KinSource - Tale of the Week - Sidewalks in Slush

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Minnesota Musings

The Minneapolis Journal, March 2, 1885, page 3

SIDEWALKS IN SLUSH

A Howl From Pedestrians Against Street Pools and Splashing Drivers.

Minneapolis is now undergoing the annual throes of a general thaw, and the result is terrible. Such sidewalks no other city of 125,000 people, worth $75,000,000, ever saw, or seeing, would permit. In the newer portions of the city, built up in a boom, where paving and planking could not have been done, mud and water are necessary evils and do not provoke as many thoughts unharborable on the Sabbath; but when a pedestrian taxpayer, in the heart of the inside and aristocratic portions of Minneapolis, finds his way for blocks through pools six inches deep with water and hemmed in by steep snow banks, the comments that burst from him would ruin his standing in any good church community. Yesterday brought thousands of such cases, and the complaint was loud and general. It was only on such public thoroughfares as were bordered by stores that the walking could be tolerated. In the residence portions it was simply execrable. Take such public localities, for example, as Second avenue south and Sixth street, First avenue south and Tenth street, and it was almost impossible to get along.

A thousand other and equally public places might be cited and a complete list would contain nine-tenths of the streets of the city. In some cases this state is a necessary evil, but in others it might easily be remedied by a little heroic action on the part of the authorities. In no case should a property holder be permitted to heap up the snow on either side, making two steep hills between which the water is sure to collect to a shoe-top depth and around which the pedestrian cannot go. There are certainly means by which a better system of lot drainage could be obtained. At present, until the last vestige of snow has disappeared, the water must run across, or stand in pools upon the sidewalk until carried off or dried up by the sun or wind. This should never be and its continuance is a disgrace to Minneapolis.

In this connection there is another crying nuisance, to the abatement of which the police should direct their energies. It is the splashing occasioned by rapid driving across the street crossings. There is a great deal of too rapid driving and the police know it, but when a team crosses an intersection at a three minute gait, splattering mud at a radius of thirty feet, the time for police intervention has come. Just such was witnessed a dozen times yesterday, and in two cases was especially flagrant and annoying. If the blue-coated myrmidons ¹ would make examples of one or two of these reckless Budd Dolbes the annoyance would cease.

Notwithstanding all these evils the streets presented a lively appearance yesterday. Pedestrians were out in force picking their way through the mud, fording the crossings and swimming the pools, the depth of the latter being attested by many a flash of bright balbriggans ², or sombre solid colors. Many owners of cutters clung to the last chance of snow, but the number grows less every day. So that bad as were the streets the bright sun drew out the crowds. Overhead was lovely, but, unfortunately, few were going that way.

Footnotes
(1) Legendary Greek warrior people of ancient Thessaly who followed their king Achilles on the expedition against Troy. The American Heritage Dictionary.
(2) Underclothing made of balbriggan (a knitted, unbleached cotton underwear fabric). Derived from Balbriggan, an Irish seaport where the fabric was first manufactured. The American Heritage Dictionary.