first of two parts
Newspapers need a cause. William Randolph Hearst’s was war with Spain. Col. McCormick wanted commies out of the State Department. The great crusade of our favorite Madison morning daily these days is moving bus traffic off State Street.
“Madison is excited about turning State Street into a grand pedestrian mall, with more space for people to walk, dine and shop outside,” the Wisconsin State Journal ballyhoos. “State Street needs a burst of energy to bring the community back. That’s what a pedestrian mall could provide.”
What State Street needs is people — hungry, thirsty, in need of goods to buy, ready to be entertained. And feel safe doing so. Because State Street has been knocked to its knees by three bean balls:
- The pandemic shutdown
- Social justice race riots, and
- Crime and human squalor.
The Blaska Policy Werkes expeditionary force deployed to lower State Street Saturday 03-06-21 on a reconnaissance mission. We wanted a first-hand look-see.
College kids walking the streets were face-masked up, even under a 10-mile high sky. Madison WI will emerge from its Covid cocoon now that arms are getting vaccine.
The outdoor patio at State Street Brats, at the corner of Frances Street, was packed with revelers even in temperatures only in the mid-40 degrees F. No masks there.
One of every three storefronts remained boarded up, the result of the June 2020 racial justice riots. Some of those were open for business behind the plywood, which was painted with the propaganda in whose cause the “mostly peaceful” protested.
That’s the wild card of State Street’s revival. The return of the social justice warriors is more unpredictable than the emergence of a Covid-19 variant. Could be any incident anywhere in the U.S. Ominously, jury selection has begun in Minneapolis for the trial of the policeman involved in the George Floyd incident.
How will the State Journal’s grand pedestrian mall protect storefronts from the ‘mostly peaceful’ protests enraged by anything short of the accused police officers’ public hanging?
Madison’s standing order to police is “stand down.” The city council wants to take away non-lethal methods of crowd control, such as tear gas. Two of the five alders most in support of police are fighting for their political careers in next April’s elections. Two others didn’t bother seeking re-election. It takes only a small band of midnight militants to smash blocks of plate glass. Must shopkeepers hire their own militia? The State Journal endorsed the right candidates but made only a tepid case.
Then there’s crime — especially on the Capitol end of State Street — and quality of life issues: drunkeness, aggressive panhandling, profanity, public urination, debris. The photograph accompanying this blog was taken at 4 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon: a “homeless” person sleeping it off in front of a boarded-up storefront. We’re supposed to feel guilty, according to Progressive Dane.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Which is why Marc Eisen’s two-parter in the on-line InBusiness magazine is a must-read. We’ll dip into that in Part 2.
Blaska Policy Werkes 
25 responses to “A mall won’t fix Madison’s mauled State Street”
Remembering the good-ol-days when Mayor Satya complimented the *pretty and creative* plywood scribbles adorning State Street storefronts as some kind of silver lining after she sanctioned riots by domestic terrorists pretending to care about racial/social justice as they destroyed numerous minority owned businesses that remain abandoned by the City that stood down while the anarchist thugs rampaged. What a gal.
The Big Boss is so out of touch with reality that one has to seriously consider if her pathology is a compromised mental condition, or is she completely blinded by her glaring white privilege?
Satya sleeps like a baby with the comforting knowledge that this is Madison where she will likely be reelected because she strategically grovels, says all the right things using proper PC terminology, and in Madison that counts for more than solid constructive action.
#mayorsatyaisadisgrace
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It doesn’t hurt that she’s a dyke; as long as a candidate for municipal office can claim victimhood in at least one of its many guises not only guarantees election, it insulates any officeholder from criticism, which, of course, is always generated by right-wing bigots.
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Are the human feces considered sidewalk art, civil protest, — or just junkies pooping where they sit?
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AdamC says: “Are the human feces considered sidewalk art, civil protest, — or just junkies pooping where they sit?”
Depends on who you ask. Proglibots insist that public defecation is a but a small price to pay for EQUITY, whereas independent thinking common sense citizens understand it as an obvious and gross sign of urban decay and all the associated goodies.
#beingwokeisabadjoke
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You nailed it, Batman!
“The Big Boss is so out of touch with reality that one has to seriously consider if her pathology is a compromised mental condition, or is she completely blinded by her glaring white privilege?”
I often wonder the same thing too.
