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DAN OLSON: I'm Dan Olson on University Avenue, here at the border of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. I'm looking down at Prospect Park neighborhood in Minneapolis. You know you're in or near Prospect Park when you see the witch's hat water tower. It's just across the street from me here. It's the most familiar landmark and the highest point of land in Minneapolis.

When you ask the question here, how big a deal is light rail on University Avenue, you might hear the answer not as big a deal as 40 years ago when road builders aimed interstate 94 at Prospect Park.

JOE RING: We're next to the Frank Lloyd Wright home. That home would have been gone. The area that we're parked in would be gone. This would actually be an exit that would be going to University Avenue. It would have cut right through Prospect Park.

DAN OLSON: Prospect Park resident Joe Ring, a former neighborhood Association President and a longtime activist is leading me on a tour of the Minneapolis neighborhood. Where by the sound wall next to interstate 94, which is just steps away from a beautiful small red brick house, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

JOE RING: Take a right turn at Seymour. We're on Franklin. And Franklin is one of the major arterial streets through the community. It was purposely kept from being widened, so that it maintained more of a residential flavor.

DAN OLSON: Prospect Park has always been smack dab in the way of anyone wanting to get from Minneapolis to Saint Paul in a timely fashion. That's been a geographical fact of life from 150 years ago, Joe Ring says. All the way back to the ox cart trail days of the 1850s, even before there was a Prospect Park.

JOE RING: All of those ox cart trails literally came right through Prospect Park.

DAN OLSON: Prospect Park may have faced its biggest threat 40 years ago. Residents rallied to change the interstate 94 route. They helped convince engineers to take 100 homes instead of slashing through the center of the neighborhood and destroying many more.

That hasn't been the only challenge to Prospect Park's existence. The neighborhood has witnessed the coming and the going, Joe Ring says, of farm equipment manufacturer ring, heavy industry, and even the Twin Cities electric streetcar system.

JOE RING: We had the International Harvester. We had World airflow corporation. We had the trolley barns where all the trolleys were constructed.

DAN OLSON: Joe Rings view is the expansion of the nearby University of Minnesota poses a bigger threat to the existence of Prospect Park's varied collection of homes and its small town atmosphere than the central corridor light rail line.

JOE RING: It's moving a lot of its campus population off campus. It is developing like many people have heard about the biotech corridor that will be going right through us.

DAN OLSON: Prospect Park's newest effort to ensure its survival is historic designation. Residents are working with local, state, and federal government officials to have the neighborhood labeled a historic district. That means any plan that changes the character of the neighborhood has to pass through more hoops.

[TRAIN]

LAURA YUEN: I'm Laura Yuen at University in Fairview. From this vantage point, you could have seen nearly every mode of transportation go by over the years. Way back in the 19th century, the Twin Cities business community wanted to build one of the grandest boulevards in the world.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Oceans [INAUDIBLE]

LAURA YUEN: But University Avenue never shaped up that way. Instead of Vuitton stores and sidewalk cafes, the Avenue attracted muffler shops and car lots. Urban grit and tailpipe exhaust have long been part of the street's character. On University Avenue, the automobile rules.

The epicenter of car culture is Porky's drive-in. On Friday and Saturday nights, dozens of vintage muscle cars strut their engines. And old timers relive their youth.

LARRY CASCELLA: onion rings are the same as they were back in 1958, still greasy and good.

LAURA YUEN: As Larry and Rosie Cascella remember it, the cruising scene on University Avenue was straight out of a movie.

SPEAKER: (SINGING) American Graffiti.

Where were you in 62?

LAURA YUEN: Rosie was a 19-year-old carhop delivering burgers to boys in their cars. Larry Casella arrived in a 1951 Ford two-door hardtop. He'll never forget the first moment he saw her.

LARRY CASCELLA: Back then the carhops all wore white sweaters, tight white sweaters. I said, hey, that's for me.

ROSIE CASCELLA: No, you didn't. You said, I'm going to marry her someday.

LARRY CASCELLA: Yeah, actually, I did say that. I said that's the lady I'm going to marry. And two years later, and we got married.

LAURA YUEN: Back then Larry Casella's motto was every night is like a weekend. He would start the evening by washing his car then head out to downtown Saint Paul to meet up with friends, then cruise back and forth on University.

LARRY CASCELLA: You know you go to Las Vegas and everybody goes to the strip? Well, Saint Paul, for the young crowd, University Avenue was the place.

LAURA YUEN: While the avenues cruising scene doesn't hold a candle to its heyday, flashy cars still troll along the unusually wide street, mostly to show off.

SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE] to the suburban.

SPEAKER: Yes, sparks.

