The Way of the Skyway

R.I.P.

2011-10-20T15:24:00.000Z

Skyways as social media or advice to a young politician.

2011-06-29T17:38:00.001+01:00

Social Media have been in my face a lot lately. From trying to follow my older sister's death through posted snippets on Facebook to listening to my wife's reflections on the addition of social media to their company's pr portfolio -- social media has played an unexpectedly intimate role in my day to day.
At the same time, I have dialed back my personal and professional involvement in social media considerably. After three years managing to keep about 1500 twitter followers following me, maintaining a blog or two, and keeping track of a widely dispersed family through FB, I have shifted my free time interest to Flickr.
It coincides with my committment to film photography as the hobby du jour.
So having taken a few weeks off all social media, blogging etc now, I am suddenly struck by the parallels between social media and the skyway system. But more to the point of my title, what about the skyways AS social media. What insights can we find here that help the aspiring politician know how to approach the future of skyways, or the skyways as a potential campaign issue?

I wanted to explore this a bit, so I took out a piece of paper and decided to make a list. The very act of writing on paper was so disconcerting that I raced back to the keyboard to do a core dump as usual, instead of actually thinking anything through.

So what have we got on social media?
1. Social media are more media than social. This isn't a drawback, and it doesn't place the blame for unsatisfactory social relationships on social media. It just means, that if you don't know how to socialize, you aren't going to learn on FaceBook or Twitter.

2. Broadcast and narrowcast media amplify flaws in communication. If you say something stupid to one person you know, they have probably heard it before and the net effect is small to nothing. If you say something stupid to 5000 twitter followers or 5,000,000 YouTube watchers, well, there you go. This tells us that social status is a brittle commodity in our society.

3. We don't know that media amplify strengths in communication. You might turn a perfect phrase in a tweet and it could sink through the attention cracks of a vast number of literate followers for no particular reason.

4. People with few or no people skills will tend to do more harm than good in social situations of any consequence, but that simple fact hasn't figured into the design of any social media. The new meme of "curating" information is addressing this issue by finding ways to badge curators according to the value of their info product. Facebook hasn't started a weighting system that will help you know if a stranger is a fool or a knave, however. As far as facebook goes, nobody knows if you are a dog on the internet. Still.

5. A reasonable conclusion to be reached from observing the social media revolution over the last decade is that they are effective at decentralizing existing information power, while they don't offer a values-based core on which to build a new information power base. This meme is making its rounds as "Social Media are good at revolution but they are no good at governance." They only offer a technology, which is pretty agnostic when it comes to socializing, or social values, or anything else involving consciousness, morality, intent, etc. They can't really help make better decisions. If they could, we could just elect Justin Bieber as president and move on to more important things.

6. Human nature requires a power structure. It prefers a local, stable power structure that can mediate with larger, more volatile structures. This power structure is instituted and maintained by yin energies that are flexible and attentive -- they manifest as emotional currents that move in large rivers, but which have rapids, local eddies, and can overflow their banks on a periodic basis. Another way of saying that is "if mamma ain't happy ain't no one happy". The yang component of the power system is instrumental. Another way of saying that is that men are tools.

So what are the parallels to skyways here?

1. The skyways are more practical than stylish. They are, thereby, more instrumental (yang) than status and power oriented (yin). They appeal to men for their efficiency and solid design, and appeal to women for protection and efficiency, not for fun, beauty, style. The corollary of this axiom is that skyway issues won't help get a politician into power.

2. A skyway system will not create a good street life in a city, but it won't suck the life out of an existing street life that is authentic. And it certainly can't be blamed for a street life that doesn't exist.

3. Skyways are a brilliant example of public-private collaboration toward a greater good. Just because they are brilliant doesn't guarantee anyone will recognize this in time to save them.

4. We don't purposefully screen out anyone from using the skyways. They are as accessible to the criminal and psychopath as to the average citizen or civil leader. There is an incidental tendency to screen out poor people, the homeless, etc but it is not a feature of the system or the interface to the system. Attempts to create a criteria, or profile, of unacceptable users of the skyway will be resisted on principle, and also taken as a bid for power by the class of person defining the criteria. There is a kind of cultural schizophrenia lurking in this fact, but that isn't our issue here.

5. The skyways are not about power. Land is power. Contracts are power. Shifts in demographics create new power bases depending on land use. Skyways join places the same way ligatures join notes in a score. They are important to the sense and continuity of the composition, to the transitions, but they are not the notes themselves. A politician interested in power must concentrate on the spaces the skyways join, and the people that are deselected or selected to move through them. The skyways should be allowed to continue to take care of themselves.

6. Urban dynamics have been measured by economic means for centuries, and by entropic measures of distance and changes in value for decades. By these measures, the skyways are practically invisible. The new urban politician must create useful metrics from the intuition of amenity...the sense of what is liked and likable. That will create a power base on what has been called affinity in the anthropology books. Over the long run, affinity is the glue that holds communities together. Another word for it is friendliness. And we haven't gotten our heads around that most basic of social qualities yet when it comes to politics, economics, technology. But we will. It's human nature.

This way that way skyway

2011-06-10T15:29:00.000+01:00

I am never far from the skyways. My fascination with them has narrowed and compressed into glimpses. When I think it is time to move back out into the world, I catch a glimpse of something in the skyways that makes me smile or reminds me of something or holds my attention. So, even though I have thought of shutting down the blog and starting one about interesting backpacks people carry these days, I have decided to keep this on life support and see what happens.

Happy skies.

Hiatus time in the sky

2011-05-24T22:08:00.000+01:00

I have been doing this blog since last February. It has served its original purpose, but in the meantime it has evolved and morphed into a different kind of project. So I am going to take a break from Skywayway for a week or two and retool. In the meantime, I highly recommend my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/zeitguy . That is where the action is for me at the moment. Thanks for the interest from all over the world and the constant hits which kept me working away at the topic. Check back in a while, or use this time to explore the parts of the blog you haven't seen yet!

Comments welcome, ideas encouraged, and remember: critical thinking is at a premium these days.

Commerce in the absence of friendship spells the doom of civility, our heritage in fact.

2011-05-16T22:15:00.000+01:00

Several of the themes I have touched on in this blog involve the character of Minneapolis as a city, and the culture and manners of the people who live here. Here is an excellent essay on some of the early influences on this area, particularly the impact that British policies and attitudes had in our relations with the Native Americans here. We take the tragedy and folly of the 19th century treatment of Native Americans as a given, but this essay reveals that a far different outcome might have resulted from the French holding on to the area. The key word is friendship, and the deeper moral dimension it brings to matters of trade and commerce. Read this. It is important, and timely.

http://minneapolisobserver.blogspot.com/2010/11/currency-of-power.html

Everything for Everybody

2011-05-15T05:32:00.002+01:00

Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Galeries were built in 1846, in Brussels, Belgium. They provided a climate controlled arcade more than two football fields in length.

"Under its motto "Omnibus omnia" (Everything for everybody), displayed in the fronton of its palace-like façade, the Passage Saint-Hubert attracted people of fashion. Brilliantly lit, it offered the luxury of outdoor cafés in Brussels' inclement climate, in an ambiance of luxury retailers that brought to Brussels the true feel of a European capital. In the premises of the journal, March 1, 1896, the first public showing of moving pictures took place of the cinematographers Lumière, fresh from their initial triumph in Paris." -- Wikipedia

Sky Busker

2011-05-11T01:28:00.000+01:00

Larry has a "regular" gig in the 4th Ave. skyway. He shows up everyday at the same time and leaves at the same time. Just like a job. Except he gets to make up songs about the daily news on the spot.

