January 2011

Volume 17

Number 1

Your Community News & Information Source

Bill KnightContributing Writer

Businesses along Fourth Street in

Lowertown have suffered through a challenging year of disruptions caused by work on the new Cen-tral Corridor Light Rail Transit (LRT) line. While Fourth Street reopened in mid-December, the com-ing year promises similar challenges to businesses and residents in down-town and along Universi-ty Avenue. The new LRT line will connect down-

town St. Paul and down-town Minneapolis along University and Washing-ton avenues. The route travels through the State Capitol complex and down to Fourth Street, ending in Lowertown.

“We’re down 40 per-cent in our business since the construction started (Spring 2010),” said Sara Remke who, with her two siblings, operates the Black Dog Café at the corner of Fourth Street and Broadway. “People on Fourth are fairly stressed. We’ve done the

best we can to deal with a hard situation. It’s inevi-table and we understand that, but at the same time we think it’s important for people to know that small businesses are pay-ing the price.”

Lenny Russo, who opened the Heartland Restaurant this summer in Lowertown, said his business hasn’t been af-fected. However, he ac-knowledged that he did not have to deal with the street construction and closure issues that busi-nesses on Fourth Street

suffered through. His res-taurant is in the Market House Building at Fifth and Broadway.

“We haven’t seen any effect. Since we opened in July, our business has more than doubled,” said Russo. “From my per-spective, Public Works is doing a great job of keeping the streets clear and keeping access to our business and the Farmers’ Market.”

Grit, determination and a sense of humor

2011: More of the Same

Photo courtesy of Metropolitan Council

Fourth Street reopened to vehicle traffic in mid-December. That month crews were busy install-ing pavers, lights, traffic signals and pole foundations for the overhead system of wires that will power light-rail trains. Work in 2011 and 2012 on Fourth Street will involve laying tracks, build-ing stations and installing the electrical and communication systems.

Bracing for another year of disruptionsFourth Street reopens, but more LRT construction is on the way

Light Rail / Page 2

Library café plans scrappedCentral Library has scrapped its plan to open

a café on the ground level of the library in the space formerly occupied by Zelda’s Café. Lee Williamson, facilities director, said several pro-posals were examined but none accepted. He said the economic downturn and competing cafés located nearby were a deterrent to the project. The space will be used for talks by au-thors and for other meetings. The back kitchen will remain to assist groups wishing to serve refreshments.

High speed train issue on holdPlans for high speed rail operating out of the

Union Depot in Lowertown are now in ques-tion since the White House has withdrawn $810 million in funding for high speed rail in Wisconsin. This decision followed a statement by Wisconsin Governor-elect Scott Walker, who said he would not support the planned rail project between Madison and Milwaukee. This would have been an essential link in the pro-posed high speed rail plan to connect Chicago and the Twin Cities.

Pigeon program successfulAn experiment at a downtown building to

curtail the pigeon population has proved suc-cessful. Pigeons were fed a birth control sub-stance, which resulted in the pigeon population being reduced by 50 percent at that building. The program may be used in other buildings.

St. Paul Heart Clinic to close St. Paul Heart Clinic will close on Jan. 1.

Most of the 31 doctors who saw their patients at St. Joseph’s or United hospitals are expected to become employees of HealthEast, which op-erates St. Joseph’s, or Allina, which operates United Hospital. This is part of a nationwide trend in which independent clinics disband and the doctors attach themselves to a health system that operates a hospital.

District 17 seeks supportsThe CapitolRiver Council/District 17 is

asking its board members to make a volun-tary contribution of $100 or more to the or-ganization. According to board chair Andrew Schlack, potential donors to the group are im-pressed when they see buy-in from the board. He said other district councils in the city have a similar policy.

Page 2 - Downtown St. Paul Voice - January 2011

Your community news and information sourceD owntown Developments

The Downtown St. Paul Voice is published monthly and delivered to every apartment, condominium and skyway drop in St. Paul’s historic urban village, as well as other locations throughout downtown St. Paul.