LAURA YUEN: Just a few blocks East, another group of motorheads is congregating in a tire store parking lot. It's roughly the same scene, only they're much younger. And they all drive Subarus.

FUKANG: I have a Subaru Impreza station wagon, soccer mom station wagon.

LAURA YUEN: Fukang is 22. He admits that most of these cars look like they were designed to get groceries. But they've been modified to run really fast and really loud.

FUKANG: If you go a little bit west, it goes to more muscle cars. If you go east, it goes to more imports, such as--

RYAN MCMAHON: We could do a very complete history of transportation just by going along University Avenue. Every mode, every period, every type.

LAURA YUEN: Ryan McMahon heads the planning group University United. He's also a history buff who has researched the Street's role as an ever changing transportation corridor for sales and manufacturing.

RYAN MCMAHON: We literally made everything, trucks, cars, streetcars, carriages.

LAURA YUEN: And at one point, you'd find cars, pedestrians, and trolleys competing for space on the Avenue. Grant and Meredith Robinson remember those days. Now in their 80s, they aren't overly nostalgic about the trolley. To them, it was more of a fact of life.

GRANT ROBINSON: It was noisy. And if you lived on a streetcar line, you knew.

MEREDITH ROBINSON: Click, click, click, click, click, click.

GRANT ROBINSON: Well also their metal wheels on metal tracks. When a streetcar went around a corner, it really screeched.

LAURA YUEN: But the two took the trolley everywhere to Montgomery Ward for back to school shopping or to the University of Minnesota, where they both attended. Trolley riders in the Twin Cities eventually abandoned the streetcars for buses and automobiles. The last streetcar came to a stop in 1954.

The Robinsons live right here at University and Fairview in a senior residence. They can't wait for the streetcar to return in the form of a light rail train. They know they won't be able to drive forever, so the idea of mass transit seems liberating.

MEREDITH ROBINSON: I think it's going to happen. I don't know if we'll still be here. It's slow.

GRANT ROBINSON: I'll be lucky to be vertical.

LAURA YUEN: After the streetcar died, University Avenue reinvented itself yet again as a place to buy a car.

SPEAKER: And when you travel, go in one of the quality motor cars your neighborhood Chevrolet dealer has to offer. It will be your magic carpet.

LAURA YUEN: Car dealer Tom Krebsbach always associated the automobile with freedom. His father Tom Senior owned midway Chevrolet in the 1970s and eventually passed it on to his son. Just about any car made in America you could buy on University Avenue.

TOM KREBSBACH: It was huge. It was the premier car strip in the state of Minnesota. I think at one time there might have been 17 car dealerships on University Avenue. And gradually over the years, they just kept moving out and out and out and into the suburbs.

LAURA YUEN: Midway Chevy was the last holdout. Business dried up, and Krebsbach says his property taxes kept rising. He closed the dealership last year and merged with another dealer in the burbs, ending an era on University Avenue. He says with a smirk that this is the price of progress.

Now the city has new zoning rules aimed to limit car oriented businesses on the Avenue. Urban planners say oil change shops and dealerships waste land, deter walking, and are not the best use for a transit corridor.

TOM KREBSBACH: They want to see high density housing, pedestrian-friendly businesses. That's their new mantra.

LAURA YUEN: Krebsbach says he's not through selling cars just yet. He may open a new smaller car lot on the old midway Chevy site. And he knows that he must accept the idea of sharing his street with a train.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: I'm William Wilcoxen at University in Lexington. About 28,000 drivers per day pass this stretch of University as they make their way around the region. But the Avenue has long been a destination in its own right as well. For 60 years, this corner attracted fans of the national pastime.

Lexington Park was home to minor League Baseball's original Saint Paul Saints. By the 1950s, the Saints and their Cross River competition, the Minneapolis Millers had developed a rivalry that mirrored one of the fiercest in the major leagues.

SPEAKER: One out. Last of the ninth [INAUDIBLE] Bobby Thompson takes a strike call on the inside corner.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: The most talented Saints were promoted to the Brooklyn Dodgers, while the Millers were a farm team for the New York Giants. So before they did battle in Gotham, stars like Duke Snider and Willie Mays played at Lexington Park and tried to hit home runs onto the roof of a roller skating rink that also fronted University. Twin Cities baseball historian Stew Thornley says some of the highlights of the season for local baseball fans occurred on summer holidays.

STEW THORNLEY: The Saint Paul Saints and Minneapolis Millers would play a doubleheader with a morning game at one ballpark and an afternoon game on the other. And the fans would get onto the streetcars. And it was probably about a 7 mile ride.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Streetcars also carried dancers to Saint Paul's prom ballroom. When Glenn Miller's orchestra played the prom's opening night in 1941, the floor was reportedly crowded by nearly 6,000 dancers with half as many turned away at the door. The prom became part of a ballroom circuit that attracted the leading big bands of the era.

