Laughter, Falling Water and Time
A warm welcome awaits you atop the observation gallery of the IDS Tower in Minneapolis. At a height of 775 feet, it is the tallest building between Chicago and San Francisco. The observatory on the 51st floor is 717 feet. The additional 58 feet overhead are devoted to mechanical equipment for elevators, heating and air-conditioning. … Read more
Minneapolis is nationally at the forefront in constructing modern, congestion-free highways and freeways while preserving valuable parklands and residential properties. A “freeway ring” will soon encircle downtown Minneapolis, the final link in a system connecting downtown via freeways to all points, North, East, West and South. Minneapolis is the premier industrial city of the Upper … Read more
This building, fashioned after the Washington Monument, can be seen for miles around Minneapolis. The tallest building in the Northwest. 32 Stories, 447 feet, 3 inches high. The only building ever granted Letters patent. 81 feet by 87 feet at the base—tapering to 59 feet by 65 feet at the top. Many shops and business … Read more
Looking north from Tenth Street at the impressive skyline of Minneapolis, commercial, financial and educational center of the Northwest. Designed by Rhodes Robertson, construction began on the Northwestern Bell Telephone Building in 1930. The tower was clad in limestone from Kasota and granite exterior from Morton, Minnesota. 755 windows were trimmed with steel and cast … Read more
The Twin Cities finest luxury motel may have been the Guest House. Located in downtown Minneapolis at the intersection of Fourth Avenue South at Seventh Street, the 100 room Guest House was only two short blocks from the very heart of the Minneapolis Loop shopping and business center. Air conditioned executive and bridal suites, telephones, … Read more
The 157 foot Globe Building at 4th Street South was the tallest building in the city from 1882–1886. Fire Insurance maps indicate this building was 124 feet to the top of a rear penthouse, but the turret at the southeast corner rose higher than this.Originally built as an office building it had become a parking … Read more
In April, 1936, Fortune magazine hired Austria-Hungary-born American writer and illustrator, Ludwig Bemelmans for an exhaustive article profiling the rather bleak fortunes of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I can almost hear our local boosters howling across the years. Fortune painted thoroughly unflattering, gloomy picture of the metropolis at the center of the most radical state … Read more
The Minneapolis City Hall was designed by Long and Keys in 1887. The building replaced the previous city hall a few blocks away between Nicollet and Hennepin Avenues. Construction began in 1889, and a cornerstone located thirty feet above the sidewalk was laid on July 16, 1891. Some of the individual granite blocks cut from … Read more
Completed in 1929, the Foshay Tower was the first skyscraper in Minneapolis the tallest building in town until 1971. The Art Deco building modeled on the Washington Monument was the creation of multimillionaire, Wilbur B. Foshay. A real estate developer who prospered in the public utilities business, Foshay lost his fortune in the 1929 stock … Read more