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by G. Sax

On "The Late Show with David Letterman," Dave asked Governor Jesse Ventura, "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". To which Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen."

Under a barrage of criticism from various Irish entities and St. Paulites alike, he apologized for what he said. I  thought it was a hilarious thing to say, and I'm from St. Paul and I'm Irish. But I'm also Polish and French and Swedish and German, so my mixed blood has had to endure plenty of good jokes about lightbulbs, surrender, and accents over the years.

It was a "lighten up" moment for St. Paul, and we failed. Is there really so much difference between the Fightin' Irish of Notre Dame and the Drunken' Irish of St. Paul? Okay, okay, don't get all riled up. Stereotypes are bad. I'm on your side.

But, seriously, about the streets. I almost feel bad for out-of-towners and people from Minneapolis. Without a GPS device or in-vehicle access to Google Maps, getting around is guesswork. And I'm not just talking about the angled streets and parkways. Even the grid streets are perplexing.

The image at the top of this post is a map of my life until about the age of 17. I grew up on Norton Street. It was one long city block, and that was it. My neighboring streets to the east and west also appear to be capped at the north, but waitaminnit. What's that in the northwest corner of the image. Mackubin inexplicably continues.

As I got into my driving years, I realized that Arundel wasn't done with its bad self either. In fact, each of these streets picks up and leaves off several times heading north and south, running into various dead ends and bodies of water and magically picking up after the interruption.

A street called Chatsworth is chopped into at least a dozen pieces as it marches north from West 7th (also known as Fort Road and 5). Here, I made a map link so you can see for yourself.

Erik Hare mentioned the Jesse flap in a good post about St. Paul street design. Both Teresa and Erik have mentioned Donald Empson's The Street Where You Live, which is an exhaustive guide to street names in the city of St. Paul.

A few years ago, I went to the Landmark Center in downtown St. Paul to hear Don talk about his book, but I showed up a little late after going on a tour of the Summit Brewery.

At the event, there were free buckets of chilled wine and even more Summit beer.

It was irresistible.

I really wanted to talk to Don, who was hanging around and taking one-on-one questions, but I never got around to it. Because, well, I'm Irish.