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Minneapolis Rioters Burned One Of America’s Most Beloved Independent Bookstores To The Ground
The Federalist ^ | June 1, 2020 | Tony Daniel

Posted on 06/01/2020 5:26:07 AM PDT by gattaca

Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's were legendary among the community of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery readers—and now they're gone.

Venerable Minneapolis science fiction and fantasy bookstore Uncle Hugo’s and its sister store in the same building, Uncle Edgar’s, which specialized in mysteries, were both burned to ruins last Friday night by rioters.

The store took its name from two major awards in the genre fields, science fiction’s Hugo awards, and mysteries Edgar’s. Independent bookstores are a threatened American institution, and Uncle Hugo’s was considered a flagship operation. Owner Don Blyly was noted for his ability to adapt to modern bookselling conditions and serve an audience of devoted genre readers. With most independent book shops, the margins are low and often owners are in the business as much for love as for money. For Don Blyly, it doesn’t matter anymore.

The books are burned. His shop is gone.

“There was a call from the security company around 3:30 this morning that the motion detector was showing somebody in the building. I threw on clothes and headed over there,” said Blyly in an email. “When I was 2 blocks away, I received a call that the smoke detectors were showing smoke in the store. Every single building on both sides of Chicago was blazing and dozens of people dancing around.”

Uncle Hugo’s was located at 2864 Chicago Avenue, in Minneapolis. Blyly pulled into the parking lot belonging to the dentist office next door to his shop. Flames were already leaping out the front windows of the Uncle Hugo’s side of the store.

“It looked to me like they had broken every window on the front of the Uncles and then squirted accelerant through each broken window. It looked hopeless to me, but I went around to the back door to see if I could get to a fire extinguisher. As soon as I opened the back door a wave of very thick black smoke poured out, so I quickly closed the door again.”

Blyly then heroically rushed over to the nextdoor office building. It’s garage-door style side entrance had been opened and he entered to try to extinguish any fire. He made it to an inside break room, but when he opened a door to the main clinic, smoke poured out and he had to evacuate. Outside, he observed that his own store was entirely engulfed in flames. He turned his attention to getting away from the area.

“Some of the rioters were busy breaking every pane of glass in the transit hub,” Blyly continued. “The former Sheraton did not seem to be on fire yet, and there were guests who were staying there. It looked like somebody may have broken a window on the first floor along Chicago and started a fire, but it could have just been a reflection of the flames from the Uncles.”

The Uncles is how Blyly refers to his bookstore.

“I didn’t notice anything going on yet at the Global Marketplace, but the rioters were headed in that direction. There is no way a mere fire could bring that building down, but it could wipe out all of those businesses, and there are hundreds of people who live above the Global Marketplace who could be trapped by the smoke.”

Blyly considered several possible exit routes.

“Since Chicago Avenue was full of dancing rioters, broken glass, and flaming debris, I went down the alley and took Lake Street home. There were blocks of Lake Street where every building was blazing. No sign of any cops, national guard troops, or any help.”

Blyly expressed doubts that insurance would cover his loss. “I’m pretty sure the insurance policy excludes damage from a civil insurrection, so I suspect I won’t get a cent for either the building or the contents.”

Uncle Hugo’s was known in the often politically contentious science fiction community as a place where good books and good storytelling was prized above all else. Blyly took a decidedly nonpartisan stance when it came to what he sold. The physical store supplied a wide mailing list as well, with often hard to find first and special editions of books.

Author-signed copies, particularly first editions, were an Uncles specialty. Everything was destroyed by the rioters’ firebombing of the establishment. As of Saturday morning, the Uncles appeared entirely gutted, and lay a smoldering ruin. Countless specialty books, priceless to readers and collectors, had been burned to crisps and cinders.

There are already fundraising efforts underway, and Blyly has the pluck to rebuild given funds and the opportunity, but a neighborhood institution like Uncle Hugo’s is difficult to replace under any circumstances.

We all know who burned Uncle Hugo’s. It wasn’t “Nazis,” or the cops in some kind of conspiracy to cast blame. It was the Minneapolis rioters. Book-burning scum, in other words. Or, as my wife reminds me, misguided children of God for whom we should pray.

The political moral to draw is obvious and banal. But when a cultural institution like a good bookstore is burned, the damage goes beyond the physical. It is not really possible to merely clean up and rebuild, as you might a Target or a police station. The bustle of the street, the fabric of the city itself, is damaged. The destruction of a bookstore hurts people’s souls, even if they don’t realize this.

“A city cannot be a work of art,” Jane Jacobs writes in her seminal book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” By this she means that a city is not like a statue. It is an unplanned web, a crazy network of individuals doing productive, artistic, crazy, and interesting things, all at once. It pulsates with life and change in some areas, accretes tradition or staleness, or both, in others. It’s never the same.

