‘Cover Stories’ Archives
LOST AND FOUNDRY
By DAVE MOORE I picked up a brick from the edge of the demolition,carried it home and set it on my porch,one small piece of that hated Smith Foundry. Forty years of smelling its burnt iron reek,closing windows in summer, eyes smarting,hearing my sensitive partner coughing::::Talked to pollution agency ginks,went to meetings, marched in protest,the whole neighborhood wheezing with asthma.Finally resigned to accepting the horrible stench,either live with the bitter fumes or move.And then:::: and then::::after decades of violations,initialed regulators finally heard us.Smith Foundry shut down. With barely any notice::::heavy scoops began to batter the walls,pouring water on noise and concrete as it crumpled.Now its tall stack lies smokelessly sideways::::Spring air carries the last remnants of dust. So I picked up the brick and brought it home,As if I had torn it out with my own hands.The air, of course the air is still dirtyfrom combustion engines whizzing past the site,but [...]
MayDay is Evolving!
This year’s festivities set for Sunday, May 4th A South Minneapolis Mayday celebration began in 1974, initiated and shepherded by the group that became In the Heart of the Beast Theatre (HOBT); it evolved into an annual event with broad community participation. For nearly 50 years, HOBT invited and led planning and workshops; raised monies (always subsidized highly from Theatre coffers) produced and choreographed the Mayday Parade, the Tree of Life Ceremony, and the Festival in Powderhorn Park. In April 2023, HOBT announced that it would no longer produce Mayday, and “released it” to the Community. Now, in 2025, there is no single organization producing Mayday; the Parade is built by decentralized community groups hosting puppet-making workshops and the Semilla Center for Healing and the Arts is sponsoring an artistic cohort and workshops to create the Tree of Life Ceremony. Festivities in Powderhorn Park following the Parade will be quite different than in [...]
Dakota Canoe Carved from One Tree at MAIC on Franklin Ave.
Laura Hulscher Laura Hulscher Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi On March 10 at the Minneapolis American Indian Center a 19th century style Dakota dugout canoe was stretched into its final form using water boiled with with fire-baked rocks. The single piece vessel was carved from a 7000 pound cottonwood tree removed by City Workers in St. Paul. So far, more than 250 Native community members have participated in the collective canoe building project, which began in February and is being organized by Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi and the Great Lakes Lifeways Institute.
