Odd Twin Cities — The Downtown Edition

A Photo Tour Of Odd, Unusual, And Weird
Sights In The Twin Cities Downtown Areas

By John Weeks

Introduction Here are a collection of odd, unusual, and interesting locations in the Twin Cities downtown areas that I have stumbled over in the past 20 years since I have moved to the Twin Cities. If you know of other similar stories or things in the Twin Cities that are just plain odd, please let me know.

Note—click on each photo to see the full size image.

Weisman Art Museum This pile of stainless steel at first glance looks like something that is still being built, or is being taken down. As it turns out, it was done that way on purpose, just as it was designed by famous architect Frank Gehry. The building itself is the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum on the campus of the University of Minnesota.

Critics have described the design process as crumpling up a piece of tin foil, unfolding it, and then building the result full size. On lookers have called it a jumble, humorous, dynamic, and angular. At any rate, the building has certainly accomplished its three main goals, that is, of being a work of art itself, of being a great art museum, and being a signature building for the community.

Gehry has gone on to build several more vastly more ambitious buildings in this style. These include the Guggenheim in Bilbao (Spain) and the Experience Music Project in Seattle. While these buildings are done completely in this style of flowing slabs of metal, the Weisman Museum is remarkably covered three fourths in brick on the exterior. The building acts as an optical illusion to pull your eyes towards the stainless steel slabs, and you never notice the brick until it is pointed out.

U of M Library This is the secret back-door entrance to the University of Minnesota's Elmer L. Andersen Library. While part of the library is built above ground high on the river bluffs, the bulk of the storage space is located far underground in two huge man-made caverns. These two story caverns required a total of over 100,000 cubic yards of material to be mined and removed. The reason for going underground is the climate. The underground rooms are naturally very close to the ideal temperature and humidity for storing library materials.

By the way, this isn't the only underground facility used by the U of M. The Civil Engineering building is 95 percent underground, and the High Energy Physics Lab is 2500 feet underground in an old iron ore mine in northern Minnesota.

Minneapolis Skyline The IDS Tower (left in the photo), built in 1973, is 775 feet tall. It has long been the tallest building in the twin cities, or so we thought. The idea is that since downtown is in the flight path for the MSP airport, anyone who wants to build taller than the IDS would need to do a new and very expensive impact study. Those building shorter than the IDS can use the existing IDS Tower impact study. The Norwest Center (now Wells Fargo Center, center in the photo) was built to 774 feet, one foot shorter than the IDS.

The First Bank Place (now 225 South Sixth, right in the photo) was also designed to be 774 feet. But during construction, 14 more inches of height had to be added to the crown to hide the HVAC equipment. When the 14 inch problem was discovered, an additional 10 inches was added to make it an even 2 feet. Thus, the 225 South Sixth building is actually 776 feet tall, and the tallest building in Minneapolis.

But in the mean time, a shed was built on top of the IDS Center to house the window washing equipment. The 12 foot tall shed should make the IDS Center 786 feet tall, putting it back into the lead. But as the official rules go, any part of the building structure as built counts (which includes the crown on the 225 South Sixth building), but items built afterwards do not count if they are not structural components. As a result, the shed doesn't count.

Wabasha Caves What appears to be a building front built along a cliff is just that. The building face serves as an entrance to the Wabasha Street Caves.

The Twin Cities area is built over a layer of sandstone. This rock is easy to mine. Ford mined it for decades to make windshields. Nature also carves out caves—opening are all over the area, especially near the river.

In the early 1900's, St. Paul was an open city for criminals. As long as they didn't commit crimes in the city, criminals were welcome to visit and stay for a spell without risk of arrest. During prohibition, these folks needed a place to party. The caves were a natural, and a huge speakeasy was built in the caves just off of Wabasha Street. After prohibition was repealed, the caves went mainstream and opened as a legitimate business. Today, the caves serve as a venue for parties and special occasions.

Note—do not enter these caves at any time for any reason. There is little or no airflow in these caves, leading people to pass out from lack of oxygen. You can pass out and die before you know it hits you. Also, if you see someone pass out, do not attempt to help them, rather go to fresh air and call for help.

Federal Reserve The U-shape in this building is called a catenary. It is the shape that a wire takes when it is strung between two supports, such as two telephone poles or like the cables of a suspension bridge. In fact, this building is the only suspension building in the world. The catenary is a band of steel that is strung between the outside concrete towers. There is no support on the bottom of the building other than the catenary.

This building once housed the Federal Reserve Bank. Due to design defects, all of the windows molded. It was determined that it would cost more to fix the building than what a new building would cost. So, the government built a new Federal Reserve Bank, and abandoned this building. A developer picked it up cheap, refurbished it, and put the building back into use.

Ivy Tower This is the Ivy Tower. It is registered as a landmark, so it cannot be torn down, yet nobody can figure out what to do with it. As a result, it sits abandoned, with developer after developer cooking up schemes to use the building.