SJWs don’t seem like very happy or secure people. I mean this sincerely when I say that I hope they find solace in their lives at some point.
That doesn’t mean they get to drag the rest of us down in their misery.
“where she will likely be reelected because she strategically grovels, says all the right things using proper PC terminology, and in Madison that counts for more than solid constructive action.”
This is how progressives get elected, not because they accomplish anything of significance, but because they know how to say the right things at the right time.
Sad statement, isn’t it?
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Having lived in Oakland and SF in the 90’s I can attest to the results of a laissez faire approach to the Lotus Eaters. Currently there are more deaths to Fentanyl then Covid in the Bay Area.
If you allow it, it will come.
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I happened to be on lower State Street on the 4th in order to patronize a barbershop run by a Chinese immigrant who is just barely hanging on, thanks to the decimation wrought by the BLM mobs. I counted 6 empty storefront in a row on that block, including the once-gleaming UnderArmour outlet. Vagrants of various stripes everywhere. It’s going to take more than removing the buses to revive what was once Madison’s signature shopping/entertainment district–but of course this city is positively masterful at deluding itself. I agree with the three factors you cite in State Street’s demise, though I’d attribute 90% of it to the mayhem and destruction caused by “social justice activists” who got a brand-new pair of free Nikes for their efforts.
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Peepshows, Massage Parlors, Vape and Headshops, State Street will come full circle it is back to the 70s, and 80s. Remember when Paul Soglin ran the city, he may have been a hippie but he single handedly helped oversee the great Central Madison City revival. He stopped the Madness again briefly after Sue Bauman and Dave C mismanaged the city in 00’s. So sad really. Now they are back to square one because the mayor and city council are bunch of finger pointing lunatics they cannot get out of the way of their self made squalor.
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As much as Soggy has lost much of his Lenin tendencies, he did spruce the area up.Dave is a big Cheezewiz supporter so watch your step comrade!
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it is easier to like someone when they are out of power, especially when they are not proposing the great choo choo train trolley robbery in Madison anymore. MTA’s alike. His time as Mayor was not so good for Madison. Dave C’s, seemingly reasonable approach he blogs about currently is still about as common sense as Bike roundabouts. Would I take him over the current competently incompetent mayor, until he got in and started his choo choo scam again.
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“it is easier to like someone when they are out of power”
Yes. Just look at the leftist fawning over George W. Laughable, yet nauseating.
“especially when they are not proposing the great choo choo train trolley robbery in Madison anymore.”
And let’s not forget when he prioritized his pet projects over funding police. I recall residents stridently objected, to his dismay.
“Would I take him over the current competently incompetent mayor,”
Yes, better than Bauman and our current trainwreck, but not a prize by any stretch.
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Despite Soglin’s faults, he knew (for the most part) how to run a city.
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Like so many in his age cohort, Paul was raised in a comfortable upbringing and went to UW-Madison when it was actually a top-tier university. As so many who come to Madison from well-to-do suburban Chicago and East Coast families, he found a charming little playground in which to LARP as a radical Socialist.
Then — again like SO MANY in his age cohort — he grew up and had to pay the bills, ditched the tie-die shirts, bell bottom jeans, unkempt hair and scraggly beard and got respectable.
Paul was actually a decent mayor and got things done partly because he knew how to get around the Madison lefty crazies who still have not grown up. Some of them are in their 70s now with sagging droopy bodies, addled brains, and googly eyes… still spewing the same B.S. about “The Cause” while not realizing that the up and coming wokesters would push them off a cliff without thinking twice.
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“Some of them are in their 70s now with sagging droopy bodies, addled brains, and googly eyes… still spewing the same B.S. about “The Cause” while not realizing that the up and coming wokesters would push them off a cliff without thinking twice.”
Great analysis, and this part almost made me spit out my coffee!
I can kinda’ understand students and recent grads acting like fools because that’s all they know. Note that not all college students are like that; many are more mature.
College is not real life & most people who graduate and spend any time in the workforce come to understand this.
But to see people in their 40s and up (who should know better) still acting like dissidents & hippies and spewing inanity is confounding.
What do you think stunted their growth?
