| Introduction | Here are a collection of odd, unusual,
and interesting locations in the Twin Cities suburban area 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. |
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This is the golden temple of the Eckankar's, a modern version of the religion of ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs. It is built in the shape of a pyramid much like the great pyramids that still stand outside of Cairo. The Eckankar's bill themselves as a religion of light and sound. Opponents refer to them as a new age cult. Either way, I find it difficult to follow how an ancient Egyptian religion came to be headquartered in Chanhassen, Minnesota. |
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And directly across the street is Paisley Park, a modern day temple built by a Prince, Prince Rogers Nelson, to celebrate his own greatness. In its first ten years of operations, Paisley Park was used to record many pop artists, and also as rehearsal space for a number of major rock tours. It has been closed to the public since 1996 as Prince now records every waking moment of his life for documentary purposes. |
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This structure was built in the summer of 2005 on the north side of the
MSP airport just off of 28th avenue. It features an elevated pad, a
circular ring of lights, and a cone-shaped center pylon. The only rational
explanation is that the MSP is now on the cutting edge of supporting
passenger UFO operations, and this is the UFO landing pad. In reality, this is a VOR, a device used for air navigation. It sends out highly directional beams of radio waves. A receiver in an aircraft can follow these beams (called radials) just like a automobile driver following the centerline of a highway. The airport VOR was located in the southwest area of the airport, but that land was taken up by the new north-south runway. Why the VOR is placed on this kind of structure is a mystery to me. All other VORs that I have seen are at ground level. |
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During the energy crisis in the 1970's, a new style of house was
developed to take advantage of the natural heating and cooling effects of
the earth. Called Earthshelter, three walls of a house would be built
into a side hill, and the fourth wall would be exposed. The earth would
maintain a constant 60 degree temperature, making it easy to heat or cool
the building. In general, earth shelter houses were considered to be on the fringe of traditional housing, something that you only saw in rural areas. But in 1978, a local Minneapolis architect designed and built a block long row of earth shelter homes. These interesting houses are located on the frontage road to I-94 east of downtown Minneapolis. Tens of thousands of people drive by everyday and never realize that these unique houses are even there. Even better, the earth in front of the houses not only saves energy, it is a great sound insulator to dampen the freeway noise. |
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Every city has a building that kills businesses. In many cases, it is
a restaurant. I recall a building in Madison that had restaurant after
restaurant open up, all of which failed in a year or so. This building is the same thing, except on a much larger scale. It is the building that kills corporations. Located in Eden Prairie off of Highway 212, this was the home of Lee Data. Lee Data was a successful maker of clone terminals for IBM mainframes. About the time they built this building and moved in, the mainframe market started downhill, and Lee Data never really caught on to the PC market. They rapidly went out of business. Next up was Northgate. They were a huge maker of IBM PC clones. In fact, they were the Dell of their day, running head to head with Compaq in the marketplace. As they made it big, they moved into this building as their new world headquarters and manufacturing plant. About that time, the computer clone industry moved to southeast Asia, and both Gateway and Dell ate Northgate's lunch. Northgate soon went out of business. Then came Best Buy. At the time, they were a regional electronics superstore going head to head with Highland Superstores and Team. Best Buy moved into this building as their new headquarters with hopes of taking their concept national. Instead, a disastrous decision to get into movie rentals and computer problems brought them to the brink of bankruptcy. Best Buy survived only because they were a public company and could sustain huge losses until they got things sorted out. So, the building that eats corporations has 2 confirmed kills, and 1 near miss. Today, it sits empty after Best Buy moved out in 2003, waiting for its next victim. Note—as of January 2008, Supervalu is moving in this building, apparently to be a new IT building and data center. Lets hope that Supervalu does not meet the same fate as it predecessors. |
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This is an otherwise normal looking railroad bridge. It crosses Snelling
Ave just south of I-94 in St Paul. But at closer look, the closer
span is a much lighter built structure than the railroad span behind
it. If you look closely to the very left of the photo, and the 2nd
photo, you can see that this bridge actually carries a large silver
pipe. That bridge is not a railroad bridge after all, it simply carries