Seen and not taken

2011-05-04T19:57:00.001+01:00

Things I saw, but did not photograph, on the skyway today: (all incidents verified by MyOwnEyes reality verification)

1. A live red rooster in the North Star Building. The design studio on the skyway level hosts animal awareness lunch hour demonstrations occaisionally. If you look through this blog you will see evidence of the live chicken event from a few months back. I simply watched the chicken strut around on the terrazo floor for a few minutes, and was enthralled by how beautifully designed this guy was. Imagine if you woke up every day looking this well put together. You can see his cousin at raising-chickens.org, thanks!
2. A human powered taxi on 3rd Ave. South. It was an American version of the venerable rickshaw. I have taken these in San Diego but it was the first time I have seen one in Minneapolis. The taxi was stopped at a red light and the driver suddenly jumped from his seat and walked back to secure the folding roof of the passenger seat. A policeman was parked on Seventh and looked as surprised as I was by the incongruous mix of foot and vehicle in a traffic lane. Our instincts tell us that drivers can't jump from their vehicles to zip things up in the middle of traffic, but our brains tell us "Hey, its a bike, get over it."
3. A small trailer taking bikes from rental bike rack to another. Why did they need to carry the bikes on a trailer? Couldn't they have ridden the bikes? Or waited until the Brownian Motion of the bike rentals redistributed them all evenly?
4. Some ladies lunching under the Au Bon Pain umbrellas in the Capella Tower northeast lobby. There is no longer an Au Bon Pain restaurant on the ground floor -- its moved up to the skyway level, thank you, but the umbrellas add a kind of continental class to the empty lobby. (Hope they weren't waiting for service.)
5. Park Benches in the Baker Building promenade between the North Star Building and One Financial Plaza. They face a high row of windows which open out onto a utility courtyard with lots of old brick and Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning sheet metal on display. I sat for a few minutes and watched the silhouetted skyway foot soldiers amble, stroll, hike, strut, march, shuffle, sashay, stalk, pace and skitter past me. No one swooned,sprinted or staggered. It was a good day.
6. A guy in spiked dreadlocks, battered combat boots, and a Hells Angels jeans vest over a black leather jacket talking softly and animatedly to a pal in a silky-looking shirt and razor-creased pants, whose haircut cost $60 if it cost a dime. They were the duo of the day for sheer visual contrast. It would have made a great photo.

An image fast.

2011-05-04T00:32:00.000+01:00

They say you need a fast lens to get images in low light. I am performing an "image fast" that requires no lens. Starting May 1st in the morning, I have left my cameras on the desk and confronted the world with my bare eyes, barely open. It is an eye-opener to see without lenses for a while, to see without frames and without film, even though I wear glasses. Many intriguing and lovely images have slipped my reflexive twitching shutter finger these last couple of days.

Without anything to take pictures with, I look inward. There are many miles of skyways inside, an accumulation of many months of peripatetic meditation. I close my eyes now, and step off into the memory grid.

TCF atrium

2011-05-01T03:30:00.000+01:00

Flag in the skylight, sculpture against the brick wall.

The end

2011-05-01T03:22:00.001+01:00

If you want to go to the furthest outpost of the skyways south, you walk through the Convention Center, go back up to the skyway level from the northwest corner, and follow the last little leg of skyway out as far as you can parallel to 13th St across Nicollet. The system deposits you at the Hyatt Regency. This piano greets you from the balcony. The painting of a piano above it is pretty edgy stuff for the skyways. Keep going along the balcony back north, and you exit on the access ramp, which you can follow down to Nicollet for a nice walk downtown, or to Loring Park.

Four roofs

2011-05-01T00:40:00.000+01:00

Four signature roofs of the Downtown skyline seen from the Orchestra Hall skyway. Can you name them, left to right?

Skyway people

2011-04-30T17:57:00.001+01:00

Close encounter of the skyway kind. Click to see the facial expressions.

Now that would make a nice wedding present

2011-04-29T21:59:00.000+01:00

Classic Jaguar on the Nicollet Mall. On the day of the Royal Wedding...a coincidence?

A face only a toff could love

2011-04-29T21:54:00.000+01:00

This vintage Jaguar sedan (I am guessing early 40s, although I have heard they didn't update the design during the war) was on display on the Nicollet Mall today.

Jaguars on the Prowl on Nicollet Ave today

2011-04-29T21:24:00.000+01:00

Vintage Jaguars lined up on Nicollet Mall today near Orchestra Hall. Hey who parked that Ford near the beasts?

Spontaneous Joy

2011-04-28T18:46:00.000+01:00

A warm Minnesota greeting to all the world from the skyway level of the Hennepin County Government Center.

Skyway people and the politics of bleakness

2011-04-28T11:40:00.001+01:00

The closed, boring environment of this skyway serves as a utilitarian backdrop to the people moving from point a to point b. If you are looking for something, there are few clues to help you find your way. There is nothing to entertain or delight you here. It is a prefabricated environment stripped of leisure or pleasure or distraction.

When you get to where you are going it is just another nowhere on the way to somewhere.

There is your car, surrounded by absence. It doesn't threaten you, and within a few minutes the whole passage from cell to freeway will be forgotten. We have come to take these elisions of sense for granted. The experiences of featureless, entranced movement through anonymous space creates gaps in our psychic fabric. Our internal landscapes are erased, bit by bit. Anything can fill these holes. Fears, promises, the assertions of urgent people who want to borrow your attention and faith for a while to build pyramids of mass emptiness...anything can fill these holes. Tomorrow, it will be the Royal Wedding. Today it is the birth certificate. Yesterday it was the weather going rogue and terrorizing whole states. These wild disparities seems connected by the visual continuity of television, which is the information equivalent of the skyway, connecting emptynesses, providing passage of attention from abandoned place to abandoned place. Or as the computer operating system marketing rhetoric puts it: "Where do you want to go today."

The people are full of life, and the potential for joy and fascination. They are dense fabrics of memory and hope, feelings and dreams, needs and abilities. Why do we throw our landscapes up with the haste of scenery designers? Why did the program of Modernism in the urban world strip out the texture and push the utility forward with such a vengeance upon the human spirit? Was it a kind of gnosticism, a despair of fulfillment in this world that can only be a waystation on the way to the next world?

The people are full. The cities, alas, seem empty.

Government Center Fountain

2011-04-28T11:13:00.000+01:00

Discussion at the end of the day on the Public Service Level.

The skyway perspective lesson

2011-04-23T06:27:00.001+01:00

When you learn to draw, you learn to locate the vanishing point, where all parallel lines converge on the horizon in your scene. There are many vanishing points in the skyway system. Some of the skyways have vanishing points as ineluctable as black holes in the birth time of the universe itself, others have gentler doorways and doglegs that draw the eye off the main line of depth, convergence, disappearance. These are three vanishing points from my trek the other day.

Elle at the salon

2011-04-23T06:22:00.002+01:00

I ducked into a salon to get my hair setting wax with sesame, an Aveda product I can no longer live without. I lived a long time without product in my hair. Now I am one of the productified masses. At the register, Elle posed for a portrait, and gave me a coupon good for $10 off my next visit.

Real people. Souls with faces.

2011-04-23T06:18:00.000+01:00

Using the Leica has added a new dimension to my photographing the skyways. The digital cameras were too unresponsive to try to get certain moments on film, so I settled for scenes. With the Leica I can respond more intuitively to the changing tableaux of faces, gestures and postures. The people I see and photograph become more real, more individual. It is a fitting time for that, with accusations flying among the insiders that the skyways are full of zombies...faceless and proletarian, soulless replicants. Look at these faces and you see souls.

