Part 7
By HARVEY WINJE
Positive-Sum
Post-Tenion
This 7 chapter essay on connections and loss of connections between people, places, and events also explains times of loss of trust. Those losses have occasionally led to enlightenment and inspiration moving forward. It has been a welcome experience even to have that transformation happen even as I have written this.
I am a novice to loss having lived for only eighty-five and one half years on this land stolen centuries ago.
Indigenous people lost land and trust, but their connection to ancestors, soul of culture, language, and the essence of the tangible world survived.
I have rich memories. I struggle to learn from them and bring light into my life from the crystalized gems that can outshine the darkness of losses.
“The whole was greater than the sum of the parts.”
It wasn’t called Block 5 when my family moved there in 1941. It was an unusual block including several duplex houses, four single family houses, five stores, two churches, a gas station, two blocks from the ‘golden-mile’ of Park Ave. mansions, and a slight mix of people including the millionaires on Park Avenue. Five blocks away on Lake St. was Sears department store and catalog sales regional warehouse, many car dealerships, Grapes Our Own Hardware, and Ingebretsen’s eight blocks further. Five blocks north to East Franklin Avenue and east a few blocks was Arthur Hardware and Kaplan Bros.
Welna Our Own Hardware was eight blocks straight east.
Intrusive institutional expansion increased greatly and changed daily life on all of the blocks of the Phillips Community from 1960 until today. The focus of this essay is, generally, that phenomenon and, particularly, about the dynamics of Children’s Hospitals MN and Messiah Lutheran Church leadership, influences, and its buildings over nine decades.
Our home’s back door to the Messiah Church back door was one hundred feet across the alley. On Sundays and midnight Christmas Evenings we went out the front door, 323 feet to the front door of Messiah Church passing next door neighbor Kreuger’s duplex with one rental bedroom, Speed’s convenience store, Ben’s barber shop, Supplee’s Pharmacy (Chicago Avenue Eat Shop after 1951), National Tea grocery ‘supermarket’ of the era,the drycleaner shop, Durling’s house (owned by Dr. Olaf Olson. He lived next door, south, in a beautiful two-story bungalow on a double lot and also owned the 96’ x 62’ storefront at the corner of 25th Street and Chicago).
Writing about Messiah Evangelical Lutheran Church, MELC, members and Pastors increased my insight and admiration of those people, the events, and my father, Paul I. Winje, Sr. in relation to the Congregation.
My Father was a 17 year old Norwegian immigrant in 1914 with an 8th grade education. Being a Messiah Church Council member and as vice president one time is a significant commentary on the leadership and the egalitarian impulses of the Congregation. Perhaps his management skills were evident even though he seldom spoke and always avoided conflict. He didn’t know Harry Belafonte when he performed at the exquisite Minneapolis Radio City Theater the Fall of 1958 just months before it was demolished. My Dad and Harry shared one trauma. Each had accidentally poked out an eye with a sharp object at five years of age that blinded that eye for each of them, but never held them back and either seldom mentioned.
I have fond memories of life on Block 5 except for the weeks when I was bullied by ne’er do well young adults from across Chicago Ave. next door to the sweet Victorian farmhouse of the Shirley sisters when they threatened me with violence. I secretly walked a circuitous route each day to and from Phillips Jr. High School. I never mentioned it to my family or friends for solace or help.
Now we understand trauma lives in us and can even be passed down. Harry Belafonte experienced racial and immigrant trauma. My father experienced immigration and some personal tragedies. Both men also proved what we acknowledge now that values can also be passed from generation to generation.
My father spoke louder with his eyes and strong handshakes than his voice. One day with him in a boat fishing he flung a hooked line that caught me on my cheek. I saw the traumatic memory of his 1901 accident by the look in his eyes in sorrow for me; I was OK.
The much greater trauma we are experiencing today in Minnesota that is affecting everyone in different ways and to varying extents depending on immigrant status, country of origin, and skin color is perpetrated by people who are passing on the quest for power and greed by their ancestors.
“You can strike up the march, there is no drum
Every heart to love will come, but like a refugee,”
is a poignant reflection on imperfection, brokenness, and finding hope and light within flaws, famously concluding with the line,
“There is a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.”
