Mysterious tall wooden-and-stone boxes showed up at the highway on-ramps in my Minneapolis neighborhood recently, looking like packing crates for the "2001: A Space Odyssey" monolith. The absence of hooting apes jumping up and down waving bones led one to think they're something else, but what?
They're neighborhood signs, part of the Crosstown overhaul's Gateway Project. The MnDOT website's description: "Cultural and aesthetic elements will articulate the unique characteristics of affected neighborhoods."
There's some fine bureaucratic lingo. Imagine a monotone robot voice: THE NEIGHBORHOOD WILL BE AFFECTED (beep!) ENGAGE THE ARTICULATION PROCESS (beep!) A little googling turned up a picture: a square pile of stone with the word MINNEAPOLIS arrayed perpendicular to the street. This would articulate our unique characteristics if everyone walked around with his head tilted to the side.
Better: an electronic sign that displayed the mood of the locals, based on nearby tweets: GETTING TIRED OF THE WHOLE KALE THING or WONDER IF THE REDBOX HAS CAPTAIN AMERICA YET.
A good sign sets the tone. When you see a sign with the city slogan ("A friendly place to live!" or "A hometown place!" or "A Place 17 Miles from Another Place!" ), the medallions for the Elks and Lions, a boast of athletic victory ("Home of the Fighting Goats, State Basketball Quarter-Finalists 1976") — well, you smile. And you hit the brakes, because there's a squad car waiting to ticket you because the speed limit's 25 all of a sudden.
The Gateway Stone-Things aren't bad, but I would've preferred "2001" monoliths. If they could teach apes to use tools, they could teach drivers not to drive straight out of the left-turn lane.
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858