The last, really last snowfall of the season

2011-04-23T06:12:00.000+01:00

A bit of white clung to the grey and black city as late as April 15 this year...tax day. We were on our way to a record year, but I don't think we made all time history. On a global scale the tragedy in Japan overshadowed our prolonged winter misery. On a personal scale the impending death of my big sister Zoe has put the inconveniences of our climate into a humbling perspective.

The odd utilitarian romance of the Mill City

2011-04-20T02:15:00.002+01:00

This sign down by the river was repainted in the last 20 years. Before that, it had a charming desquamate appearance -- huge flakes of paint slowly deconstructing the identity of an enormous box. By repainting it, the civic-minded sentimentalists rescued our drowning history. But what did they save? While the elegance and sensuality of the West Hotel or the Metropolitan Building fell beneath the brutal ambition of the Urban Renewalists in the 60s, this featureless warehouse and mill survived. It is an enormous grinder, a huge pocket. It ground up and stored a billion of bushels of wheat. It has the charm of a blender or can opener, of a packing crate. Or casket, in which the competence and dull ambition of another century lies mummified.

We are obliged to like it, because we were robbed of what was more spiritual, more human in scale, and more sustainable in its reflection of our inner lives. We are dwarfed, and affectionate, and stagger around clawing at random bits of an unknowable past, here, by the river. Good for us. Let's give ourselves a prize.

The city from the inside out

2011-04-20T01:54:00.001+01:00

When inside is outside and outside is in. Looking into the US Bank atrium from inside Chipotle. At the end of the lunch break, there are few figures to break up the chrome and glass vistas. The gloss and emptiness of the space is emphasized. It is a difficult landscape, and the spirit does not settle into the geometry easily.

A knife-wielding businessman runs into a pal in the Crystal Court. It breaks up the office routine, and forces a consideration of what security looks for. At this very spot, an armed guard stops me because I am holding a camera. I don't know too many people who could run around downtown with a 12" knife unsheathed and not attract official attention. I am sure it is a collector's item of some kind. I am sure he knows what he is doing...because he looks the way he does, right? Turns assumptions inside out.

The skyway viewpoint

2011-04-13T22:11:00.003+01:00

I have been reading the landmark collection of Berenice Abbot's New York City photos, executed under the auspices of the WPA in the late 1930s. This photo reminds me of one of her street shots near Union Square, a choreography of isolated pedestrians emphasizing the urban grid and the randomness of human activity.

The randomness is only an illusion, of course. Everyone has a purpose, and that sense of purpose is reflected in the city faces.

Standing in this skyway between the Crystal Court and Macy's, you see the bustle of the city syncopated to silent music.

Skyway people.

2011-04-12T02:25:00.000+01:00

Geometry and short lunch breaks do not tell the story

2011-04-06T04:11:00.008+01:00

The poet Wallace Stevens says that space is not filled with objects, it is filled with the meaningful relationships among people. The same can be said for the skyways. They are not objects containing and linking more objects and objectified people. They are containers and connectors of relationships, past present and future. I walked them yesterday on the look-out for anyone who fit the description of "zombie." I didn't find a single human being who was dead-eyed, cold, grey, controlled by external forces of evil.

If strangers do not stop to interact casually with you on the skyways, it is because they have short lunch breaks, and often have to bring fast food back to their desks.
Yesterday I saw several young families with children in strollers or in tow. They didn't look lifeless. Kids really dig the skyways, both for the vantage over the streets and sidewalks that give them plenty to gawk at, and the open space and revolving doors that challenge their sense of adventure. Skyways aren't built to amuse children, of course.

What has been missing from the discussion in public so far is the compartmentalized social aspects of downtown. Outside of major sporting events, you don't have areas where there seems to be a real mix of populations, except down by the Target store on Nicollet Mall.

There are residential areas that are far removed from the entertainment areas. And most of the skyway system serves the working commuters who represent a narrow spectrum on the band of urban demographics. Is it fair to call them zombies? Is it fair to judge the people who you see using the skyways because they don't have much time when you see them? We don't have an idle urban culture in Minneapolis..at least not in the visible form that is signature of Paris or New York or LA. But the focus of criticism I have heard so far seems to be on the colorful aspects of cafe culture or the location-determined economics of impulse shopping. Really? Is that what we are trying to encourage above all else?

There is something else here that needs to be said. The skyway critics aren't even talking about the real skyways. They are talking about a shibboleth called "skyways" that exists in cocktail party conversations and sound byte colloquiems of news anchors, political candidates and flyoverland elitism -- the skyways of habitrail mindlessness, of midwestern parochialism, of unsophisticated rubes. If you go out and start walking around, you won't find those skyways on the real map.

How much time have the critics spent on the skyways? Have they looked around with the simple curiousity of a child, or the discipline of a cultural anthropologist, or the creativity of an artist, or the vulnerability of an handicapped or elderly person on their own? The best stories I have heard have been about people forced to find themselves, and, finding themselves on the skyways, they found a lively city to see and reflect on, not just chrome and glass.

Let's quit talking about the skyways in cartoon terms. It is a disservice to the workers who benefit consistently from their utility, and it is an disservice to the intelligence of looking beyond the cariacatures. Look for yourself: see the faces, the real artistry of the building interiors, the real effort of the entrepreneurs that line the arcades between bridges.

If Videotect started the conversation on a kind of goofy, energetic note, let's find ways to keep it going. That would be a good thing. It would do justice to the real quality of human relationships that are forged here in the midwest, the kind of qualities that make the skyways ultimately worth thinking about.

Skyways and Poetry in the same breath

2011-04-04T21:01:00.000+01:00

An anthology of poetry by states' poets laureates has been published recently under the title "An Endless Skyway." If you are struggling with the phrase "states' poets laureates" don't feel bad, because it took several minutes for me to figure out that this referred, literally, to poets who represented their respective states as Poets Laureate.

Anyway, the idea of poetry and skyways is instant dissonance for those who see the skyways as pure utility, the invisible shortest line between two frozen dots in the winter, and the air conditioned indulgence of fresh-averse cube zombies in the summer.

So just to prolong this moment, I have composed an instant poem in honor of the Videotect winning theme of "Zombies on the Skyway".

"Skyways: Yes, but..."
Dedicated to Mayor Rybak.
(I have added some grit and patina, vocabulary-wise, to whet the appetite)

I think that I shall never say
the Sky's more lively as a way
Than Street, sidewalk or alley
The walking dead through glassy shell
traverse their AC'd path from Hell
to desk and back. Don't dally
In the chromed Intestine coiled
Midst city belly. Surging, roiled
clots of souls on furlough splay
Across the grid. What cheer or joy
is, is not about the second story.
The first story's yet untold today.

The aimless urban microcosm

2011-04-03T03:33:00.002+01:00

Mayor Rybak claims that 51% of his response to the skyways is dominated by zombies. "The night of the living dead" is his reference. He wants to put external stairways between the skyways and the streets to break things up a bit. He says he needs the "grit and patina" of the streets.

Britt Aamodt, who did a radio documentary on the skyways, admits that her take on the skyways was dominated by her reaction to her job downtown. When she left her job, then came back to the skyways for their own sake, it changed her thinking entirely. This blog tries to inspire people to leave themselves open to a world of experience available on the skyways.

Things happen. People wait. Life has a mind of its own.