Publisher & Editor: Tim Spitzack Copy Editor: Leslie MartinReporter: Mary Diedrick Hansen Contributors: Roger Fuller, Don Morgan, Bill Knight, Mona ToftMasthead design by Nick GermanoAdvertising: Mario Polanco, Henry Torres Home Delivery: Independent Delivery Service Bulk Delivery: SC Distribution 651-285-1119

The Downtown St. Paul Voice assumes no responsibility for the opinions expressed by contributors and for the validity of claims or items reported. Copyright Downtown St. Paul Voice 2010. All rights reserved in compliance of Federal Copyright Act of 1978.

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Phone: (651) 457-1177 sppc@stpaulpublishing.comwww.stpaulpublishing.com

— qualities you’ll find in a business owner like Remke — have been needed to survive on Fourth Street.

“For us, it is hard with all the excitement about the light rail, which we would like to be excited about also. Everyone is saying how great it will be in two years,” she said. “It’s not the light rail that we are bashing. In fact we’re not bashing any-one. It’s just for everyone to understand that (the light rail) doesn’t come without some costs.”

One of those costs is the closure of Rumours & Innuendo, a nightclub on Fourth Street, which was shuttered at the end of October. Sean Fetter-man, one of the owners, declined to talk with The Downtown St. Paul Voice about the closing, but the club’s lingering website said the “the light rail construction has been a strain on businesses” and “although there have

been bright spots and glimmers of hope to see an end to the work, we have decided that we can-not continue to engage in this uphill battle to pro-vide a clear path to our business and limit inter-ruption to our guest ex-perience.”

LRT unearths ‘historic bones’ (wink, wink)

In mid-October, Remke and her siblings, who have run their busi-ness for 13 years, decid-ed not to take the dust and disruption standing still so they fabricated a story about construction workers unearthing the remains of an ancient relative of King Boreas of Winter Carnival fame. The story appeared on many blogs and also on the cafe’s website.

“We pretended that we found some buried bones down here,” she said of their fictional, tongue-in-cheek promotion, in-tended to bring more business to the Black Dog

Café. “But the police and the medical examiner wanted to investigate, so we couldn’t take it as far as we wanted. Some people took it for a real find.” Remke added that she was contacted by offi-cials from Ramsey Coun-ty and the St. Paul Police Department.

LRT may boost the local economy

Rudy Maxa, the famed TV and radio personality who has lived in Lower-town for five years, has first-hand experiences of living through a light rail construction project and is excited for what the fu-ture holds for St. Paul.

“I was in Washington, D.C., when the Metro was built, which at the time was the largest pub-lic works project in the world,” said Maxa. “I lived downtown so it re-ally affected me. What is going on here is really child’s-play in compari-son.”

Once the Metro was completed he said “Ev-

ery neighborhood, every block that had a station, had stunning economic benefits. The redevelop-ment, the renovation of houses and business, fol-lowed soon after the con-struction.”

He added that he has not heard much negative reaction from his neigh-bors.

“Overall I think I would have heard if folks were distraught,” said Maxa, 61, who lives near Kellogg Boulevard and Broadway. However, he travels frequently for his travel shows that appear on nearly 90 PBS sta-tions, and his radio show, the largest syndicated weekly radio show on travel in the country.

A busy 2011The exact route of

the rail line, which will

cut diagonally from Fifth and Cedar Street to Fourth and Minne-sota Street, drew most of the questions during a mid-December meeting in Lowertown that was hosted by the Metropoli-tan Council. According to Laura Baenen, com-munication manager for the project, construction in that area will include demolishing the Bremer Bank Building so tracks can be laid where the bank is today. The sky-way over Fifth Street, just east of Cedar Street, will temporarily come down but will be replaced by the time the project ends in November 2011. She said the tracks will head east on Fourth Street to Broadway, crossing that intersection into the va-cant Diamond Products Building, which will be-

come an operations and maintenance facility.

Some of the 40 people who attended the meet-ing questioned why Fourth Street was ripped up, worked on and paved over, only to be ripped open again.