The hustle and bustle of the street, the shops and restaurants and churches and halfway houses and all the rest engender this hustle and bustle. When you burn such places down (or, as was Jacobs’ concern, plough them under with ill-conceived top-down urban projects), you are not clearing for renewal. You are destroying the very possibility for growth and change in a community. You are killing hope.

“The economic value of new buildings in replaceable in cities,” Jacobs writes. “But the economic value of old buildings is irreplaceable at will. It is created by time. This economic requisite for diversity is a requisite that vital city neighborhoods can only inherit, and then sustain over the years.”

Cities stripped of places like Uncle Hugo’s become pits of despair, barbarism, and danger because the businesses are gone and buildings are burned. Don Blyly may rebuild with our help.

But no amount of money or good wishes after the fact can renew a city that has stood by and allowed its own heart to be ripped out. Or worse, that rips out its own heart and calls it justice.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Minnesota
KEYWORDS: alamia; bookburners; bookburning; books; bookstores; censors; civilunrest; communistrevolution; culturalmarxism; fantasy; farleftextremists; firemen; literature; minneapolis; minnesota; mysteries; mystery; nazis; obamasfault; orwelliannightmare; pages; riot; riots; sciencefiction; scifi; tragedy; uncleedgars; unclehugos
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To: gattaca

Black business owner Please BURN my business, sets up gofundme page. Wonder if Guy Fieri likes them using his photo? Must have been off one of the DDD shows.

As of this writing $46,371 has been raised. The initial goal was $3,500.

This family believes their business should be burned down because it somehow stops racism or police brutality?

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2020/05/30/minneapolis-restaurant-owner-let-my-building-burn-justice-needs-to-be-served-n2569735?fbclid=IwAR2aWFPmbs2RgwyHZAZ2XQKa09WAZptG67hndJYdhA8dVQkMPV22g0MF1MI


41 posted on 06/01/2020 5:49:27 AM PDT by GailA ( I AM A TRUMP GIRL)
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To: DAC21

>>The Pol Pot arm of the Democratic party strikes. Destroy anything educational, destroy wealth.

BUMP

Maoists love to destroy the past and those who remember the past.


42 posted on 06/01/2020 5:49:32 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Joe Biden- "First thing I'd do is repeal those Trump tax cuts." (May 4th, 2019))
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To: gattaca
Is Uncle Leo OK?


43 posted on 06/01/2020 5:49:39 AM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: GailA

44 posted on 06/01/2020 5:50:22 AM PDT by GailA ( I AM A TRUMP GIRL)
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To: gattaca

The looters wouldn’t know what to do with a book if you gave them one. They are moronic savages.


45 posted on 06/01/2020 5:51:01 AM PDT by I want the USA back (I fear my government more than the Chinese bug.)
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To: conservative98

Liberals love their protesters. Makes them feel like Russian revolutionaries instilling communism.


46 posted on 06/01/2020 5:51:04 AM PDT by CodeToad (Arm Up! They Have!)
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To: DAC21

Black Panthers co-founder Bobby Seale talks barbecue and the Black Panthers:

Labor Day Bobby-que - By Ben White
September 1, 2007
https://www.vice.com/read/bobby-v14n9

(Interviewer): What was Eldridge like?

Seale: Eldridge was just a pure anarchist. He wanted to pull that Bakunin b***s*** off, you know what I mean? I mean, to show you what I’m talking about, Eldridge put out a pamphlet called “Catechism of a Revolutionary”-this is after that shoot-out situation. This is a Black Panther Party Ministry of Information pamphlet. I had not read this ****, OK? I did not know it was all Bakunin, the 1800s anarchist. And Marlon Brando called me up, he said, “Bobby! I’m not going to send you any more money.” Because Brando would give me money. I guess he must have donated ten grand to me. But he says, “I’m not gonna work with you guys any more. You’re running around telling people to kill their mother and father for the revolution. That ain’t right.” I said, “We don’t do any such g**d*** thing, what the hell’s wrong with you, Marlon?” “Here on page so-and-so!” “Of what?” He says, “Your ‘Catechism of a Revolutionary’!” So I says, “Rosemary, hand me that out of my briefcase.” I had the thing in my briefcase for two months and never read the damn thing because I’m busy, I’m organizing too much. So I got on page so-and-so, and he’s reading, “Kill their mothers and...” and I says, “Damn, I’m sorry, man...” He says, “OK, I’ll see you, bye”-click. So I lost my funding source because of Eldridge Cleaver’s bull. Later in life, I’m really taking the time to look at this and put two and two together. When I go back to speaking with Eldridge in 1992, we got a chance to get in various conversations. So I’m asking Eldridge, you had “Catechism of a Revolutionary.” I remember you called Martin Luther King a nonviolent fool. Now you’re a born-again Christian on the other side of the fence. So when Little Bobby Hutton was killed, were you operating from the standpoint of “Catechism of a Revolutionary”? He said, yeah, I was just stupid, I just thought we had to do something, boom boom boom.