Rand Tower

2011-03-31T02:23:00.000Z

1929 Deco glory on Marquette Ave. in Minneapolis. What did these characters represent, the geniis of flight, the angel with Cuisinart blades for wings? When the tower was built, it was the second tallest in Minneapolis, second to the Foshay, and held its own on the skyline for several decades. Both buildings opened as the national economy cracked and split open, spilling out the depression, the chaos of the war. But for a brief moment, it was prom night in the American Century. And what a future they dreamed then.

Studies of St. Mary's Basilica, Minneapolis

2011-03-29T03:19:00.000Z

More studies of this building.

It's not technically on the skyways, but it is in the neighborhood, and it seems appropriate to post these photos here.

The second day of Spring peeks out from under a blanket

2011-03-23T23:25:00.000Z

No one welcomes the snow anymore. It is a dismal blight upon the spirit after a record-setting year for snow. Winter has so outstayed its welcome, that scores of young families have packed their things and wandered off to the south, with no fixed destination except south, warmth, light. The skyways fight off the light of snow, the reflections of it, and draw a self-preserving darkness into their vulnerable corridors. This photo is a sigh from the depths of an unnerved heart. Oh snow, what have we done that has made you hate us so?

More of the nature not contained by skyways

2011-03-22T03:14:00.000Z

I am always chewing on a philosophical proposition or two. It's in my blood. I am half Welsh, and a strong believer in the Bardic tradition. According to Celtic lore, the sacred is encountered in nature, not in man-made environments like cities.

But I am not satisfied with that. I think about the ensoulment of place. If shrines and cathedrals can be consecrated by the faith of many, and stones and waterways become sacred to clans through the encounter with the spirit in specific places, why couldn't constructs like the skyways acquire spiritual presence? Perhaps they already have them because of the intensity of personal experience leaving its wraith in the polished metal and glass passage ways.

Could skyways be haunted? Could skyways become a kind of unravelled cathedral, laid out among the city blocks, an accidental blessing to the unmindful and devout alike?

Would skyways be more spiritual if there was a movement among many to consecrate them though ceremony, music, exalted speech, special artwork dedicated to the embodiment of faith and reflecting the beauty of pure spiritual perception?

Maybe skyways already are spiritual places -- to those who have the faith to see ensoulment in any place where the human spirit has risen above the fear and tarnish of mortal limits...

Richardsonian Romanesque High School

2011-03-22T02:59:00.002Z

Also designed by Long and Kees Architects, as was the Minneapolis Municipal Building and the Masonic Temple. This Duluth landmark reminds us of what architecture used to be.

Skyways take over Duluth

2011-03-22T02:56:00.001Z

The colorful port town of Duluth Minnesota has developed an ambitious system of skywalks tying together the downtown district.

shirtsleeves vs jackets

2011-03-21T21:18:00.000Z

Shirtsleeves in the skyway. Jackets on the street. Not to rub it in.

Well, the moon takes the skyway, doesn't it?

2011-03-19T03:20:00.000Z

In case you are wondering about the strange energies today, the full Moon is the closest it gets to Earth every 29 years or so. Called the perigee full Moon, it is about 13% brighter and larger than the apogee full Moon, when it is at the farthest point in its orbit.

USBank Plaza Abstraction with flock of granite

2011-03-19T03:10:00.001Z

Just as I snapped this a very polite guard said no pictures were allowed. I explained that I was waiting for permission to take photos in the atrium and was just doing some studies for a larger format camera. The guard wished me luck.
This is a view of Loren Madsen's "Birds in Flight" sculpture. It was created in 1981 of 276 suspended granite blocks, polished on the bottom and rough on top. It fits the triangular theme of the entire magnificent 8 story atrium. The wires look like a new wave harp, and it would be interesting to have contact mikes picking up live vibes from the unique instrument.

Find your SO on the skyways?

2011-03-18T01:43:00.000Z

Ctrl+Alt+Repeat from Architecture Minnesota on Vimeo.

A "product concept" that has to happen...social media app that lets you know someone who has read Freud but won't stalk you is coming down the TCF feeder into your zone, and you guys can duck into Dunn Bros with an introduction courtesy of the cyber yenta. How you do on a first date chaperoned by the zillion speed walkers skywaying by is not affected by technology, dude.

When Britt Aamodt interviewed the skyway habitues for her KFAI documentary, one of the first questions she asked was about dating on the skyways. It seemed possible, without the meat market ambiance of local bars, the group concurred. I am a senior citizen and happily married, but I couldn't do justice to the skyways without acknowledging the libidinous frisson that characterizes urban passage. I acknowledge it, and amble on.

As I am typing this, "Bones" is on in the other room. There was an episode a couple of years back that hinged on a smartphone app for locating other members of a dating service who were within a dozen yards or so of you. The zeitgeist demands that this product get made, and helps a generation of iPad heatseekers and seekerettes find their SOs in the skyways.

See this video and 23 other Videotect skyway contest entries here.

As far from Minnesota as you can get and still be on the skyways

2011-03-18T01:23:00.001Z

Dan Yudchitz and Aaron Squadroni from Architecture Minnesota on Vimeo.

Dan Yudchitz and Aaron Squadroni have listened to electronic experimental music and studied extreme graphic design deconstructivism. They benefitted from it as few people do then went and produced an edgy AND upbeat piece that is hardcore formal exploration AND affect-laden interpretive video.

I recognize many spaces here, and I have moved through them myself. They reflect me, and ultimately our skyways, in ways it would be hard to talk about at the Chatterbox Cafe. Very creative and also an exploration of the innate formalism that almost makes the skyways unbearable, in a bearable way. Enjoy.

A video interpretation of the way of the skyways...

2011-03-18T01:01:00.002Z

Jeff Beddow from Architecture Minnesota on Vimeo.
This is my entry in the skyway video contest sponsored by AIA Minnesota magazine. It is a distillation of a year's worth of photographing the skyways, soundtracked by some electroacoustic ocean sonar riffs. The skyways are a trip. It takes a lot of left and right brain to get your head around them.

You can go here to vote for it, or something else you like. But if you think the skyways are a cut above the norm, or a floor above the street, check out these videos and vote.

Coming and Going -- Qwest Women sponsor a craft sale today

2011-03-17T17:25:00.002Z

Anisha Dunne, with Grass Lake Pottery, shows off her custom design.

Ann Johnson, with Annies Home Made Mixes, restrains her enthusiastic lawn ornaments.
These ladies are selling their wares on the corner of the Qwest building arcade as you head through the 5th Street Skyway. They are there today and next Friday. Unique pottery and lawn ornament designs, great prices, check it out.

Vested interest in Girl Scout cookies

2011-03-17T17:20:00.001Z

It's that time of year again. Like Robins on the lawn, girl scouts in the skyways herald the coming of spring This accomplished young lady shows off her merit vest, her mother, and her hand written sign in the pursuit of support for her Scout troop. Karen and Nikki, Troop 11450, 501 Marquette Skyway level, St. Patrick's Day, 2011.

The old Lady poses for her portrait

2011-03-17T17:15:00.000Z

Happened to catch the light just right walking across the 3rd Ave. skyway this morning. I am scouting vantage points to shoot the best of the old buildings downtown with my view camera, and this is a study for that project.
Municipal Building, Minneapolis.

Cub Foods Gas Main fire from Downtown Minneapolis

2011-03-17T17:11:00.000Z

Around 8:40 this morning, from the 18th floor of the Government Center. There was no news yet of the source or location. It looked like the fuse of the world had been lit.

