A Capella view

The Capella building is just southwest of my home base, the Government Center. Here you get a nice view of the Richardson Romanesque City Hall from the skyway level.

In front of the Baker Building, a block-long cortege of bike cops out for a training ride. A fellow in the skyway was explaining to his companion that the guy in blue was teaching the black and yellow guys (bees) how to signal and stop on bikes. She said "didn't they learn that as kids?" His reply was "Cops have to do things officially."

The muse of security

Security in the Medical Arts building, where you must come down to go back up.

The muse of time

The smiling face of the Downtown Council, a non-profit private organization. She provided me with some of the history you have already read. See the effects of moving backward in time on Blogs? Unlike skyways.

The muse of space

The receptionist in the office of the Chamber of Commerce who directed me to the office of the Downtown Council to get my answers about skyways answered. They were just doors apart.

The mother of all skyways

The very first skyway in Minneapolis. It barely meets the requirements of 12 foot width, 8 foot height, but it has the glass and climate control required of all skyways. In an early planning document, the width requirement was created to preclude "pushing and elbowing".

The father of the mother of all skyways

In the NorthStar Center, looking south across Seventh Street: the very first skyway in Minneapolis, opened in 1962. One other skyway from this building connecting to the Northwest Bank building, across Marquette Ave, opened that year. When the Northwest Bank building burned down, the skyway was not replaced.

Motion. Movement. That is what the skyways are really all about. The designs and local cultures are interesting, but you haven't been in a skyway unless you've swum upstream against the lunch current.

The muse of sushi

I get my sushi at the Kikugawa on the skyway level of One Financial Plaza --  about once a week. The little shop is staffed by a family, including this five-year-old charmer -- Kylie. Her mom Lily is camera shy. The sushi is great. They humor me by making up the Tokyo tray at the last minute, just before closing. I try their patience, and I try their sushi.
Lao Tzu, Chapter 52 "Charity"
The origin of the world is its mother;
Understand the mother, and you understand the child;
Embrace the child, and you embrace the mother,
Who will not perish when you die.

Taking a shine to style

This has got to be one of the most attractive settings for a shoe-shine stand in the skyways. Andy does a good job. Tell him Jeff sent you. He noticed me taking this picture a few days before I had my shoes shined, and he thought I might be a detective or a hit man. Its my clothing style, I guess. When I told him I was doing a photo blog on the skyways, he gave me some good ideas for topics. I gave him the old URL for this blog. Now I have to have some cards printed up and give him the update.

My new friends want me to be respectable running around taking pictures.

Larry Anderson and his wife (I owe her a name here!) run a small enterprise on the skyway. They are an example of the people who completely change your experience of the skyway. I wanted to get sticky notes with the URL of this blog on them to hand out to startled subjects I have photographed. Larry convinced me I should do a full-color card, with a sample photo and nice layout, so people don't think they were photographed by a fly-by-night cheapskate blogger. Now I am saving up for one more thing!

Tasty bivouac within the maze

One Financial Plaza has this great atrium. It is in the shape of a Viking longboat, although they don't know it. My favorite sushi bar is there, and this always amazing vista. One of the prettiest and tastiest stretches within the maze.

If the colored panels of the Haaf ramp recalls Mondrian, then this is Magritte

Although there are many great views out of the skyway windows, there are also a lot of old brick courtyard walls to be seen as you pass through the buildings on the skyway level.

There is a Lion in the picture. Lions.

The Minneapolis Grain Exchange is guarded by these lions, seen close-up from the skyway to the Haaf ramp.. While the financial world that built the Grain and Flour exchange was much simpler than today's intricate filigree of trading instruments, I think the imagination of the traders was more ornate. It included the protections of stone effigies, and public reminders of nobility in the visage of the King of Beasts.

Mondrian's dome

 The "old" metrodome seen through colored-glass panels in the skyway between the Hennepin Government Center parking ramp and the Adult Safety Facility (Jail.) "Sic Semper Inflatuus" (Which is my parody Latin version of "Thus it is always with inflated things" The original regulations for the skyways declared all class must be clear. This is one of the more recent skyways, and the Mondrian influence has crept in.

Tempus fugit

Corny shot of the City Hall clock tower though the Public Safety Facility skyway colored-glass inset. I know the minute hand on the clock face is 13 feet long.  I had a replica in neon built for an exhibit honoring the 100th anniversay of the laying of the cornerstone in 1891. "Tempus fugit" is Latin for "time flees" which is a warning to not take anything for granted in this life, and a promise that the worst things pass, too.

Undoing the stone

A grace swims through the dappled lights, a nereid on the stone foam of the city tide. (Oh, nereids were sea nymphs in Greek mythology and the undulant reflections of light in this shadowed cranny make me think of something underwater...very un-stone.) Only light and beauty can soften the city stone.

Popcorn. In lieu of ...

So you see a lot of faces through several panes of glass at lunch time. And there are those who disctract their appetites with the kiss and promise of popcorn, in lieu of food.

Updating urban photo cliches

Seen from south of Eighth Street, just out of the Campbell Mithun Building.  Campbell Mithun agency coined the term "skyway."  In Canada they are called pedways.  Be grateful.

Now, for the image.The old urban cliche was an ornate church steeple contrasted to the impassive glass wall tower of the modern skyline. This is a new cliche, the 50s modernist church steeple contrasted to the almost-post-modern deco geometry of the 90s. I especially like the "halo" of the rear building catching the sun, and the dense texture of the window wall. I think of this picture as a kind of shadow box collage of the confusion of contemporary design, which remains attractive, but forgoes sentiment altogether.

Continental happiness in the heart of the Midwestern city?

I love these spaces. An Italian love for accent and surface zest combined with gloss and cartoonish trees carves a funhouse out of the city's density. Every moving body is framed with sparkly lights. Every sadness is rouged and tricked into surprise.