A 88,000
person city located at the western
tip of
Lake Superior. It is in the stately state of
Minnesota in the
United States.
The city is plagued by an overwhelming sense of escapist desperateness. Almost all of the unimaginative people complain that "there is nothing to do" and mull about going to (or renting) the pre-manufactured movies, eating (a lot), or sit around getting drunk.
Duluth physically consists of a few sections:
Downtown is the faltering section from about 10th Ave E to 10th Ave W stretching from Michigan St. to 4th Street. Scattered around are the few successful and almost-failing
businesses -- next to the
drunk people who stumble out of the brightly lit
casino into awaiting
taxis.
Prominently ugly is the newly completed "Technology Village". This highly resented office building replaces an adult bookstore and other "undesirable" stores. Once promised to bring hundreds of new jobs through the help of Scandanavian and Canadian technology companies, it now languishes, quarter-filled with a telemarketing company and orphan cubicles.
Other sights:
- Library, standard library, go inside, read books, take books.
- The Depot, actually vaguely cool, it is the center of some plays, dance, art exhibits, etc.
- DECC, the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center -- you might encounter Soul Coughing, Ani Difranco, and other concerts here, along with hockey games, actual conventions, monster truck events, wrestling -- and other various functions that require large indoor spaces.
- Omnimax Theater, one of those IMAX-like huge fisheye theaters that you only go to once or twice out of pure curiousity.
- Hacienda del Sol, by far the most authentic Mexican restaurant north of the Twin Cities;
- India Palace, the only Indian place... (well, you get it);
- Browsers N`ETC, an "Internet Cafe" that overcharges for smoothies and using their small-bandwidthed, underpowered computers (this also happens to be where the Linux Users Group of Duluth (and surrounding area) meets on every-other-wednesday-at-7pm);
- Norshor Theatre, once solely a independent movie theatre, they obtain more business by acting like a cafe/performance place that is much too smokey most of the time.
- The Last Place on Earth, a bizarre store -- sex toys, odd things, and drug paraphenalia abound. I don't recommend actually entering.
- Electric Fetus, while more than a record store (selling other.. ahem *stuff*), the only record store in Duluth that doesn't have that sterile, cleanly manufactured feeling.
Canal Park is the summer cash-beast and tourist spot of Duluth. It is located just south of Downtown. Canal Park was the babied project of Mayor Fedo (now out for eight years or so), who started it out of fear of being mayor of a ghost city after mining towns up the North Shore of Lake Superior began shutting down.
For much of the last century, it was a wasteland product of the shipping industry with visible (and smellable) toxicish waste around the shore. Now, it is, admittedly, splendid, beautiful, and peaceful.
An intertwining asphalt and wooden pathway called the Lakewalk connects portions of Downtown and most of Canal Park:
- Rose Garden, a puzzlingly masterful garden maintained by floraphilic people around Duluth. It is constructed on top of a *highway tunnel*. It is so amazingly quiet and floraful, that you forget you're lying around on top of several tons of concrete seperating you and hundreds ofmetal vehicles speeding at 70 miles per hour. The roses, fountains, gazeboes, and various statues are cool, an ideal picnic spot.
- Sir Benedict's, while not really in Canal Park, it's close enough to be swallowed into it. This bar isn't really a bar, and it isn't really a restaurant. They serve many beers, yet serve sandwiches and junk to allow under-21 people to enter.
- Fitger's Brewery Complex, what used to be a brewery for ... beer, is .. not. it now houses several fairly cool stores (Lakeview Coffee Emporium is nice -- especially their hot chocolate), a bar and restaurant, along with a hotel.
- Portland Malt Shoppe, a very small ice cream stand next to Fitger's. They have the standard ice cream, but its location serves to enhance its necesity.
- Bayfront Park, pretty much ignored most of the year, the Bayfront Blues Festival attracts many peoples around who tend to drink too much beer and run around Duluth. (good music though)
- Lake Place, an indistinct spot westernly adjacent to the Rose Garden, it has an inordinate amount of concrete and uncooked-weiner-colored handrails. Although the metalish sculptures on top of marginal lawn are pretty cool, there is a disappointed feeling around this flourescently-lit "park". Sidenote: it is a fabulous viewing area of the lake around our famed snow storms (if you're into maschocistic severe-weather watching).
- Lake Superior Shore, this is actually not really a well defined area, but it would encompass the area around the artifically-rocky shore south of Lake Place to the northern pier (of the Aerial Lift Bridge). There are strange large-boat parts conspiciously placed around with informative placards. There is also a strange concretish structure about 30 feet out from the actual shoreline that I can never remember what its purpose was or how it got there.
- Dewitt's Seitz Marketplace, a bit in from the shore, it houses several stores, including a nice candy shop: Hepbizah's (spelt incorrectly), a great Vietnamese place: Taste of Saigon, and a bakery/coffee house in the basement, Amazing Grace (live music most of the time, average coffee/bakery quality).
- Aerial Lift Bridge, a large, illuminated, steel structure that has a roadway that lifts up and down whenever a large ship wants to pass into the harbor. It is supposed to be famous -- it's really not that amazing -- it's a bridge... that moves. It connects Canal Park to Park Point. One time, the bridge accidently went up when there were still cars on it (ship would have collided with bridge). People were told to put their emergency/parking brakes on, and they would be alright, but one woman got out of her car and frantically ran around, fell off the side, and died.
things done there:
- Cruise the Loop, this is a bizarre and mostly resented pasttime of obnoxious men in the teenage to early thirties. It involves driving a fairly nice car (or sufficiently poor to appear mockish) such as a restored antique car or a rice boy car (superficially improved Hondas) while playing very loud music out of a poor stereo (extremely jarring yelping and howling from the car in accordance to jack-ass rules also suffices) around Canal Park, (down Canal Park Dr, Down to Morse St, up Lake Ave, over to Canal Park Dr. over.. and over...). It's stupid, don't do it. I once saw a particularly crappy El Camino (mismatched body panels -- bad) cruise around 14+ times within a 3 hour period.
- Look up the Iron Madien's Skirt, in between the Lake Superior Shore and Dewitt Sietz, there is an Iron Madien, which resembles the idyllic little-hairbraided-girl-with-basket-skipping-across-the-alps image with evil eyes. Anyway, look up the skirt -- if you're lucky, you'll find a surprise.
- Get into a Fight at the Burger King, ok, so this doesn't happen very often, but I once saw a large amount of losers get into a fight while *hanging-out-at-burger-king*. (who the hell hangs-out-at-burger-king?) The cops came and people ran, it was amusing.
- Eat, there are many restaurants there, too many to list here, don't worry, you won't miss them.
- Swim, though, I'd recommend going across the Bridge to do that.
- Walk, Run, Bike, Rollerblade, Relax.
Park Point is a sandbar (artificial?) that allows Duluth and Superior to have a nice convenient harbor that feeds the shipping industry into the Midwest. Connected to Canal Park by the Aerial Lift Bridge, and less than an eigth of a mile wide at most points and over ten miles long, Park Point is a precarious place to build a house, let alone live. However, it has an incredible view, and the beaches behind people's houses serve well for having bonfires and swimming unclothed at night. (be quiet though, cops will come around after 10pm to make sure people aren't there)
Not much to see around there, beaches, houses, road.
(
This writeup is far from complete, and it may be too ambitious in detail, I will add to it and possibly finish it later if possible, e-mail me at adraken@themes.org if you have mini-writeups of places around Duluth you want me to add.)