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Nice try. Nice distraction. I’m sure it was fun to ponder about. Aren’t they supposed to bring up trains again? Or weed legalization? That seems about their intellectual level. The bureaucrats don’t want to do anything substantial. They just want to play around with fun and titillating ideas. Its easier, its all they’re capable of. There was a real test of ability last spring and the bureaucrats couldn’t deliver. Look what they did to downtown and all of it’s businesses. Terrible. The lesbian mayor is childish. So is 2/3’s of the council. We live in a soft age. We don’t need ideas. We need adults.
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Nonsense, I toured State St. and the Square last summer. What Madison apparently needs is manufactured, poverty, dependence, drug use and righteous anarchy and, above all, fear.
And it has just the governance in place to accomplish this.
Seriously, if Madison had to be ruined it could not have done it better.
Oh yeah… “gun violence.”
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Lefty looney-toon thugbuggerists, street people, druggies and alkies all add to ambience of State Street. It’s an urban park maintained by the Central Parks Division of Makistan’s Public Works Dept. and was first “mauled” by Friedman and Associates in 1976. The amenities, glitter lights and pavements have been redone since then, but it’s showing it’s age and wear once again. State St. has gone way beyond it’s carrying capacity.
People don’t feel safe there. Unless the behavior of the clientele doesn’t change, no amount of public works improvements will bring in the straight, sane people with money to spend.
Mayopr Satya should don her choo-choo train cap and ask Makistan citizens, “How do you like my social engineering so far. ” Her policies exacerbated the problem, she should be responsible enough to try and fix it.
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Good report, Dave. SMH… Isthmus started posturing for this “transformation” via Citizen Dave and other writers many weeks ago. Now it appears to be an Anthem: the infamous trolleys, dismissal of any traffic and pie-in-the-sky “covered malls”. As George Patterson commented there frequently, “Don’cha think the plywood needs to come down 1st? And safety and well-being of patrons and tourists must be secured by the City?” George’sson took a look-see himself a few weeks ago: still mostly boards not windows, and deserted sidewalks. Plus, as the Squire observed, debris & squalor -With squatters resting in colorful dishabille in front of once exclusive & fashionable stores.
As David judiciously points out, the current “peace” is distinctly connected to the next-bad-thing soon to happen. And Gee, sometimes fine & warmer weather does NOT bode well.
Break me off a chunk of whatever is being consumed by these folks, will ya? It’s gotta be strong enuff to give even Hunter S Thompson some lizard frights….
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Fer shure but would you take the plywood down and replace the glass with the cop’s trial in MPLS and the onset of warm weather? And the current mayor, sheriff and governor?
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Or an incident ANYWHERE in North America, at any time, in which a criminal suspect who decides to resist arrest and fight police, and the officer has to use deadly force.
I wonder if the new vice president would still join protests and bail out rioters and looters.
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This town is all about image and status games. It doesn’t want to govern, in the true sense. Madison’s bureaucrats are always spending most of their time framing tomorrow’s problems that they want to solve. Look at the track record, these frames are rarely the real problems when tomorrow rolls around. Again, they don’t want to deal with the real current elephants in the room that their constituents want them to deal with.
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Tragic.
As long as there are Socialists, extremists, and unclear thinkers in city government, we can pretty much say goodbye to State Street as we once knew it. I honestly don’t see how things will improve at this point.
“The State Journal endorsed the right candidates but made only a tepid case.”
Because they’re afraid of alienating subscribers & advertisers and being targeted by the unstable. Fearless journalists, they’re not.
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How will the fire trucks get down the street when the shops are all aflame?
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All it would take to clean up the People’s Republic of Makistan and bring back a vibrant, safe, beautiful and prosperous community is the political will.
Unfortunately, there isn’t the will. Rather than having MPD do their jobs; serve and protect, enforce the law and roust the “urban campers” from the streets, street ends, parks and bushes, Neville Chamberlain Lefties subsidize, appease and accommodate bad behavior.
When a government, church or other social service agency allows and encourages continued bad behavior, that behavior continues. When you enforce the law, it works every time. It’s called “tough love”.
If the so-called compassionate Lefty really wanted to help “the least of these”,
… they’d encourage them to change their evil ways.
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Here’s a little dose of reality fer the WSJ, as they tout the “The template for success is the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colorado”. As suggested by more temperate minds, State Street is but a day or a week from another disastrous (“yet peaceful”) protest.
Dare I reiterate the warning from this blog host? “Ominously, jury selection has begun in Minneapolis for the trial of the policeman involved in the George Floyd incident.”
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