this big pipe. If you trace the route of this pipe, you find it running along the railroad tracks going east all the way to the river flats area near the Smith Street High Bridge. Going west, the pipe goes underground in the Cretin Ave area. After doing a bit of research, this pipe turns out to be a very high pressure steam pipe owned by District Energy. It runs from the NSP power plant in St Paul, and it supplies a single customer, the Rock Tenn Corporation paper mill on Wabash Ave just north of I-94 near the Cretin-Vandalia exit. This pipe is the longest single customer steam pipe known to exist. High pressure steam is widely used in the Twin Cities. District Energy supplies steam to over 140 buildings in St Paul, and the U of M has an extensive steam distribution system. A similar system in Minneapolis also distributes cooling water to several major buildings for air conditioning. Note—as of late 2007, the District Energy power plants are converting to new fuels, and the steam service will be discontinued. This leaves the papermill without a permanent source of energy to run the plant. As a result, they are facing a plant shutdown. |
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The Twin Cities grew up as railroad towns. Rail lines criss-cross the cities, many of which have since been abandoned. Minneapolis and some western suburbs have put these rail lines to use as commuter bicycle lines. The result are wide flat bike trails that are grade separated from traffic. In some places, the trails are much like bicycle freeways, complete with entrance and exit ramps and multiple lanes. The lower photos shows one such bicycle overpass. |
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When driving north on Cedar Ave out of Apple Valley, you can sometimes see a giant golf ball or soccer ball located to the west of the highway. This thing turns out to be the approach radar for the FAA, used to direct air traffic between the airport and cross-country air routes that are controlled by FAA air traffic control centers. This radar station was way out in the country when it was first built. Today, it is in the middle of a suburban neighborhood with houses built next door and across the street. |
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Often called the World's Largest Snowman, this 54-foot tall snowman is neither made of snow or is it the worlds largest snowman. It is tall, but snowmen built by other cities are now taller. It is built of stucco, and as a result, it can claim to be the world's largest stucco snowman. It was built in 1974 for the area Sno-Daze celebration. The annual event featured a large snowman for many years, but the winter of 1974 had almost no snow. As a result, the local Jaycees built this stucco snowman. It was later moved near highway 36 so it would be seen by passing traffic. Highway 36 is being rebuilt in a trench in front of the snowman, so traffic can no longer see the giant snowman. Maybe they will move it yet again. |
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This is the sign for the Best Buy store in Edina, located just behind Southdale Mall at 66th and York. What is unusual is that this is the Best Buy that time forgot. It is still set up in the Concept II style where they had a showroom and back warehouse, except that the warehouse has since been remodeled into more store space. The building is very small for a Best Buy, and the parking lot is so small that it wraps around the building. Other Best Buy locations have been rebuilt twice since then, and they are currently using a layout called Concept V. The answer is that this was the Best Buy store that founder Richard Schulze's wife Sandy managed. Sandy was very much part of Best Buy, and a key partner in building Best Buy into a retail powerhouse. Tragically, Sandra Schulze was diagnosed with cancer and died just as Best Buy really hit high gear. As a memorial, Best Buy maintains this store in the same condition it was when Sandy last ran the store, complete with the old Best Buy Superstore logos and signage. |
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This is a very odd little McDonalds Restaurant located in the parking lot of the Centennial Lakes Plaza off of France Ave in Edina. The building almost looks like a PhotoMat store or a JaveHut drive through. What it actually does is serve as the drive though for a much larger McDonalds that is located in the mall. The satellite drive though has the order taking machine, a drive through window, beverage machines, and a ice cream machine. The rest of the food is made in the main location in the mall, and is sent out to the satellite using pneumatic message tubes. The fast speed of the pneumatic tubes allows for food orders to be filled very quickly. |
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What does jewelry have to do with White Castle Hamburgers, and why is it located on Lyndale Ave? The story goes back to 1926, when the White Castle Hamburger chain entered the Minneapolis market. Their 8th location was built in 1927 at 616 Washington Ave SE. White Castle had a history of problems with renewing land leases for such small locations that they built their buildings to be portable. They could be disassembled, moved, and put back up in just a few days. That happened to this location in 1936, so the store was moved to 329 Central Ave SE. White Castle decided to build a modern restaurant near that location in 1983. As a result, this building was no longer needed. Local historic groups raised money and moved the building to 3252 Lyndale Ave S, refurbished it, and rented it out to small retail shops. It is currently open as the Castle Jewlers. |
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So, this is what happens when you put too much water in one of those spherical water towers. Or at least that is what looks like has happened to this water tower located on US-10 in Blaine. In reality, this is a huge 1-million gallon water tower, and it was built with a donut shape cross-section. Normally a water tower of this size and shape is built with legs on the outside, and you don't notice the unusual indent in the bottom. In this case, with a single center support, the water tank looks like it has collapsed down onto itself. While the multi-leg version of this design is common, the single support version is very rare. |
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