Motion In Balance

Crane Ordway Building - 1904
Crane Ordway Building - Today

It seems as though the cost of living is an ever present burden being echoed throughout our daily lives. Its something we deal with everyday, somedays striking far deeper into our psyche than others. As a college student, I am no exception to feeling first hand the toll that the increase in cost of living takes. The pictures above are of the Crane Ordway building in downton St. Paul. The 102 year old building started off as warehouse used for the manufacturing of pipes, valves, and steam supplies for the Crane Company. It changed hands over the years but still maintained its title as a warehouse. In 2003, the building which had been dormant for almost 30 years, had been proposed to be turned into affordable housing by a non-profit organization - Central Community Housing Trust (CCHT), and as of August of this year, 70 units of affordable living have been opened for rent to qualified persons. It is as simple as everyone deserves a home and everyone deserves a chance to have a home of their own. Organizations such as Central Community Housing Trust are giving people the ability to have a place of their own and giving them a way to stay in that home even during hard times when the cost of living can be too much.

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Dwight Schrute

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I had read about the new Midtown Market just a couple months ago and it's part in playing a role in trying to clean up what has been seemingly forever to my knowledge been known as an area that was deemed a sort of " no mans land" - East Lake Street. Anyone familiar with the cities at least knows of Uptown even if theyve never been, but few dare venture on the otherside of the imaginable divide unintentionally created by 35W. The Midtown building and surrounding area depicts a different scene though, one of intense revitilization backed by a demand to clean the area up.

The market inside the Midtown Building gave off an interesting feeling though. A large space divided by more or less permenant kiosks and stands selling products from all different ethnic backgrounds, the market carried with it an aura that was as mixed as the products found throughout the gathering. From the time I had entered up to when I walked out, I had this lingering feeling like I was walking through a scaled down "Festival of Nations" (anyone who may have attended this event at the Xcel/Roy WIlikins Auditorium iin high school might understand the "vibe" I got). This inkling had nothing to do with the unordinary congregation of several different ethnic backgrounds, but more so with the feeling that it was all forced and thus unnatural in nature.

Now I am supposed to comment and define energy from and relating to my visit to the Midtown Market and to this the claim could be made that energy is not only a physical, tangible object - like a yam, or the mexican Jarrito drink, but it is also an undescribable entity of intangible means, one that occurs through the interaction of people. All of which could be found throughout, even in what seemed to be a rather quite, semi-capacity crowd. People requesting orders of food could be found as exchanging one form of energy(the transfer of ideas to words from one person to another) for another (actual physical energy - food). People sitting in a central seating/dining area could be seen as exchanging energy through conversation. Different forms of energy could be found in abundance here and I think that is the intention of such a place as this, a gathering for exchanges, both physical and abstract. But, to me, the Midtown Market seemed too forced as an entity or even idea. Flea market meets farmers market with a global twist. Much like a forced conversation can make one feel awkward or contrived, an idea or being can be similair, and this was the feeling and energy that I walked away with.

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