5 comments on 5 Videotect entries

2011-03-16T03:04:00.000Z

Here in no particular order are my comments on some of the Videotect Skyway Video entries.
In brief, the premise is to present a point of view about skyways, and in particular their relationship to the streets, in a 2 to 4 minute video. The contest was launched at the end of last year, and all entries are posted on the Architecture Minnesota Vimeo site.

I entered a video myself, and believe myself to be mature and objective enough to respond to the entries without too much crazy self-absorbed obvious flaming egotistical bias. My interest, here and elsewhere, is to encourage and stimulate a conversation about the whole phenomenom of skyways, in particular the Minneapolis System.

1. Adam Ferrari

Adam Ferrari from Architecture Minnesota on Vimeo.

Adam has selected and illustrated a very clear argument from Jane Jacobs. To my view, Jacobs represents a valid if somewhat archaic vision of cities as bad rural communities, different in density but not in essential human character. She doesn't see much hope for American cities, based as they are on convenience, shallow status display, and simplistic planning goals that maximize the prerogatives of indifference and exploitation. I think someone needs to pull the patches out of Jacob's quilt and resew it into a pattern that can accommodate the simultaneity of optic fiber and Glee reruns, the collapse of the American Federal model of global conquest, and the resurgence of chastity among urban teens. If that seems murky to you, you can understand why I didn't try to gloss Jacobs in my video.

Recommended. Well, all the videos are recommended. You can watch the whole group in an hour, give or take.

2. Dustin Rehkamp and Matt Gerstner

Dustin Rehkamp and Matt Gerstner from Architecture Minnesota on Vimeo.

This video starts with a Chris Marker feel,evoking La Jetee, using the skyways as a metaphor for the unconscious psychic geometries that keep us isolated in the urban landscape. The ending is a goof. I like the "husky" business guy and the winsome gal. It is an O Henry story told in the idiom of YouTube.

3. IDE[A]

IDE[A] from Architecture Minnesota on Vimeo.

A deconstruction of the experience of movement through the skyway, achieved with fluent manipulation of the plasticity of video time and space. It feels like a distracted conversation, with glances away, lulls, a pleasant background. The time flow stutters and spirals around, the spatial flow bunches up and skips, like sparse lunch crowds in the skyways themselves. This is very slick, sophisticated use of the medium and will impress everyone. For me it captures the skyways as kaleidoscope: fragmented but symmetrical, gem-like in their rough urban setting, too abstract to inspire fondness but earnest enough to admire. The skyways, I mean.

4. Sammy Sarzoza

Sammy Sarzoza from Architecture Minnesota on Vimeo.

This video has actually earned a few "likes" on Vimeo, which is unusual for this set of videos. Maybe over time some others will garner this onsite approval. The soundtrack sets a bouncy, retro, drive-in movie concession break mood. You have to like it, really. The message is simplistic to the point of loony irony without spoiling the enjoyment of the entire package. It will grow on you.

5. Alan Polk

Alan Polk from Architecture Minnesota on Vimeo.

Readers of this blog have already encountered Alan in his role as inventive skyway videographer. I have to confess a bias in favor of anyone who can strap a Sony to a Unicycle and push it through the maze. More to the point, Alan is the first to directly oppose the rural to the urban, and pry out the outlandishness of building walkways in the sky contrasted to the down to earth sentiments of a "real" Minnesotan. If the protagonist was forking silage, I would say Alan had created a straw man argument here. But he has done better than that, he has seen the skyways through the eyes of Lake Woebegone, and found them wanting.

Skyway detail

2011-03-15T20:05:00.000Z

Most of the skyways...well, actually all of them, are fairly severe in their design and finish. I have made reference to the doo-dad school of design which results in a few post-modern jollities affixed to the otherwise dour face of the skyways. But they are not a rollicking lot. They do not party-on dude. The blandness of their visible structures, the flat industrial finishes and minimal patterning of their carpets contribute to the disorientation most people feel from one skyway to the next. Add to that the inability to see landmarks from most skyways, and the tendency to be completely disoriented is almost complete to newcomers.

I suspect that that is really a strong subtext in the lack of affection we feel for these modest footpaths stapled as afterthoughts to most of our harum-scarum city architecture.

Why do I like them more all the time? I don't know. I like difficult teachers and I like convoluted stories. I like discovering new things in the familiar, and familiar things in the new. I have grown to distrust sheer spectacle, and have grown to depend upon the dependable, not the brilliant, for getting from day to day.

So maybe it takes more than an open eye to see the skyways in their true virtue. Maybe it takes an overlay of imagination that sees mischief and possibility where there is really only practical response to a harsh enviornment.

Maybe it takes more than eyes to see the virtue of Minneapolis. Maybe it takes imagination to see a possible life here, and many happy accidents to make one so.

In Caelum ego, Et in Arcadia Ego

2011-03-15T19:47:00.002Z

"In the sky I am, and in paradise I am also"...a paraphrase of Poussin's famous painting title.
"I am death, and I am of the sky today."
Gravestones, black bird, and moon in the branches of a tree at Lakewood Cemetary, Minneapolis. The spirits, the birds and the moon really invented the skyways of all cultures. Our spirits imagine flight in our dreams, and we speak of departed spirits flying. The birds know the intricate subtleties of the way of the sky. The moon defines the counterpoint to day and night in the month-long cycles that give rise to mood and tide alike. But do we really know the skyway? Do our jumbo jets and space shuttles give us command of the skys? Do we walk through the skies as habitants, or as dreamers only?

Today the skies are ribboned with the faint pulse of radioactivity from Japan, and the keening grief of thousands of victims slashes the wind above the battered island. Modern technology and ancient ambitions collide. In the cemetary it all comes to the same end.

But from the place where it all ends, we lift up our eyes and see new beginnings. It is a cycle, not a straight path. That is the true way of the skyway.

Speaking of breathtaking atriums downtown

2011-03-15T19:35:00.000Z

The Hennepin County Government Center was built in 1974 by John Carl Warneke and Associates. He had designed the Honolulu State House and the JFK Memorial. Warneke had a grand vision of the gravitas of government, and wanted the new county court house to hold its own with Long and Kees spectacular City Hall/Courthouse across 5th Street. He also wanted it to be the anchor point in a civic square which in turn reestablished a focus for the whole downtown area...a focus once imagined in the early years of the 20th century but was lost to the vicissitudes of aimless development.

The interior of the court house has a 350 foot high ceiling, which was the highest in the Western Hemisphere when it was built. The building is comprised of two towers joined by a set of magnificent glass panes that are 13' on a side, and which had to be custom made and then completely redone when the seals on the double panes didn't stand up to the extremes of Minnesota weather.

These days we can look back on the ambition of local politicians to house their doings in a setting that recalls the grandeur of great governments, great dreams. I watch people scurry through the Public Service Level, their heads bent and eyes glued to their phones, and wonder if we will ever elevate the practice of government to such levels implied by this magnificent atrium. I hope so. I bet my life and career on the prospect of a civil service that was in fact a noble calling, not a mean one, and not a calling at odds with the very citizenship that it serves.

Militant fountains in the Government Center

2011-03-15T19:26:00.000Z

These three fountains were not meant to symbolize munitions, actually. They were meant to symbolize the industry and agriculture on which this area's economic foundations were built. But they ended up looking like big steampunk squirt guns anyway. The fountain is beautiful

City's shortest skyway contest continued

2011-03-15T19:22:00.000Z

If your ears are at the entrance to the city's shortest skyway, your nose is at the exit. This runty passage runs north from the Fifth Street Towers to the Title building.