“That was planned be-cause some construction work can best be done only at certain times of the year,” Baenen said. “Construction is disrup-tive but we will keep busi-nesses open, although it may not be as easy an ac-cess as it is today.”

Not a great deal of work will happen in January since the cold weather makes construc-tion both expensive and difficult. For updates and more information on the project, visit www.cen-tralcorridor.org.

Light Railcontinued from page 1

‘We pretended that we found some buried bones down here,’ said Remke of their fictional promotion. ‘But the police and the medical examiner wanted to investigate, so we couldn’t take it as far as we wanted. Some people took it for a real find.’

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Downtown St. Paul Voice - January 2011 - Page 3

Your community news and information sourceF uller Files by Roger Fuller

CD release partyZeitgeist will host a se-

ries of CD release events for “Here and Now” at 7:30 p.m., Jan. 6-8, at Studio Z in the North-western Building, 275 E. Fourth St. The CD con-tains 30 short pieces that were created two years ago by local composers when Zeitgeist observed its 30th anniversary.

Skyway Bridge to be removed temporarily for LRT

The skyway bridge over Fifth Street near Cedar will be taken down in the spring and replaced sev-eral months later. This gap in the skyway system will interrupt the connec-tion between the Crowne Plaza and Hilton Garden Inn hotels. The closing is necessary because the old Bremer Bank building on Fifth Street, which is connected to the skyway, is being demolished to make way for tracks of the new Light Rail Tran-sit system. A replacement skyway will connect the

Alliance Bank Center with the University Club.

Book Clubs at Central Library

The Central Library Book Club will discuss “Snow Falling on Ce-dars” by David Guterson at 10:30 a.m., Thurs., Jan. 13 at the Central Library. The History Book Club will discuss “North Country: The Making of Minnesota” by Mary Wingerd at 2 p.m., Thurs., Jan. 20.

City PassportCity Passport senior

citizen center is hosting the following activities at the mezzanine level of the Alliance Bank build-ing: Poetry slam, 2 p.m., Tues., Jan. 4; Happy birthday party, 2 p.m., Mon., Jan. 10; Crib-bage tournament, 1 p.m., Tues., Jan. 18; Current events discussion, 11 a.m., Fri., Jan. 21; Ice cream float social, 1:30 p.m., Fri., Jan. 28; Ladies tea, 2:30 p.m., Mon., Jan. 31; Blood pressure

tests Mondays at 10 a.m. Show tunes and songs from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s will be sung at 10:45 a.m. on the second and fourth Friday. Movies are shown at 1 p.m. each Thursday.

First Friday socialA First Friday social

will be held 4-6 p.m., Fri., Jan. 7 at the Ameri-can Burger Bar, 354 W. Wabasha St. Capitol-River Council/District 17 holds these monthly gatherings to help down-town residents get better acquainted.

Sinfonia concertViolinist Gary Levin-

son will appear with the Minnesota Sinfonia at its winter concert, held at 7 p.m., Fri., Jan. 7 at Metro State University.

Levinson, associate con-certmaster with the Dal-las Symphony, will play Concerto for Violin No. 5 by Henri Vieuxtemps. The Sinfonia will also perform “Once Upon a Time” by Edward Green and Symphony in C by Georges Bizet.

Winter Carnival Art show

The Winter Carnival Art Show will open Jan. 26 and run for ten days at the Black Dog Café, 308 Prince St. Forty artists are expected to be in the show, which is managed by the AZ Gallery.

Royalty breakfastThe newly crowned

Winter Carnival Senior Royalty will appear at the Winter Carnival Se-nior Breakfast, held 9-11 a.m., Sun., Jan. 30 at the Landmark Center. The six-member senior court will appear at community functions throughout the year.

St. Paul Prep musical

Students at St. Paul Pre-paratory School will pres-ent the musical “Into the Woods Junior” on Jan. 13 and 14. It is a shortened version of the musical by Stephen Sondheim. For

more details, visit www.stpaulprep.org.

