Do you commute?

The Commuter Connection in the southwest corner of USBank skyway level is a huge resource for commuters. They are staffed full time, and have all the maps, routes, schedules, programs, etc for any commuter in any form of conveyance. Biased toward ecological solutions, but friendly and informative to all. When I was trying to figure out the bus transfer issue between express buses, city buses, and Bloomington buses, I couldn't even formulate the question clearly, but they figured out what I meant and sent me off with exactly what I needed.

They aren't perfect. When I told them my uncle was in jail, they said they couldn't get his sentence commuted. Badda Bing.
(My uncle isn't in jail, and they didn't say that. Contents may settle during shipment. Do not read joke if you are suffering severe mood swings or under the care of a physician while driving.)

When is a skyway not a skyway?

When one end is blocked by Sheriff's deputies, and the entire skyway becomes a lobby filled with milling passers-by, waiting for their permission to pass by.

Four, count em, Four stacked skyways

As you look down Sixth Street toward the Target Center, you see the Marquette/North Star, Nicollet double decker, and the Plymouth Bldg skyways recede into the distance.

Skyway + skyscraper = ...wayscraper?

The solid broad-shouldered pose of a good-old fashioned sky scraper towers boldly over the cantenary grace of the Gaviidae skyway. The skyway is intersected by an aluminum plane, which looks sort of like a blade thrust into a magicians box, bisecting the beautiful assistant.

Accidentally slipping into the sky

The Marriott Hotel tucked behind the big cheese grater of the City Center seems to shimmer and disappear into alternate space time. In the foreground the underwater effect of multiple reflections washes the face of the bank. The effect of modernism on the post modern city experience is deconstruction of surfaces, multiplication of reflections, doubling of windows as mirrors and skins. The solid stone buildings are rendered insensible by the mechanical repetition of meaningless detail, while the glass buildings liquify and flow, or evaporate into the very clouds themselves. It induces anxiety in the simple mammal. We are simple mammals. And anxious when we look up from our shoe tops, here in the city.

I want to think that the powers who have provided these unsettling vistas meant well. It seemed like a good idea at the time, right?

Another mystery bird in the city

Street level photo of sandstone Pigeoneagle on old Farmers and Mechanics Art Nouveau Bank. Hittite pheasant? Dove with talons?