Looking East from the stubby skyway above, you see its counterpart a block away. Somehow a bit longer. No contest.

Masonic Temple details, symbolism

2011-03-14T02:25:00.000Z

Masonic Joys

2011-03-12T15:08:00.004Z

Masonic Building, Minneapolis. March, 2011

I just shot this 4x5 photo yesterday. I was having a low week at work, and decided that packing the view camera down to 6th and Hennepin and doing the Masonic Building would cheer me up. The whole kit, including a vintage Minolta lightmeter, 4 film packs, monorail Calumet 4x5 View camera on a 26" rail, etc fit pretty well into a big shoulder bag. With tripod I was lugging 20+ pounds, and I had a 12 block round-trip through the skyways. I think that coming back into the system through the Plymouth Building might have put me in a node I hadn't actually visited before.

When I went out to set up on the sidewalk, I realized I hadn't worn a jacket and it was about 38 degrees. I fought the urge to rush the set-up, and had to go under the dark cloth several times to recheck the focus. The corner I was on was good for attracting attention from groups of street kids, but they just wanted me to take their picture. No real hassles. When I had the front and rear tilts and front lift set on the camera, I realized the battery had gone dead in the spotmeter, so I had to guess the exposure. That wasn't too hard. The lens and shutter I was using was an uncoated 140mm f4.5 Kodak Anastigmat in an 1930s vintage Compur shutter, which I had to trust for timing in the cold. This was a 50th of a second exposure at f16 on Ilford Delta 100 film. I took another at a 10th of a second which I intended to underdevelop, but forgot and it came out way too dense to print.

I tray developed the two exposures I made, one at a time. This print shows that I over-agitated the negative, but I have to say that sitting in the complete darkness at 3 a.m. listening to the motor on the old Gray Lab timer and gently rocking the enamel pan back and forth was a spiritual moment for me. Total focus and total defocus, pardon the expressions, simultaneously. I had to be completely in the moment because my only clue that the timer was up was the sudden silence of the motor, which was only as loud as a cricket walking through straw in the first place. But, while my senses were acutely tuned to the chirring sound, and my wrist was flexing slowly enough to not slosh developer on my drawing board, I felt an immense peace, a completion of my sense of self that rarely occurs.

People wonder why I go to this trouble to take a large format photo that my Nikon D90 could do as well or better, they think. With so much less trouble.

The photo is just the package of the experience, and the experience is a distillation of years of being and hours of effort. The package has its discipline, the experience has its shape and meaning, the whole arc results in a few moments of pure joy that cannot be secured through any shortcuts I know.

So how do you like the "vintage" look? Seems appropriate for the old building.

Japan today live

2011-03-11T19:13:00.002Z

Live streaming video by Ustream

The web is a skyway at times like these.

The way of the seashell

2011-03-11T01:08:00.000Z

Skyways are rectilinear. Seashells are spirals. The lack of gradient in the skyways is felt as a kind of shock, your path jerks every block, jogs left or right, jams into a t-intersection, shifts up or staggers and staggers around a bit before shooting off into another tee or ell. There is not chance for the inner ear to find a melody to your path in the skyway. It has a certain rhythm. But no melody.

Yr Faithful Correspondant

2011-03-10T21:25:00.000Z

That is me, age 15, on the left. Trying to decide if I wanted to become an astronaut or a captain of industry when I grew up. This photo was taken when the first skyway was a mere 6 months old.

Buildng + Community + Links = ?

2011-03-10T18:25:00.000Z

Skywaifs present, past and future

Britt Aamodt started the ball rolling by interviewing people for a radio feature on skyways. She is an arts reporter with an extensive background in marginalia, having published a definitive work on the undefinable art of comix. When she approached me I recognized how marginal skyways and my blog are, so I agreed.

Ryan Siemers, Marsha Trainer, sharing down-to-earth but 20-feet-off-the-ground skyway insights and anecdotes.

And me, the skyway yay sayer and scribbler in the margins of the city.
Missing from the photos are Kevin Kirsch, who was there but got away before I snapped at everyone, and Mike Bleakmore, who wasn't even there to photograph, but who is a skywaif from way back.

We have found the skywaif! She rocks the skyways!

2011-03-10T03:24:00.001Z

Ryan Siemers and Craig Hinrichs from Architecture Minnesota on Vimeo.

I don't get to use the word "rollicking" often, but Ryan Siemers and Craig Hinrichs have given us a rollicking good time in their Videotect Skyway video entry. And when I put the call out for nominations for the skywaif of the month, little did I suspect she was captured in the frames of this piano-roll, or should I say piano-rollicking, romp through the city's second ways.

I have given up trying to garner all the votes for myself. There are too many great bits on the contest site. Go see them all at the AM link above.

The views expressed in this video do not necessarily represent the views of you or anyone like you. Or maybe they do

2011-03-10T02:59:00.000Z

Kevin Kirsch from Architecture Minnesota on Vimeo

I have a special place in my heart for the musicians on the skyways. When Billy Chopper, an Argentine duo, busked in the USBank Plaza skyway last summer, I posted some video and got a thousand hits from all over the world. Kevins's video does justice to the special musicians who grace the 4th Ave. skyway, which I see every single day. I wish I had done something like this, but now Kevin did, and so enjoy it.

And you can vote for it on the contest site linked above, if you can't bring yourself to vote for my video. Just kidding. Vote your heart. Or conscience. Or ears. whatever..

There is fame and fortune, and then there are skyway promotion activities...

2011-03-09T01:47:00.001Z

Jeff Beddow from Architecture Minnesota on Vimeo.

Hey. My entry in the videotect contest for best statement about the skyways is ...well it's right there. Go here to vote for the best video. I hope it's mine. But there is something for everyone. I hope mine is something for everyone. May the best video win. I hope my video is the best video.

Note: Turn down the sound to a minimal level...the conversion process kept the sound levels almost intolerably high for most of the entries.

Bromeliad in Gaviidae Commons

2011-03-08T21:55:00.000Z

Brilliant tropical colors liven up the courtyard on a grey winter day.

City within a city

2011-03-08T21:54:00.000Z

A partial model of the downtown area was on display in the Crystal Court today. Signs of work meetings littered the tables nearby. Intriguing display. Anyone know what this is?

The ABCs of skyway floor treatments

2011-03-07T14:28:00.001Z

Terrazo. This is the original skyway floor, unchanged since 1962. Does it remind you of your high school? It should.

Dogfood colored carpet. A statistical average of every pattern and color ever used in commercial carpets.

Bauhaus-inspired industrial weave. Weakly inspired. But it is strong enough to let you test your new trifocals for peripheral distortion effects. I like it so there.

M.A. Tees it up at the Skyway Open

2011-03-07T14:19:00.000Z

My favorite local media personality M. A. Rosko does the skyway open:

M.A. Tees it up at the Skyway Open: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com

New art on the skyways

2011-03-07T04:35:00.001Z

Margo Bohlander is having an exhibit of neoprimitive animal paintings in the Thrivant Building cafeteria. Well done, effective quotations from the genre of cave art and more naturalistic efforts. I like the abstracted paleolithic versions myself. Worth a lunch break.

Great lunch, great light and space

2011-03-07T04:34:00.000Z

The Thrivent/old Lutheran Brotherhood building on 4th Ave between 6th and 7th Streets has a great cafeteria. Hot food made to order, lots of specials, great salads. And the dining room has this skylight that looks like a Jules Verne movie set. Captain Nemo anyone?