The Ivy was built by the 2nd Church of Christ Science. Sky churches were all the rage in the 1920's when this was built. The plan was for four such towers, and a huge building in the center of the block, with the church on the top of the central building. Only this one tower was actually built.

Note—as of January, 2008, the Ivy has a new lease on life. A developer has built a 25 story condo tower and slightly shorter hotel tower wrapped around the Ivy Tower. The second floor skyway level features a conference center, while the 3rd floor has a high-end spa.

Flour Mill This appears to be the ruins of an old flour mill. It in fact was a flour mill. After the mill was closed, the facility was purchased for the eventual conversion into a museum. It would have made a great museum with all the space, and all the flour milling equipment still in place. Unfortunately, in the late 1980's, some homeless people set the building on fire. About all that was left was parts of the outside walls. Those walls have since be stabilized, and a new glass and steel museum building has been built within the confines of the historic building.

Note—it appears that the Mill City Museum has been a real hit, and people who have visited say it is well worth the time it takes to tour the facility.

Perpich Perch Perpich Perch This overlook is at the north end of Robert Street in St. Paul, just behind the state capital complex. Locals tell me that this is Perpich's Perch, where Governor Goofy used to go to look over his flock. The location does have a pretty good vantage point, but alas, it has nothing to do with the former governor.

Rather, this is Cass Gilbert Park. Cass Gilbert is a famous architect. He designed a number of landmark buildings, including the Woolworth skyscraper in New York City. He lived in St. Paul, and is the designer of the Minnesota State Capital building, one that is considered among the most beautiful state capital buildings in the United States.

Power Pole I once read the story behind these odd looking power poles, but now I am unable to locate any information. Please fill me in if you know the details. As an overview, Minneapolis likes to minimize overhead utilities in the downtown area. That wasn't possible when it came time to pull power across the Mississippi River from the Saint Anthony Falls power plant. So, to minimize the visual impact, rather than building the conventional lattice work electrical towers, these unusual three-legged structures were used instead. The hope was that they would be a little more like urban sculptures and blend in a little better.
Spoon And Cherry You don't see a giant cherry sitting on a giant spoon everyday, not unless you drive past the Walker Art Museum on a daily basis. There are a number of sculptures in the garden, but the spoon and cherry is the most famous of the works.

The sculpture is called Spoonbridge and Cherry. The spoon forms a bridge over a small pond. The cherry is fountain, with water spraying out of the stem. The piece was a gift from Frederick Weisman. We met him earlier on this page as the benefactor for the Weisman Art Museum.

Skyway The vast majority of downtown Minneapolis buildings are connected by skyways. St. Paul also has an extensive skyway system. Here, we have a skyway to nowhere. This is coming out of the west side of the 5th Street Towers complex. I am not sure if this skyway was built on speculation that a building would be built on this lot, or if the building that was there was torn down. I recall hearing that it might have been the former Powers Department Store. If anyone knows the real story, please let me know.
Skyway If Minneapolis can have a skyway to nowhere, then so can St. Paul. This skyway across Wabasha Street just north of 6th Street once connected the Daytons Store to Wabasha Court, a complex of small stores. Since then, Daytons has become Macy’s, and the vacant Wabasha Court building was demolished. Since a replacement building would be connected to the skyway system, the skyway structure remains in place. This odd item was pointed out to me by Luke Farrell.
Guthrie Theater This odd looking building started to show up along the river in Minneapolis in 2005. It looks like some kind of factory, with that thing coming out over the road being some kind of loading and unloading facility.

It turns out that this is the new Guthrie Theater. The Guthrie is a famous theater known world-wide. As of 2005, they are located on the west side of downtown next to the Walker Art Gallery. They decided that a world famous theater wasn't enough, so now they are building this new building near the Metrodome. People are still wondering what that thing hanging over the road is.

Note—the new Guthrie Theater has been very well received by the community. The Guthrie performed a major community service when they opened their doors to the public for free following the I-35W bridge disaster. While local police had done everything possible to prevent any viewing of the disaster site, they were unable to close down the Guthrie, which offered a very good view from the end of the infinite bridge. They deserve kudos for not giving into the paranoia.

Milwaukee Road Train Shed This is the train shed at the former Milwaukee Road Rail Road depot in downtown Minneapolis. The train shed sat empty (the depot as well) for many years. Development idea after idea fell apart. A few pretty good ideas came along, but they were sunk when oil contaminated with PCB was found in the basement of the depot. Money became available during the late 90's to clean up the mess. The city selected a developer for the area. They put in an upscale hotel with water park. Part of the train shed is used for parking, the rest for an indoor ice skating rink. It is nice that they were able to save this great old structure and put it to a new use.

Note—I happened to see a Neil Young concert during one of his grunge tours. While Neil spoke only a handful of words to the audience, he did comment on what a nice train shed we had, and how it was worth preserving. Neil is a major railroad buff and railfan. In fact, he is the major stockholder in the Lionel Train company, the company that makes toy trains for boys of all ages.

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Authored by John A. Weeks III, Copyright © 2005, all rights reserved.
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