companion 45 miles to a spot near Cannon Falls, where they crash land into a wooded area to the astonishment of nearby farmers.

newspaper engraving of a balloon nearing the ground in a wooded area, 1857

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#OnThisDay Sept 23 1871: The last stagecoach leaves Duluth for St Paul, Minnesota. The completion of the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad just weeks earlier made the old service, which began in 1856, obsolete.

sepia toned photo of two wagons, both with 4 horse teams, surrounded by townspeople on muddy streets of Duluth. University of Minnesota Duluth Kathryn Martin Library

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#OnThisDay Sept 23 1955: 15 months after Twin Cities Rapid Transit streetcars last ran, city crews begin pulling up the tracks for scrap, starting on 11th St at Hennepin Ave in downtown Minneapolis. Heavy Belgian blocks that once held the ight of way in place were also removed.

black and white news photo of a crew standing by with picks and shovels as a crane pulls rails up from the street. Piles of asphalt and blocks trail off into the distance. Hennepin County Library Digital Collections.

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Full house for the Nerd Nite Mpls 1st Anniversary Speed Talks!

All the top nerds in town eagerly await the 1st five minute presenter in the loft at Eat Street Crossing

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Stopfroboter 4.0 sounds like a kind of specialized Dutch butter you can only get in the duty free shop at the airport.

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It's a typical weekday afternoon on the East Bank, placing us firmly at "wait 20 minutes for 2 buses" time on the high frequency E-Line.

Arrivals display showing a bus coming in 8 and 9 minutes.

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New ceiling reveal. It hasn't looked this good since the 1890s.

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