Shortest functional skyway

2011-03-07T04:31:00.000Z

This looks to be about 20' or so long. There is a 12' skyway level bridge from the 5th Street Towers to a building north of it, but it is not used much if at all. Taking suggestions as to shorter/shortest skyways.

Skyway as phoneway

2011-03-07T04:04:00.000Z

Can you hear me now?

Skyway as town commons, crossroads

2011-03-07T03:04:00.001Z

Friends encounter each other at the intersection of the Cambell Mithun/TCF main routes. A local uses the waste container as a desk while he studies his scratch-off lottery results. The skyway is a commons, but it rarely feels like one. It usually feels like a thoroughfare, a pedestrian artery. The skyways are the proverbial place where "push comes to shove" should you dally.

In the early 1990s, When Disney commissioned the planning of a Dream Town in Florida, (called Celebration, and meant to honor Walt's centenary) the planners insisted that there be many walking paths where residents would encounter each other casually, regularly, and in circumstances conducive to chatting and passing the time informally. They knew that much real business of community gets conducted under these conditions. It was an inflection point on the arc of urban planning which had pushed for efficiency and speed since the plans of Baron Hausmann ripped through the medieval heart of old Paris with new Boulevards, vast causeways designed to allow troops to march 100 abreast at top speed.

The great old cities of Spain, such as Madrid have their Plaza Mayors, the royal square where everyone who was anyone promenaded on Sunday evening, and where the great public events of the day automatically were assumed to happen.

In Egypt, Tahrir Square, in China, Tiananmen Square, were the focal points of confrontation between the old and new histories of entire nations.

If you think about it, the lack of a public commons in Minneapolis is glaring. There is no central square, park , pool, no reservoir of time and space that can focus the whole downtown, contain the idle, and create an idyll for the hasty.

The skyways need more of that, more eddy pools and sidings. In the dense core of the city, everything is evaporating so rapidly. We need places for time to condense, to precipitate out, to settle like dew for a bit before the sun of commerce burns it off.

Crystal Court could have been a contender. Instead, it tends to be a lot of lonely people in the same space, relieved occasionally by great Christmas concerts and some odd art exhibits.

The skyway as phone booth

2011-03-06T23:53:00.000Z

I have noticed a new trend...people sitting on the floor in the skyways talking on the phone. It either signals a new privatization of public space, or people are confusing skyways with their parent's rec rooms.

Either way, it is a comfort thing.

Big Climb for a cure

2011-03-03T22:00:00.001Z

Kati, front, and Vickie, back, are handing out delicious incentives and informative brochures for a Leukemia fund raiser coming up April 16. They are handing out Rice Crispies bars in the luminous atrium of the Fifth Street Towers. The challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to climb all the stairs to the top of one or both of the towers to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Stop by today or tomorrow for the story, and a Rice Crispies or Quaker bar. Or skip the treats and start getting in shape for the challenge!
If you do stop by, say the skywayway guy sent ya.

Clint holds the fort

2011-03-03T21:42:00.001Z

Clint beams, and holds court at Sprint in USBank. His customers can count on Clint knowing the answers and understanding their concerns. He takes care of you and me.

We create our own limits, and are created by them

2011-03-03T21:40:00.000Z

This throng of hungry office workers lines up for Chipotle every noon time. I can't imagine waiting for a third or half of my lunch break to simply get to the head of the line. But in the orderly downtime of queueing up, there is a kind of caesura, almost a musical interval of peace which gives meaning to the noise and movement before and after, sharpens the senses for bean and cheese, calms the ego of its feral intolerance of the demands of office obedience. This is chosen obedience, not imposed, and there is a chipotle sauce for its reward.

A meditation on nature and human intent

2011-03-03T21:37:00.000Z

This photo contains the grace of growth and the grace of human-conceived form. Both exist in the harmony of a domestic environment, which is "uncreated" in the sense that it is not self-conscious. It is "thrown" into place with the energies of a spirit moving against the limits of its confinement, in its body, in its walls, in its day and night. The flowers purify form with color, and clarify time with shape. The dealy-bob of bent wire and scrap brass outside the window animates with the wind, a kind of dialog, which remembers the artist who made it long past mortality.

Out of the built environment for a bit

2011-03-03T21:30:00.001Z

The exquisiteness of natural form. In this case, adorned with dust.

The spiritual beauty of unbuilt form

2011-03-03T21:29:00.000Z

Leaves take time to grow, and their form is a response to subtle energies and systems that are unseen but as objective as light itself.

Cosmic relief from built things

2011-03-03T21:26:00.000Z

I need to do something here that isn't built environment, so I am posting ficus leaves shot against a snowy window.

Seeing the unseen, working for the invisible, participating in the second world

2011-03-03T20:57:00.000Z

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi from timo on Vimeo.

I don't usually (ever?) post other people's videos or graphics but this is so freakin' beautiful conceptually and in rendering that it needs to be seen by everyone who has ever dreamed of seeing the invisible forces and frequencies that permeate our built environment.

...for the limits, to which our thoughts are confin'd, are small in respect of the vast extent of Nature it self; some parts of it are too large to be comprehended, and some too little to be perceived. And from thence it must follow, that not having a full sensation of the Object, we must be very lame and imperfect in our conceptions about it, and in all the proportions which we build upon it; hence, we often take the shadow of things for the substance, small appearances for good similitudes, similitudes for definitions; and even many of those, which we think, to be the most solid definitions, are rather expressions of our own misguided apprehensions then of the true nature of the things themselves.

The effects of these imperfections are manifested in different ways, according to the temper and disposition of the several minds of men, some they incline to gross ignorance and stupidity, and others to a presumptuous imposing on other mens Opinions, and a confident dogmatizing on matters, whereof there it no assurance to be given.
- Robert Hooke, from the preface to Micrographia, 1664

An artist in the skyways

2011-03-02T04:56:00.000Z

Dan Raphael cuts my hair at Madison and Company in One Financial Plaza. He is a talented painter, and we have enjoyed seeing his work develop over time. I think he will be famous one day. In the meantime, if you want a good haircut and good conversation, stop by and say you heard about him on Skywayway.

Winter light, patterns

2011-03-02T04:31:00.000Z

The low sun on a winter afternoon creates strong patterns on the carpet between the Government Center and the USBank building. I love black and white photography, and this is one of the main reasons: it elevates patterns into an idealized space...you see through your senses, but you are seeing into a timeless realm, into the blueprints of the rhythm that underlies all existence..

Skywayway ventures further afield

2011-02-28T05:13:00.000Z

This clever handmade office supply-based graffito was found in a short skyway between a parking ramp and the Carlson School of Management on the West Bank of the U of M. Some patient student, or student patient, spent hours carefully assembling a performance poster spelling out the word "smile" in multi-hued post-it notes on the glass of the skyway, centered above 10th Ave. so it would cheer up passing motorists. You are seeing it from the inside of the skyway, which reads reversed.

If you watched the Oscars tonight, you heard about a documentary about Banksy, the mysterious graffiti artist. Perhaps his film "Exit throught the gift shop" inspired this. The spirit of the disposable prank did give me a smile on a grey winter day.

Golfing in the skywys

2011-02-28T05:07:00.000Z

See the next post for an explanation of this attention-getting stunt in the City Center skyway level last week.

