pinkokitty

So. Monday, a coworker mentioned that her husband is selling the old Fairmont Hotel building in downtown Minneapolis, which for years was a notorious flophouse at Ninth and Hennepin. It's being gutted, but there are still some personal effects from the last tenants..

They let me and my camera walk through and take some photos before the demolition. I'll post a folder here as soon as I've got them in hand..not having a digital, i'm at the mercy of Walgreen's..

It was beautiful. There was a feeling of weight inside that building..you could almost feel the grand beauty of the building when it was new, the workers' pride in their structure, the beautiful people who slept there first. Also palpable was the sadness and despair of many who stayed there in its final days..

Beautiful. Somehow, that building is human. And I wonder now, reading these lyrics, if Tom Waits had ever been down on his luck in Minneapolis..


Tom Waits
9th & Hennepin

Well it's Ninth and Hennepin
All the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon's teeth marks are on the sky
Like a tarp thrown all over this
And the broken umbrellas like dead birds
And the steam comes out of the grill
Like the whole goddamn town's ready to blow...
And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos
And everyone is behaving like dogs
And the horses are coming down Violin Road
And Dutch is dead on his feet
And all the rooms they smell like diesel
And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept here
And I'm lost in the window, and I hide in the stairway
And I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat...
And no one brings anything small into a bar around here
They all started out with bad directions
And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear
"One for every year he's away", she said
Such a crumbling beauty, ah
There's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won't fix
She has that razor sadness that only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by
And the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
'til you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out over the side to anyone who will listen...
And I've seen it all, I've seen it all
Through the yellow windows of the evening train...