MINNEAPOLIS' FOUNTAINS
Restrooms are nice
We need some artsy restrooms in downtown Minneapolis to match those proposed $50,000 water fountains. Even a porta potty with graffiti would do.
We desperately searched for blocks for a public restroom or family restaurant restroom near the Hennepin light-rail station. Our teen guest wasn't old enough or bold enough to enter Sneaky Pete's or Gay Nineties. The library had just closed.
We finally barged into a nonfamily restaurant and commandeered a restroom. Our guests said Minneapolis was an adventure they won't forget.
JULIE EVANS, BLOOMINGTON
Making a city beautiful On Tuesday, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak will unveil the first of several artist-designed drinking fountains in Minneapolis. Numerous readers have criticized these water fountains as a waste of tax dollars.
In fact, the funds for these commissions are not some new budget item but simply the public art funding available every year, consolidated in one project the mayor felt was important. Because he wants this not to simply be a functional city, but a distinctive one. Because the arts are a large part, economically as well as aesthetically, of what distinguishes Minneapolis from, say, Indianapolis.
And to everyone who'd apparently rather spend their money on big-screen TVs and extended-cab trucks: Expect to have less of it if the Twin Cities were instead to remain an anonymous city unattractive to the creative class drawn to more progressive visions elsewhere.
TIM GIHRING, MINNEAPOLIS;