St. Paul Conserva-tory near capacity

St. Paul Conservatory has nearly reached its enrollment capacity, ac-cording to Terry Tofte, executive director. He said grades 9 and 10 have enrollments of 150 stu-dents and the upper two grades have more than 100 each. He said the school will be at capacity when enrollment reaches 600, with 150 at each grade. Classes are held at the Lowry building, Landmark Center and Wilkins arena.

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Your community news and information sourceS ample St. PaulOrdway Center for Performing Arts

“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” is presented through Jan. 2. This An-drew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice production tells the story of Joseph, his jealous brothers and one very colorful garment. American Idol finalist Anthony Fedorov ap-pears as Joseph. Joining the performers onstage are 40 Twin Cities-area school children. Tickets

are $27-$81. Grammy Award-win-

ner Angélique Kidjo will be in concert 7:30 p.m., Fri., Jan. 21. Kidjo cross-pollinates the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of R&B, funk and jazz, as well as influ-ences from Europe and Latin America. She shares her very own brand of rhythmic Afro-funk and pop from the four cor-ners of the globe. Tickets are $15-$25. The Ord-

way Center is located at 345 Washington St., St. Paul. For more informa-tion, call 651-224-4222 or visit www.ordway.org.

Xcel Energy CenterRascal Flatts, with

special guests Luke Bryan and Chris Young, will present their “Nothing Like This Tour” at 7:30 p.m., Fri., Jan. 21. Tick-

ets are $25-$69.75. Linkin Park, with spe-

cial guests Pendulum and Does It Offend You, Yeah?, will perform at 7 p.m., Fri., Jan. 28. Tick-ets are $42.50-$72.50.

For more information, call 651-726-8240 or vis-it www.xcelenergycenter.com.

Children’s Museum“Living in Space” is

presented through Jan. 2. This interactive exhibit is inspired by the Inter-national Space Station, the largest international aerospace project ever, and teaches participants about the everyday ac-tivities of astronauts.

“Japan and Nature: Spirits of the Seasons” is presented through Jan. 23. This exhibit shows the similarities and dif-ferences of each season of the year in Japan and Minnesota. Tickets are $8.95. The museum is located at 10 W. Seventh St., St. Paul. For more in-formation, call 651-225-6000.

History Center“Chocolate: The Ex-

hibition” is presented through Jan. 2. Immerse

“The Old Man and the Sea” is featured in Ominfest 2011 at the Omni-theatre, located in the Science Museum. The Academy Award-winning film depicts Ernest Hemingway’s tale of a fisherman’s duel in stunning hand-painted imagery. The film also includes a short live-action bio of the author.

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Downtown St. Paul Voice - January 2011 - Page 5

Your community news and information sourceS ample St. Paulyourself in the story of chocolate by exploring the plant, the products and the culture of choco-late through the lenses of science, history and pop-ular culture. The exhibit features experiments and hands-on activities, as well as Mayan, Aztec and 17th-century European artifacts.

“Minnesota on the Map,” a traveling exhibit featuring 23 reproduc-tion maps and atlases, is presented through Jan. 9. The exhibit features an 1863 map by Louis Hen-nepin of the upper Mis-sissippi Valley, a video station with commentary by local historians, a bin of laminated maps that allows for an up-close look at Minnesota geog-raphy and history, and an oversized jigsaw puzzle map of the state.

“The Value of One Life” is presented Jan. 15-April 10. This ex-hibit highlights portraits of eight people who sur-vived life-altering events and went on to lead in-

spiring lives. Tickets are $10 for

adults, $8 for seniors and college students, and $5 for children ages 6-17. The center offers free ad-mission on Tuesdays, 5-8 p.m. For more informa-tion, call 651-259-3000 or visit www.mnhs.org.

Science Museum“Geometry Play-

ground” is presented through Jan. 9. This ex-hibit will have partici-pants climbing, building, drawing and playing to teach the ways in which mathematical principles affect how we move, see and fit things together in the world around us.

Omnifest 2011 - Om-nifest features five new films showing daily in the Omnitheater Jan. 7-Feb. 17. Shows include: “Hubble,” “Old Man and the Sea,” “Sea Monsters,” “Wild Safari” and “Trop-ical Rain Forest.”