(Interviewer): What does “Catechism of a Revolutionary” say, exactly?

Seale: It’s based on Bakunin. He ran around and said kill officials of the government of all kinds, murder them, shoot them down in the street, blah blah blah. Kill the police and so on-anything that represents the state.


47 posted on 06/01/2020 5:51:22 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Joe Biden- "First thing I'd do is repeal those Trump tax cuts." (May 4th, 2019))
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To: gattaca

You will notice they didn’t loot the books. Work boots are also safe from being looted.


48 posted on 06/01/2020 5:51:32 AM PDT by SkyPilot ("I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6)
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To: KarlInOhio

“Did they at least save a copy of Fahrenheit 451?”

I doubt it. They are the kind who would read, if they could, Fahrenheit 911.


49 posted on 06/01/2020 5:52:42 AM PDT by libh8er
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To: RummyChick
they tried to burn down the historic St Johns church

They don’t believe in God, either.

50 posted on 06/01/2020 5:53:10 AM PDT by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Gone but not forgiven.)
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To: KarlInOhio
Did they at least save a copy of Fahrenheit 451?

The irony of that statement is so hard, you could break a hammer on it.

The loss of Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's is being seriously mourned by the fandoms of those genres. I am also reminded that there's another well-known bookstore that could be a target...Powell's Books in Portland, OR. It takes up an entire city block and has three floors of all kinds of books. It's known all over the world for its selection.

But...it's Portland. Hotbed of ultra-liberal thinking. Who knows what'll happen.

51 posted on 06/01/2020 5:54:05 AM PDT by hoagy62 (DTCM&OTTH)
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To: RummyChick
I don't know about a blackout, but here's a Link to a video of the riots in DC last night. Can't believe these people live in my country.
52 posted on 06/01/2020 5:55:47 AM PDT by 11th_VA (May you live in interesting times - Ancient Chinese Proverb)
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To: cgbg

You and my wife could talk books easily.

She has countless amounts.

I broke my back moving them.

As for me, I almost never open one now.


53 posted on 06/01/2020 5:56:19 AM PDT by wally_bert (Transmission tone, Selma.)
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To: BuffaloJack

>>>I first thought the killing was random, but knowing that the cop and the victim knew each other and had both been security officers for the same company tells me there was a bad blood personal grudge present. This wasn’t a random killing by a cop. This was a murder of opportunity.

Hard to say but now even AP, CNN, and Fox have admitted and reported that both parties had worked together.

When you work security at a club, and the clientele speak Spanish, I am going to assume that those who speak English may speak to each other at a point.

And my understanding of venues that have hired police on hand AND bouncers, the bouncer contains a situation and lets the police officer handle the heavy work. Patrons cannot throw a punch at the uniformed officer. There is legal liability for the club when a bouncer throws a punch.


54 posted on 06/01/2020 5:56:33 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Joe Biden- "First thing I'd do is repeal those Trump tax cuts." (May 4th, 2019))
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To: gattaca; All

Thanks for posting. Historical. ANY pawns or ANY of their Kings & Queens in jail yet?


55 posted on 06/01/2020 5:58:01 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: Salamander

Irony would be Antifa burning down the local Anarchist Bookstore.


56 posted on 06/01/2020 5:58:16 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Joe Biden- "First thing I'd do is repeal those Trump tax cuts." (May 4th, 2019))
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To: a fool in paradise

I expect these book stores were going to survive this China Virus.

That’s why they’re burned.


57 posted on 06/01/2020 5:59:02 AM PDT by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: cgbg

>>Current science fiction is best understood as comedy—ya know, Africa leading a new technological revolution, stuff like that... ;-)

Isn’t Afrofuturism a 50 year genre?

Sun Ra preached it.

the Disney Black Panther movie embraced it.


58 posted on 06/01/2020 5:59:33 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Joe Biden- "First thing I'd do is repeal those Trump tax cuts." (May 4th, 2019))
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To: a fool in paradise

Thanks for #47. BUMP!


59 posted on 06/01/2020 6:02:42 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: GailA

>>”I’ve been supporting Black Lives Matter for a very long time, and they have been fighting and protesting peacefully for the longest time. And you know, it just came to a point where this is the only way that a change could happen ... And it wasn’t until this much had to happen for them to just get that officer in custody,” Hafsa told TODAY. “That tells you a lot about how our system works and how far we need to take it so black lives in America can get the justice they deserve.”

I’m aware of white people and hispanic people who’ve been assaulted and killed by police as well. Why not protest ALL unjust police on citizen deaths?

Separate. Divide. Polarize.


60 posted on 06/01/2020 6:02:58 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Joe Biden- "First thing I'd do is repeal those Trump tax cuts." (May 4th, 2019))
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