There's So Much Confusion, I Can't Get No Relief

The part of the city (Northeast Minneapolis) on the East side of the river was originally the City of Saint Anthony but was merged with the City of Minneapolis after the bridges were built. This led to the laying out of a Washington Street in Northeast Minneapolis and an entirely separate Washington Avenue running through North and Downtown Minneapolis, the U of M East and West Bank campuses, and Stadium Village. This in turn was divided into Washington Avenue North and Washington Avenue South at the intersection of Washington Avenue and Nicollet Avenue.

You can barely imagine how much fun it was to have to give directions to people.

I grew up in a house on Northeast Washington Street and I used to run the outdoor parking lot for a building at 100 Washington Avenue South.

I would have some people asking me for directions to "100 Washington Street" and I would tell them that there was no such address as NE Washington Street actually began at about the 800 block. I would then suggest that they were in fact looking for 100 Washington Avenue but they wouldn't listen to me.

Or someone would come up and just ask for "100 Washington Avenue" and I ask them if it was North or South. If they said North I would tell them that the location was a parking lot across First Avenue from the (now defunct) Pontiac dealership on the other side of Hennepin Avenue.

If someone just said they were looking for "Washington Street" I would tell them that they were on the wrong side of the river.

The parking lot I ran in Downtown Minneapolis was also a block away from the main Post Office. One day someone came up and asked for directions to it.

I just pointed east to the end of Marquette Avenue and said that it was right there. The main Post Office in Minneapolis was a MASSIVE limestone building constructed in the Fascist Modern style of the 1930's with big letters spelling UNITED STATES POST OFFICE on the other side of a "T" intersection in plain view short block away from my booth at the parking lot.

The idiot said that she couldn't see it.

I no idea how these people managed to reach my location in the first place, I'm not sure that I even want to know.
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