Museum tickets are $11 for adults and $8.50 for children ages 4-12 and seniors age 60 and

older, or $17 and $14.50 respectively with admis-sion to the Omnithe-ater. Omnitheater tickets alone are $8/$7. The Sci-ence Museum is located at 120 W. Kellogg Blvd. For more information, visit www.smm.org, or call 651-221-9444.

Park Square Theatre

“The Odyssey” is pre-sented Jan. 14.-Feb. 6. Legendary warrior Odys-seus fights tides, beasts and his own arrogance — often with no weapon ex-cept his passion. But it’s not just his adventure: his wife fights the urge to give up on the world, and his teenage son wres-tles with the journey to adulthood.

Tickets are $20-$60, and $15 for ages 30 and under. A $5 discount is offered for people age 62 and older. The theater is located in the Historic Hamm Building, 20 W. 7th Place, St. Paul. For more information, call 651-291-7005.

front public events, and in the 1950s that meant TV stars. The carnival that year had done well, attracting Dinah Shore, the star of one of the top shows. She was good at that sort of thing, and not only braved the cold to be the parade grand marshal, but she brought her show along as well. The Dinah Shore Chevy Show originated live that week from the St. Paul Auditorium on Fifth

Street, where the Ordway is today. A huge crowd turned out to watch the music and variety show, which included plenty of plugs for Chevrolet. In the days before home video recording it was reported that many local families split up for the event; some attending live, others staying home and watching TV, hoping to catch a glimpse when the camera panned the crowd. After the show, many stuck around to watch a country music and dance festival, billed

as the world’s largest square dance. It was a great way to end a cold January.

January is the coldest month and people still look for ways to cope. We now have indoor football, as well as hot stove league baseball. This year’s car-nival kicks off Jan. 27, probably without nation-al telecast, but TV variety shows aren’t what they used to be (for that mat-ter, neither is Chevrolet). If you already have cabin fever, here is a chance to get outside.

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Page 6 - Downtown St. Paul Voice - January 2011

Your community news and information sourceR iver Connections

Tim SpitzackEditor

While most artists are hunkered in-

side their warm studios this time of year, land-scape artist Joshua Cun-ningham is out trudging through snowdrifts along the banks of the Missis-sippi River. As the north-ern wind stings his face and ice crystals accumu-late on his beard, he scans the horizon for the right scene that he can transfer to canvas, thus preserving the beauty of the river cloaked in winter.

Cunningham, a plein air painter, enjoys being out in nature with his brushes, oils and canvas to soak in its splendor, breathe in its inspiration, and experience the magic of the moment when the light splashes across a landscape he intends to paint. He paints on loca-tion year around, but also works from his studio in his St. Paul home, where he lives with his wife Shannon and their chil-dren, Greta and William.

“I have found the chal-lenge of painting outside to have awakened and clarified why I paint,” said Cunningham, 36. “Plein air paintings done

on location in the winter have a different feel than those in the summer. The paint is stiffer and you can pile the white as you try to capture the snow. In the summer the paint is more fluid so they have a different tactual quality. The light in the winter is also very dif-ferent. The lower sun offers shorter windows of working time, but in those windows the light can be pretty dramatic, with long raking shadows and the myriad of colors bouncing around in the snow.”

The Mississippi River is one of Cunninghan’s favorite subjects. One of his recent creations, “Blue Shadows and Bare Branches,” depicts bar-ren trees along the fro-zen Mississippi River and punctuates his desire to capture nuances of a landscape that inspire him.

“The unique growth of each silhouetted tree trunk divides the sky like the architecture of a stained glass window, holding a mosaic of light, air and ice,” said Cun-ningham of the painting. “When lost to the beauty of winter transfigured by the light, one doesn’t feel

the cold so much as the sun.”  

New exhibitThe painting is fea-

tured through Jan. 15 in a new exhibit at Grand Hill Gallery, 333 Grand Ave., Suite 101, St. Paul. The exhibit includes 30 paintings he has created in the Mississippi River Valley and other locales, including the prairie of Western Minnesota, the Great Lakes and the Great Northwest.

