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Pack up all your crime and porn...

Filed under: Local Nightlife

Block E, 1973

When I was a kid, "Block E" in downtown Minneapolis was where the prostitutes were. It was where the porn was. The cheap drinks too. It was everything city officials didn't want downtown Minneapolis to be. So they destroyed it. And when they destroyed it, the story goes, they sang a song. It went like this:

Pack up all your crime and porn, Block or scorn, be reborn, Bye bye Block E

No one here can stop and aggravate us, No more hard-luck stories will deflate us, Say goodbye to urban blight, Now we'll light up the night, Bye bye Block E.

People don't sing about Minneapolis that much. Okay, Craig Finn sings about Minneapolis a lot. But that's just one guy. Slug has a song about Minneapolis - but it's kind of trite.

You know who kind of nailed it? Tom Waits.

Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis is not about Minneapolis. Not exactly. But whenever I hear the song it's like he's singing to me from the burnt-brown corner of a Block E bar. And he's created a museum in his song of the "hard-luck stories" city officials sang about as they destroyed the block's undesirable establishments.

Block E looks like Houston now: a Hard Rock Cafe, a Gameworks, a multiplex. But Waits, it seems, sings his song from a place that for all I know still exists beneath all the neon and glass.

Here he is...

Posted by Jeff Severns Guntzel at March 21, 2008 9:57 AM

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Comments

I think he nailed it in "9th & Hennepin" too

Posted by: Rachel at March 21, 2008 3:10 PM

Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis is not about Minneapolis. Not exactly.

I'll say. Where the hell is Euclid Ave. up here?

Posted by: Nate P. at March 22, 2008 10:58 AM

Now every city has a Block E, a saccharine, corporate, funless entertainment zone intended not for the city's residents, but for some nonexistent tourist class.

Posted by: Big Daddy Malcontent at March 22, 2008 11:25 AM

Nothing wrong with Block E a hundred dollars can't fix.

Posted by: justacoolcat at March 22, 2008 2:57 PM

I like saccharine, especially when spelled right. Kudos, Mr. Big Daddy. Youtube has all the Letterman interviews with Tom. Priceless. Almost got shot at behind Moby's. It topped off a night of frustration, as we weren't able to get tickets to the Mats when they decided to play seven nights at the Entry. I think this is the longest comment I ever made at Citypages. Jesus, how many words is this now. God, please stop typing, for fuck sake.

Posted by: Helm Matthews at March 22, 2008 6:11 PM

Euclid ave: http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=euclid+avenue+minneapolis

Posted by: chrissakes at March 24, 2008 8:32 AM

this has always been one of my favorite waits songs. this recording always bugged me, though. i don't understand what the fuck everyone there found so funny. why are they laughing?

Posted by: JasonC at March 24, 2008 4:51 PM

No such place as Euclid Ave. That's why it is not exactly about Minneapolis, and why it is. It's a lost place, one that we will miss as the better part of our collective ids.

Posted by: c.a.s. at March 25, 2008 1:48 AM

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