SPEAKER: It's dance time again at the beautiful air-conditioned Prom Ballroom, 1190 University Avenue, midway between the Twin Cities. And for the next 25 minutes we invite you to listen to the music of Harry Gibson and his orchestra, bringing you music--

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: When trumpeter Jules Herman and singer Lois best left Lawrence Welk's orchestra to form their own group, they settled in as the House band at the prom, playing regular dates there for 30 years. In the '50s, rock and roll acts came to the prom. Buddy Holly played one of his last shows there. Some Twin Citians remember nights when big bands and rock and roll combos would alternate sets at the prom, so that parents and teenagers alike could have it turned on the dance floor.

By the 1960s, Saint Paul, like most American cities, was changing. New interstate highways allowed people with means to commute to the city from new suburban homes. To compete with the suburban cineplex, a historic movie house at University and Dale reinvented itself embracing a new type of feature film that emerged in the 1970s.

SPEAKER: Don't worry, honey everybody gets a little piece of this action.

[LAUGHS]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Pornographic movies like Deep Throat drew customers to the Faust theater. Sitting in a restaurant on the Avenue, retired Saint Paul Police Chief Bill Finney remembers the Faust anchored what became a district of sex-related businesses that attracted men from throughout the Twin Cities area.

BILL FINNEY: Kitty-corner from the Faust was the Belmont, the Belmont which was a topless dancing bar, topless and occasionally bottomless. Going East toward the capital there was a place called the Bunny Patch. And then there was a number of little X-rated stores. And it moved the prostitution. The streetwalkers moved from Selby Avenue and downtown to University Avenue.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Finney says women who live near University were commonly harassed by men cruising for prostitutes. Former Mayor George Latimer remembers riding along with police as they arrested a steady stream of men who propositioned undercover officers. Clearly, this was not the kind of destination city leaders wanted University Avenue to be.

But First Amendment protections prevented Saint Paul from unilaterally shutting down the strip joints and porn shops clustered there. Finally, Latimer says the city resorted to negotiating a purchase of the offending properties, essentially buying out the smut peddlers.

GEORGE LATIMER: It seemed kind of crazy at the time to be spending public dollars to buy up porn shops.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: The city quickly changed the area, turning the Belmont club into a police station. A public library now occupies the site of the Faust. But the exile of the sex industry from University was accomplished by societal changes as much as any policy decision. Video cassette tapes made X-rated theaters obsolete. Finney says much of the prostitution migrated to escort services and more recently to the internet.

These days University is home to several gathering places that cater to particular clienteles, but together, paint a picture of the Twin Cities diversity. When Arnelle's Bar on University was threatened with loss of its business licenses, many African-American residents rallied around the nightspot, telling city officials Arnelle's has an importance in the Black community that makes it more than just another watering hole.

Tracy Williams is President of the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, a Minneapolis based newspaper serving the African-American community. Williams says Arnelle's is the only Twin Cities bar owned by a Black woman.

TRACY WILLIAMS: And we do an event here called Sister Spokesman. And it brings 200 women around in a Saturday afternoon once a month. It's a gathering place for us. It's a gathering place where we're able to have a venue to come and sit down and network and talk about issues that are important to us as African-American women.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Not far from Arnelle's sits the townhouse bar, an establishment that dates from the 1920s and today is popular with gay and lesbian residents. And a little further down the Avenue is another decades old bar.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Owner Tom Scanlon says in 70 plus years, the Turf Club has evolved from a grocery store to a cafe to ballroom dancing to country Western music to its current place as Saint Paul's leading venue for up and coming rock bands. Scanlon says the club draws music fans from all over the Twin Cities area.

TOM SCANLON: The Turf Club is definitely a destination. Not so sure we get a lot of walk in traffic because we kind of live and die with the music here. If we have the right bands, and that's when we get the crowds. So it's all about the music.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Scanlon says the places that have remained on University Avenue for decades are those that have managed to change with the times.

JESS MADOR: I'm Jess Mador at University and Dale in the most ethnically diverse and fastest growing neighborhood in the city of Saint Paul, Frogtown. I'm standing next to one of Frogtown's biggest attractions, the Shuanghui Supermarket where owner Daisy Wang loves to show off her produce section.

DAISY WANG: This is mo gwa. And these are-- they're melon, but the Asian-style melon.

JESS MADOR: Wang opened the store with her husband and family about five years ago. She says the diversity of University Avenue was a big draw.

