You Can Have The Town: Mary Richards and a Kid From D.C.

By Michael Maupin Saw her walking thru the crystal court/she made a scene by the revolving doors --The Hold Steady, Party Pit How Will You Make It On Your Own? We motored into Navarre, Minn., in our blue-green Chevy station wagon one snowy cold January in 1971. She came down to Minneapolis from a town up north with everything packed in her white Ford Mustang. My father would be starting a new job with the University of Minnesota. She left her friends, family, and a dead-end relationship, and landed a plum gig at WJM-TV. I was a shy kid, trying to make new friends. And she, of course, had spunk. Say it with me now. And we hate spunk. My first memories of Minneapolis blended with the real Minneapolis I grew to know and a sit-com that aired on Saturday nights at 8:30 p.m. When I was a couple years older, in 1975, my new Minnesotan friends and I rode the 51 bus from Minnetonka downtown and hung out at the IDS Crystal Court. We haunted the science fiction section at B. Dalton Bookseller, dug for quarters outside Baskin Robbins, rode the escalator up to the skyway level and gazed at where we would have supposed Mary Richards lunched with her date at the upper-level restaurant. At least, if you watched the show, you assumed thats where it all happened, like life on some parallel universe, a bizarre Star Trek episode. At the time, I had more in common with Phyllis Lindstroms precocious daughter Bess than anything concerning the newsroom chatter between cantankerous Lou Grant, sly Murray Slaughter or gullible Ted Baxter. After school, I was in thrall to TV Gilligans Island, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Familyall the bizarre, otherworldly family situations. But the Mary Tyler Moore show seemed to be happening in my new backyard.

The regular episodes were filmed in Los Angeles, with only Reza Badiyis iconic title montage shot in Minneapolis. Badiyi came up with the defining cap-tossing freeze frame, taken in the middle of Nicollet Avenue Mall near its intersection with 7th Street. Those people on the street were the people my friends and I saw as we waited for the bus that would shuttle us and our ice cream cones back to the suburban safety of Minnetonka.

Who Can Take a Nothing Day? It was one of Mary Richards default boyfriends, Howard, who put it all into perspective for me. When he was starting to feel pressured about a long-term relationship, he argued his case to Mary. I gotta have my freedomI gotta! I get the desire to jet up to Duluthone phone callthats it! I get the urge to spend one weekend inSt. Paul He snaps his fingers. Its done. Sure! This was the place to be. Looking through those broad picture windows of Marys apartment D at 119 North Weatherly (read: Lake of the Isles Boulevard), the seasons changed with startling clarity: in some episodes, Mary kept flowers on the balcony, behind which the dark green leaves of summer bloomed in the night air. Mostly the setting was winterbitter snow drifting down outside, the Foshay Tower noticeable grayly in the distance (which natives would know to be geographically impossible, but what the hell, its Hollywood), and the tree branches just at loft-height laden with ice and snow. What was there to do in Minneapolis in the 1970s? Well, if you were older, youd hit one of the ubiquitous fern bars satirized in Richard Guindons cartoons. When I attended the University of Minnesota, my friend Therese and I often met over margaritas at The Haberdashery on 7th Street. Our family regularly ate at The Jolly Troll buffet in Golden Valley. Could I imagine Mary Richards there? No, not particularlyalthough it wouldnt surprise me if Murray and Marie Slaughter could be found ahead of us in line for the Jello desserts.

Why Dont You Take It? So, Im hoping theres a somewhat logical projection to all this; I mean, if some postmillennial Mary Richards were to arrive in Minneapolis, and had the town to take all over again, what would could we advise her to do? Get out of the office more. Urge Lou to have power lunches at Peters Grill (back again after a short absence). While Ted would be over at Aveda getting a manicure, Murray could be doing research at the new library (hours limited, unfortunately). Cultivate your friends. Rhoda does window dressing? A lot of young theater troupes need set dressers. The pay may not be up to Mary Richards standards, but at least Rhoda keeps her creative integrity. After a hard days work, loosen up with cocktails at Mels Beauty Bar. Cmon, Mare. You owe it to yourself. And to Rhoda. Lighten up. Okay, so meeting men is a problem, then as well as nowthere are options for a single woman like Mary Richards.