Be this community strong and enduring.  It will do homage to the men who guided its growth.

It takes you a few minutes to remember his name, but after some creative google search-strings, you find it.

Thomas Lowry.

He was a lawyer, real-estate developer, and businessman who moved to Minneapolis in 1867 when he was 24. Lowry oversaw the development of the early streetcar system, especially known for extending the lines to undeveloped areas. Eventually his system was connected to the one growing in St. Paul and merged into the Twin Cities Rapid Transit. After his death, a statue was commissioned and placed at the intersection of two major streets–Hennipen and Lyndale.

The streetcar system was widely popular and used until after the depression and WWII when automobiles became commonplace. The rail system was eventually purchased by an investor who had other connections to the emerging bus system. Due to the investor’s interest and deals with GM, the lines were torn up in 1954, the streetcars burned, and the idea sold to the public under the guise of massive costs to upgrade the rail system. In 1960, the construction of a tunnel to clear up the massively congested intersection meant the removal of the statue to an area 10 blocks further from downtown on Hennipen. The streetcar system is now largely forgotten in the city, but remenants of its past remain. Dinkytown, an area near the University, is named as such due to the narrow rails originally put in allowed only ‘dinky’ streetcars.

On a way to a friend’s house one snowy night, traffic is backed up on Hennipen and you decide to turn onto a side street and find another route. Mid-turn you notice a dimly lit derelict statue, copper-turned-green with age and Midwest weather. Despite being in a rush, you stop your car up the street, park, and walk back to the statue. A man stands, wearing a long jacket with top hat in hand. An inscription reads:

The lesson of a public-spirited life is as a tree ever bearing new fruit.

You brush the snow off the base, sit down, and fumble through your pockets for a smoke. For a moment, the traffic which you can see through the leafless trees seems distant, the sound of cars muted. You wander back to your car leaving the only other set of footprints in the snow. When you get in, you turn off the radio, crack the window and listen to the cold Northwest wind as it whistles by your car. After another forgettable night at your friends, you find yourself at home and the beginning of this story.

A few months later, on a nameless mid-summer evening, you’re on your way home from happy hour and as traffic tightens you suddenly remember the statue.  It’s the next turn.  The same parking spot open.

Alone with Lowry again.

But in the twilight the statue appears different. The eye-sockets, deep and stoic, are now shadowed.  Hat held out, the face that once said, “Here is my life, offered for the public good,” now hesitates, showing a look of concern, “Here, hold my hat–I’ll be right back.”

Who would blame him?  From his obituary in the New York Times:

“Mr. Lowry’s business and financial career had not been one of unbroken sunshine.  During the reorganization of the street railway and in the panicky years which followed some of his projects were dangerously near their end.  He sold or mortgaged private interests, and even moved his family into cheaper quarters and rented his palatial home to those who could afford to live in luxury.  In this way he was able to stem the tide and to prove to those who doubted his prophecy that great things were in store for the enterprises in which he was interested.”

When the statue was first erected, he faced downtown.  Now, the city is behind him, his back turned, gazing westward.

Maybe it’s better that way.  His life’s work destroyed, statue and rail ripped from the ground, all but forgotten.  For someone who gave so much to the people of Minneapolis, Lowry is now just a name on a bridge and small park behind the Walker.

But not to me.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.