“Who Was in the Room,” When This Deal Was Made?
By noon August 21, 2018 only the Messiah Church Balcony, main entrance with Bell Tower, and office portion of the 101 year old architecturally historic building remained adjacent to the Clinics and 787 car parking ramp already built on Block 5 Chicago/Columbus E. 25th and 26th Streets where Children’s Hospital previously demolished the entire block contrary the Covenant with the Phillips Community. Children’s MN spent over 1 million dollars to buy and demolish that last structure on Block 5. Messiah Church fell into the basement where innumerable Xmas dramas were enacted on a stage, Bible classes taught, and hot dish suppers with Jell-O salads and coffee served since 1916. “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
Trust in Leadership
The “leaders at the front” betrayed the Community. The trust built during thousands of hours of struggle between neighbors and institutions also “bit the dust.” .
When will trust ever be restored? Will it be restored at all?
The demolition of the Messiah Church building is a symbol of lost trust; a covenant, and, above all, continued disavowal of rights of Indigenous People of this land.
Meanwhile,
What could have happened, did happen nearby:
Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, 2315 Chicago Ave., rebuilt after a tragic fire and have since expanded their housing shelter program in separate and improved buildings.
Mount Olive Lutheran Church, 3045 Chicago Ave. uses the ground beneath their parking lot for geothermal heating of their sanctuary and education building along with solar panels on the roof.
Calvary Lutheran Church, 3901 Chicago Ave., downsized their space while expanding community service with affordable housing in old buildings and a new building.
Spring House Ministry Center’s, 610 W 28th St. , three congregations using space together became more environmentally and financially stable allowing new ways to increase missions including building a 63 unit affordable housing building.
Grace University Church, 324 Harvard Street, University of MN Campus. Was saved from purchase by U of MN and demolition and still stands as a spiritual and architectural gem next to huge medical buildings in part due to the influence of Elmer L. Andesrosn who met his wife there when they were students, was a MN Supreme Court Justice, MN Governor, and U of MN Regent. The Church was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, increasing its longevity.
Architectural historian Charlene Roise used Grace Church as proof that the Messiah Church needn’t be kept because Grace University Church was of the same Swedish origin and Gothic Revival Architectural style; her point, apparently, being that “once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all!” Her public testimony as a hired expert by Children’s MN or Messiah Church, also included her biased opinion that the building was structurally unsound; an evaluation refuted by experts of building construction. Her paid testimony also prevented her from fulfilling her own statement as a member of the Stewardship Council of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, “she strongly supports the organization’s mission of connecting people to places.”
Bittersweet Salvage
After the demolition of the church, it was a bittersweet moment when I saw its pulpit and the stained glass of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane from above the altar at the City Salvage Company warehouse.
“Greed in our society certainly isn’t unusual but flagrant greed must be underscored lest it becomes acceptable.”
“We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity. We cannot remain looking inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet.”
Stephen Hawking
Zero-Sum Conclusion
The tension and remorse caused by Children’s Hospitals MN and MELC was a zero-sum ending; when one party’s gain is exactly balanced by the losses of the other party.
Positive-Sum and
Opportunity Lost
The conclusion could have been a positive-sum conclusion win-win scenario where all participants can increase their gains through cooperation, creating a larger total value.
That Historic Sanctuary could have continued to be a spiritual and architectural gem glistening on the small 11,792 square foot corner lot amidst the four city blocks Campus of Children’s MN. It would have acknowledged that healing includes spirituality and community beyond an exclusive chapel in the hospital.The large open space between Columbus Ave. and Park Ave. could have been used for geothermal heating of the sanctuary and education buildings and more.
It could have been a win for Messiah Church, other faith communities, Children’s MN, the environment,waste disposal, the Phillips Community, memories of former members, and edification of future people.
Goals of this Essay
Loss and Light in these 7 chapters is to tell anecdotes of the neighborhood, through my experience and to mention bits of stories for enjoyment. It has also been to encourage others to tell their personal stories for personal memoirs, personal catharsis (as I experienced), as a vehicle for community history, to be a part of the Phillips Oral History Project, and/or to appear like mine in the alley Newspaper.