Doug Nielsen, owner of Grand Hill Gallery, is excited to have Cunning-ham back for another exhibit. This summer he was featured in a show along with fellow artist Richard Abraham, also a landscape painter.

“I am an admirer of his work,” said Nielsen, who met Cunningham last year during the St. Paul Art Crawl. “This show has a number of interest-ing scenes. He had a re-ally successful show (this summer) and a number of pieces sold.” For this show, his paintings are priced between $500 and $3,000, with most under $1,000. Nearly half of the paintings are scenes along the Mississippi River.

“So many paintings are

Frozen in TimeSt. Paul artist captures the simple beauty of the Mississippi River in wintertime

of the river because I love roaming around the river valley,” said Cunning-ham. “It is a place I enjoy being.”

Love of the river valley

His love affair with the landscape of the Missis-sippi River valley began several years ago when a fellow artist invited him on a painting excursion near Lake Pepin, on the Wisconsin side. It was a cold, wet and windy day in April and Cunning-ham was woefully under-dressed to paint outside.

“It was miserable,” he laughed, recalling the day. “I wasn’t dressed warm enough. I hadn’t painted enough to jus-tify such a road trip to go find a worthy subject matter. I was so new to it that I was barely worthy of attempting a paint-ing of a tree in my back-yard, let alone the won-der that waits around the bends of those rural river roads. But there I was, hunkered down, chilled to the bone, making a terrible painting, eating a cold sandwich with a great big grin on my face. For whatever reason, my

life hadn’t brought me down that magical road. I fell in love with all the little winding roads and views and rolling fields.”

Raised along with his four brothers in rural Isanti, Minn., Cunning-ham was drawn to art at an early age but it took on even greater impor-tance for him following the death of his young-est brother, Ryan, who was killed in a car acci-dent. Painting became an outlet for him and a way to heal from his pain and find direction for his own life. The tragic event also inspired him to pur-sue his own dreams more vigorously. However, his career path has been a winding road. He stud-ied art at St. Cloud State University, St. John’s University and the Ate-lier Art School in Minne-apolis, but chose to quit those schools prior to getting a degree. Instead, he sought out and stud-ied under other accom-plished artists in the Twin Cities, including Mark Balma, Jeff Hurinenko and Joe Paquet. Thanks to a supportive wife and success in his field, Cun-ningham is able to pur-

sue his art full-time. He paints two to three times a week and promotes his work through gallery shows and other market-ing efforts. He said he is featured in about nine shows a year and sells paintings every month.

“I make my life as an artist, a husband and a father,” he said. “My wife’s unwavering sup-port makes it possible to do what I do.”

Cunningham credits much of his early success to the St. Paul Art Crawl.

“The Art Crawl has been my touchstone,” he said. “The exposure has been so great. You have three days to talk to peo-ple who are in the mood to look for art.”

His painting, “Along the Line,” a railroad scene in St. Paul along the river, won the St. Paul Art Crawl Poster competition this fall and was featured on the pro-motional poster to pub-licize the semi-annual event. The painting was acquired by the Cafesjian Center for the Arts. To view his work, visit www.joshuacunningham.com.

ABOVE: “Blue Shadows and Bare Branches” is featured through Jan. 15 in a new exhibit at Grand Hill Gallery, 333 Grand Ave., Suite 101, St. Paul.RIGHT: Cunning-ham has painted in a number of locales throughout the United States, includ-ing the Great Lakes.

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Downtown St. Paul Voice - January 2011 - Page 7

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Page 8 - Downtown St. Paul Voice - January 2011

Your community news and information sourceB ack in Time

Don MorganContributor

Winter entertain-ment in Minneso-

ta requires a basic choice: indoor or outdoor. Out-door types go ice fishing, skiing or snowshoeing, all of which take dedica-tion and stamina. Indoor types have the internet,

shopping malls, gyms and, of course, movies. In January of 1957, folks in St. Paul had plenty of indoor and outdoor rec-reational opportunities, including some great Winter Carnival events and a wide selection of first-run movies, some of which featured a new style of movie making.