Skyway open putters along

2011-02-28T05:05:00.002Z

Peri, from Target and Jennifer, doing PR for the Minnesota Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, discuss technique at the fifth hole of the Skyway Open miniature golf tournament on Feb. 27. This hole is a rendition of the facade of Minneapolis landmark Foshay Tower. I watched for a few minutes, and the intricate cabinetry on the game was impressive. In concept it was something of a cross between Skittles bowling and Pachinko, a Japanese game of luck. The next hole in the multi-block event was a replica of a bar littered with a weekend night's debris of bottles and glasses.

This event deserves some support. It should put the skyways on the local entertainment radar at least once a year, and the effort the hole designers put forth deserves notice. Go check out their website.

Note, update/ March 4. I contacted the Leo Daly Architecture Office responsible for the hole design and construction. They responded with some fascinating infomation, which I will quote in full here:

‘After the stock market crash of 1929, regulation minigolf links became too expensive for most people to afford. In spite of this, the desire to play this most popular game continued to flourish. The ingenuity of the players during this depressed period of American History spawned what became known as "Rinkiedink" golf. Undaunted by convention, enthusiastic players would use any space available to set up these unique and crazy courses.’

"It was with this spirit and the stated ‘theme’ of this year’s skyway golf classic – ‘Retro Minneapolis’ that the Leo A Daly design team conceived of our entry. The project investigated the themes of history, games of the 1930-40’s, memory, and the haptic realm. The work utilizes current digital fabrication technology, employing CNC routing, to create a ‘course’ within the façade of the Foshay Tower. The parallels with the Japanese game of Pachinko are intentional. This construct also shares the quality of harmonic dispensation with the aforementioned game as the participants ball finds its way up the tower. The tower appears carved out of the its base and invites one to discover it’s many contours during play. Many thanks to CNC RouterWorks, JB Millwork and Pella Corporationfor providing labor, materials and financial donations for the effort!"

Free Tax help at the Government Center

2011-02-22T00:24:00.000Z

An unused corner of the skyway/Public Service Level is converted to a tax preparation center for those who can't afford professional assistance and need help. Check it out. AARP is sponsoring, and they give preference to people over 60...but anyone who needs help can probably get it. The temporary office is manned by all certified volunteers.

One Year! A unicycle! A Thousand dollars!

2011-02-22T00:21:00.003Z

To celebrate a full year of blogging the skyways I am posting this iconic photo of a man who is pushing a unicycle around the skyways to video tape the experience for posterity. His name is Alan Polk, and he is a social worker who is an avid architecture fan, also. We chatted a bit about the Architecture Minnesota contest he plans to enter. If you win, you get a thousand dollars...for showing your opinion on skyways and their impact on street life downtown.

For a thousand bucks, I would push a unicycle with a clown on it around the skyways. Allen is more circumspect. Good luck, dude.

(Note -- I am thinking of entering the contest myself, and must relate that I posted this because I admire Alan's ingenuity and dedication to his task. I am not sure what the AIA tweeter meant by pointing out this post as a warning of some kind. I think that using a repurposed unicycle is vastly preferable to a Segway or hospital gurney. My suggestion to Alan was that a camera mounted backwards on an airline travel case and pulled behind one, then reversed in post processing, would provide a smoother DIY tracking shot. And I can't close without mentioning the 9 minute single take tracking shot that opens "A Touch of Evil", which as far as I know has never been surpassed in the annals of movie making.)

Post Scriptum: I did enter the contest. You can see Alan and my and 22 other entries here.

Matt and Heidi represent

2011-02-17T21:30:00.000Z

They are overexposed in this photo but not over-exposed in the skyways despite their frequent appearances. Matt and Heidi will sign you up for MNPass, as they did me a couple of months ago. And boy am I a happy customer of the diamond lane. It used to be called the sane lane when it was free. Now it is called the HOV lane. Say hi to these guys. They can explain it to you.

The muse of security

2011-02-17T21:25:00.000Z

I photographed her a year ago and she is still serenely keeping the peace in the Medical Arts building.

Nelson Aldrich, at your service

2011-02-17T21:21:00.000Z

Nelson is tops on my list of interesting skyway people, even though he is a doorman on 9th Street. You have to give me a little slack here to include him, but he ranks right up there after 26 years in downtown. I have admired his hat for the full year of skyway photo blogging. He animates the sidewalk with courtly panache. I want to know his take on the comings and goings of the comers and goers at the Medical Arts building. Don't you? Of course you do. Here, let me get the door for you for once, Nelson!

What a skyway looks like from outside

2011-02-17T21:15:00.000Z

This beauty crosses 9th right next to the Medical Arts Building and Hell's Kitchen. It's from the doo-dad school of design. I will catalog all the schools of skyway design through the ages soon. Starting from the terrazo and steam-heat era of the 1960s through the airport inspired vacuity of the 1990s up to the most recent, and possibly last, bit of build up around St. Thomas. Many styles, but all damn sturdy, glassy and sober. Just like your aunt from Maple Grove.

Fog shrouds the building mass

2011-02-17T20:34:00.000Z

And reminds us that heaven might be a very vague place.

You knew there was a pony under there somewhere...

2011-02-17T20:31:00.000Z

Not to be missed...the Wells Fargo History Museum. Especially if you have some kids and an hour to kill.

How many orange barrels does it take...

2011-02-17T20:28:00.000Z

To hold down a tarp on 6th Street? This is the Minnesota road repair version of earmuffs, earflaps, muffler and scarf all worn together. Just in case.

Oh, I know there is a tiger pit under the tarp, and that is the reason for what looks like excessive zeal on the street workers part. But let me have my fun.

Approaching Downtown from the West

2011-02-17T20:21:00.000Z

The skyline barely emerges from the vast bowl of baseball.

Waiting for the news

2011-02-17T20:18:00.000Z

You can often find camera crews stationed in the Government Center like lions waiting for the wounded gazelles of news interest to appear. If you are looking for a place to eat your lunch, the Public Service Level has some nice benches, ficus trees, an atrium higher than a gothic cathedral roof, and lots of predatory/prey business afoot for the curious public mind.

Sit

2011-02-17T05:00:00.000Z

Chairs are the counterpart to skyways. The opposite, the complement, the spouse and foil, the doppleganger of the spirit of the skyways. If you can't skyway, then chairway. I just coined that term. "Do you want to go grab a beer?" "Naw, I think I'm just gonna chairway for a while here, maybe watch American Idol."

When I first started long haul treks in the skyways, there were times suspended in the fugue of space where I would have paid to have a chair available. The skyways impose an inexorable falling-forwardness, a pace often dictated by the surge of appetites borne on the wave of office borgs in front of and behind you. I might document the few seating places intrinsic to the skyways there are. Such as there are, they are usually quite nice.

Winter light, undulant curtain walls

2011-02-16T04:31:00.000Z

The city disappears into a mirage of itself. It does not deny its illusions, but braids and wreathes them with hypnotic variation.

Composition with snobot

2011-02-16T04:24:00.001Z

From the warmth of the transparent tunnels through the sky, I see winter unfold its white and grey tapestry. Here a skittering red sno bot sweeps arabesques of white lace across the dark ground.

The skyway, named for that place above it all...

2011-02-04T23:02:00.001Z

The perennial tableau of preoccupation passes on the skyway above, while hardy street souls breast the wind. A solitary patrol car wends down the sinuous mall, a lump of vigilant coal foregrounded against the riot of winter sun burning between the far curbs.

Winter sun assaults innocent bystanders

2011-02-04T22:55:00.000Z

The sun came out after days of horrendous winter storm stories, meterological analogs to the civil wars in the Mideast. In the city its glare transformed the frozen canyons into salt-crusted stage sets blitzed with light.