DAISY WANG: How are you? [MANDARIN]

JESS MADOR: This shopper says she comes to find her favorite tropical fruits and vegetables.

DAISY WANG: A lot of things that we miss and we couldn't find in American grocery store.

JESS MADOR: Frogtown has always been a melting pot. It was settled in the mid to late 1800s, sprouting up around the railroads and the industries that served them. Railroad jobs attracted scores of immigrants from across Europe. By the time the streetcar lines were laid down around the turn of the century, Frogtown was a thriving working class community, with a bustling commercial district.

But as the industry began to disappear in the '70s, Frogtown fell into deep decline. The area soon became notorious for drugs, crime, and prostitution. Into this downward spiral came new immigrants from Southeast Asia. Hmong refugees escaping violence in Laos Thailand and elsewhere took advantage of Frogtown's cheap housing. They established businesses and set off a new wave of Asian immigration that continues to this day.

Business owner Daisy Wang worries that construction of the light rail line could destroy the small businesses that give University Avenue its distinct character.

DAISY WANG: There's some beautiful really good restaurants servicing to the community. And they're really, really busy. We really need to protect those people. And those people need to stay because without them, University wouldn't be the same.

JESS MADOR: Historian Brian Horrigan says it'll be a tough battle to keep them. Horrigan, curator at the Minnesota Historical Society and board member of the preservation group historic Saint Paul, says he's concerned that existing homes and businesses will be displaced if central corridor drives up property values.

BRIAN HORRIGAN: It's quite tempting to see these things as development opportunities and things getting torn down and building upscale condominium housing, that kind of thing. It's something to be concerned about I think.

JESS MADOR: Horrigan says the city and state should start now to protect the neighborhoods along University Avenue. Community organizer Veronica Bert agrees. Bert works for the Aurora Saint Anthony Neighborhood Development Corporation. She says the plan for central corridor should set aside a percentage of construction jobs for neighborhood residents and include affordable housing. If those kinds of guarantees were in place, Bert says, more people might get behind the project.

VERONICA BERT: That sends a message to the community that this is a project that can also be helpful to your needs and your community development aspirations. But evidently, that's not the message we're getting. So a lot of people see that the project like this is for somebody else and not them.

JESS MADOR: For some in Saint Paul, the proposal brings back bad memories of another major transportation project that destroyed a neighborhood just south of University.

SPEAKER: What we need is to invest more money in good new roads, instead of spending so much patching up worn out ones.

JESS MADOR: During the mid-century highway boom that swept the nation, Minnesota began constructing interstate 94 in the '50s.

SPEAKER: This is the American dream of freedom on wheels. Our highway engineers know the way.

JESS MADOR: While residents of Prospect Park on the West End were able to protect most of their neighborhood from destruction, this side of Saint Paul wasn't so lucky. Many longtime Saint Paul residents remember that time vividly.

YUSUF MJINI: Like it was yesterday.

JESS MADOR: At the Golden Time coffee shop, Yusuf Mjini recalls being a child when the government began seizing homes and businesses to make way for 94. The new highway cut down Rondo Avenue, the commercial core of Saint Paul's African-American business district.

YUSUF MJINI: Senior citizens, people who had worked all their lives to purchase their homes were basically being told to get out. And then the bulldozers would come and knock the houses down. It just devastated people. They were absolutely crushed. They felt like they'd been violated. And I think our community was violated.

JESS MADOR: David Brooks' family still owns and operates the Brooks' funeral home, an original 1929 Rondo business. The first location was displaced by the building of '94.

DAVID BROOKS: I remember Rondo when it existed. Everybody said hello whether you knew them or not. And people always had their doors open, so they could say, could I borrow a cup of sugar? It was family. It was community, everything.

JESS MADOR: Brooks says even though his family business was able to prosper after it moved, it's still upsetting to remember the pain the community suffered when Rondo disappeared. Even critics admit that Rondo and central corridor are very different projects. The light rail isn't expected to displace University Avenue homes or businesses, but the fear is that like Rondo, the light rail could ultimately disrupt them, altering the diversity of this historic Avenue.

BRIAN HORRIGAN: There is something about a freeway that obliterates not only the landscape, but obliterates memory.

JESS MADOR: Historian Brian Horrigan.

BRIAN HORRIGAN: And that's what's tragic because you lose those really important ties to the past.

JESS MADOR: Community organizer Carol Swensen says the culture of neighborhoods is worth preserving. She says it shouldn't be sacrificed for big infrastructure projects.

CAROL SWENSEN: The thing will be built, and they'll be off building another one someplace else. And then the community and the people who are left behind to deal with it and work with it have to do that. And if they can be involved in the process and have some ownership along the way, it has a lot stronger opportunity for success.