At the beginning of 1957, St. Paul had 339,000 residents. Pro-jections were that the population would reach 430,000 by the year 2000. Alas, who knew about the power of free-ways and suburbs? (Es-timated population for 2011 is 287,000.) Peo-ple’s minds were on the

riots in Hungary protest-ing a Soviet occupation and also an exciting Cot-ton Bowl game in Dallas, wherein Texas Christian University upset Syra-cuse 28-27 in the last important single platoon football game. News also came that Elvis passed his army pre-induction physical. He arrived at

the station in a pink and black Cadillac, along with two girlfriends and three members of his en-tourage.

That January saw some serious fires and a rash of auto accidents in St. Paul. Thirteen people were killed in Minne-sota on New Years’ day alone. Later that month, five more died in a single accident south of the city. Part of the prob-lem was that cars of that day lacked safety fea-tures. Downtown dealers would happily sell you an Oldsmobile Golden 88 with a Rocket V8 produc-ing over 270 horsepower, or a Mercury Turnpike Cruiser, which went up to 290 horsepower. How-ever, neither model had seat belts, padded dashes, air bags, etc. The roads proved hazardous as well. Old state highways, high speed vehicles and the lack of any crash re-straints remained a dead-ly combination for the next few years.

The new crop of mov-ies for ’56-’57 was a great one with some great stars. That January film fans could go downtown to see Karl Malden and Car-ol Baker in “Baby Doll,” Gary Cooper and Doro-thy McGuire in “Friendly Persuasion,” Henry Fon-da in Hitchcock’s “The Wrong Man,” Rock Hud-son and Lauren Bacall in “Written on the Wind,” Clark Gable and Eleanor Parker in “The King and Four Queens,” Charlton Heston and Anne Baxter in “Three Violent Peo-ple” and Ray Milland in “Three Brave Men.” Two films, “The Teahouse of the August Moon,” with Glenn Ford and Marlon Brando, and “Anastasia” with Yul Brenner and Ingrid Bergman, would play downtown for the entire month.

Along with these main-stream offerings, a new film genre was creeping into theaters — the rock ’n’ roll movie, aimed at the emerging adolescent market. Playing that month were “Rock, Pret-ty Baby,” starring John Saxon and Sal Mineo in a fairly mainstream at-

tempt to showcase “re-spectable” young talent; Allen Freed’s “Rock Rock Rock!,” a much more au-thentic film with many acts performing and play-ing themselves, headed by future Hall of Famer Chuck Berry, and “Rock and Roll with the Kings of Swing,” a sad effort by some true music legends, like Count Basie, Cab Calloway and the Mills Brothers, to make a buck by using the rock ’n’ roll label, which didn’t fit them at all. Young people buying tickets to these teen movies probably caused quite a few din-ner table arguments that month.

For those who really wanted to forget about winter, the Downtown Commercial Club had a promotion to get people to think about a sum-mer game instead. St. Paul Baseball Day was celebrated at the Lowry Hotel on a cold January Saturday. Capping the day-long program of ex-hibits, instruction and local history was a base-ball banquet with guest speakers Brooklyn Dodg-ers’ pitcher Sal Maglie and Detroit Tigers’ star outfielder Al Kaline. Their talks drew a big crowd; the most popular topic was the impending Dodger move to Califor-nia. Maglie didn’t think it would happen, but he was wrong. The coming summer would be the team’s last year in Brook-lyn, and Maglie was trad-ed to the Yankees just a few weeks after his trip to St. Paul.

For those who liked winter, January in St. Paul meant the Winter Carnival. That year’s ver-sion got underway with a big Saturday night pa-rade in near zero temps. The corner of Seventh (now Seventh Place) and Wabasha was the prime viewing spot as the pro-cession made a left turn down toward the Audito-rium.

Organizers of events like the Winter Carnival are always looking for a popular celebrity to

January 1957: Dueling film genres, carnival celebrities

Back in Time / Page 5

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