Coffee Ala Carte

You wonder at the people's stories. She waits by the elevator outside the IDS skyway level espresso franchise, meditating on something, while behind her the stenciled cup is plummeting forever into an empty utility cart. Another tableaux about promises suspended, if not broken.

Illusion leaves for the day

A casually dressed office worker is tripled in the glass banisters of the escalator as he heads for the street at day's end.

Beyond the glass curtain

The Ameriprise Financial Center on 7th and Second Ave. So. fits gridded window panes into a stone matrix, evolving away from the cheerless, insistant reflection of a pure glass curtain wall. Interestingly, this building replaces the first Lutheran Brotherhood Building erected here in 1955 and torn down in 1997 -- interesting, because the LB was the first fully glass-walled building downtown.

In Electricity we Truss

LRT power cable standoffs above 5th Street. One of what I call "priveleged views" afforded by the skyway.  You are walking along, and suddenly reminded you are seeing things from the perspective of a low-flying cloud, not a mammal on the ground. This overhead (cantenary) power system was engineered by LTK systems, who have a history of transit design dating back to the 1930's.  They use or have developed simulation software that is state of the art.  And you know what simulation software is for transit engineers?  That's right.  Toy trains.  Tooooot.  Toooooot.  This view from the 5th Street skyway from US Bank to the Qwest building.

Kikugawa interlude

Back for my weekly sushi fix. Lily reads while HongSan patiently puts up with my photo antics.

The society of spectacles

In the NorthStar Center, the latest trend in eyeware is peering up from a modest kiosk in front of the optical shop.

Overexposure creates Giacometti skywalkers

A flood of light, like an atomic fireball, burns away the field of vision, leaving eroded bodies in the aftermath. These remnants, tissue thin flags of colored cloth, presage an overexposed future, when we must squint to grasp the real, and close our eyes completely to see what we can stand to see.

In the skyway, headed east from the IDS center.

Lunch time tableaux vivant

Outdoor diners on Nicollet Mall from the skyway between Target and Young-Quinlan.

Serendipity and the muse

In one of those amazing coincidences you could not script, this lady asked me to take her picture on her cell phone to send back home to her family. I took her picture on her phone, then asked if I could take her picture on my camera, also.

Set design in the theater of empty atria.

Another theatrical moment. Lit, arranged with symbolism and starkness, awaits the tread of thespian bravura.

Skyway arts

A bevy of autumn royalty flock above the cattail and marsh spray in this painting looking out on the carpeted silence of a skyway. Kramer Gallery, featuring 19th and 20th century masters.

Theatre District, 8th & Hennepin

Shinder's is abandoned. The solitary street actor heads toward history. Far in the distance a skyway bridges the downtown core and the fringe zone of Block E and beyond, the pariah hood where the scary people light faint hearts on fire.

A sacrifice left for the spirits of the sky.

Someone is hungry at their desk right now. Their PB&J sits on the window ledge of a skyway, forlorn offering.

Way!

Lunchtime sky hikers power walk the long promenade along the parking ramp south of Target Field.

The genius of vehicle design framed by a complementary skyway window

You have to have a heart of stone to not appreciate these lines, contrasts, proportions. This tractor was parked beside the Target Center, and I think it looks like the fierce mien of an ancient dragon god resting between its awful flights.

skyway words

The word on the skyway.

Urban geometries

Maybe not Cartier-Bresson or Callahan, but I like it.  I found the notched shadow, and waited until she stepped into the wall of light, just as the truck was lumbering up from the lower parking level.  Making light of a decisive moment.  The scrawled asphalt repairs and floating graphite manhole cover nestled in the intersections of bold white lines provide a rugged lyric to the stiff yellow semaphore's tense tune.

skyway, the word

Another rendition.

War of the worlds: Art vs. Public Space

Public sculpture on the Wells Fargo processing center plaza, seen from the skyway.

peek a boo modernism

Good view of the public sculpture on the Wells Fargo plaza. It is a beacon of massive, inscrutable formal concerns which evokes old survey instruments, or carnival rides. The plaza is vast by local standards.

No trains. Cars.

The two block long roof of the Milwaukee Road station platform.

Longest skyway

Outside and inside the longest skyway. It runs from the 3rd Ave to 5th Ave. parking ramps, so it is about two blocks long.

Fore!

An annual golf tournament in the skyways!

How could I have missed this? The Downtown Network, a committee of the Downtown Council, sponsors a "Skyway Open" each yearA miniature golf tournament with some wacky and wonderful holes specially designed by some very competitive corporate participants. One demo video I saw showed a pinball golf hole that included working flippers to keep the golf ball in play against gravity, old school style....scroll down to the video links at the bottom of the page and click on Channel 4. You have to wait a while for it to load, but it is worth it.

Rejected! Frypan Digital's Blog

Rejected! Frypan Digital's Blog

Good video. Lofi or whyfi. I am sorry Frypan got the thumbs (pseudopods?) down from Apple for their skyway app. I was/am counting on a torrent of interest in skyways pouring through their entrypoint into the appverse.

Well, it will happen.

Are things looking up for skyway on the ground?

I just talked to Bob Ganser of CityDesk Studio.  They are a small architecture design shop, but they think big. They bought this skyway. Click the link to see their vision of this unmoored skyway sited in the Boundary Waters, or thereabouts. But now they want to sell it.

So here's the deal.  We need a skyway museum.  It needs to be a skyway.  You can't gild this lily any further.

Many symmetries

When I told my friend Clint that I would post this picture with the tagline "See Clint at Sprint" he said they rhyme was just one of many symmetries he had to offer. Clint is my lifeline at the Sprint store in the US Bank building on the skyway level. He represents his company with class. If that matters to you, see Clint at Sprint. (I am giving him and others free plugs in this blog.  I don't even get a promotional ballpoint for my efforts.)

Memorial for the fallen

Playing of Taps for the fallen police officers and sheriff's deputies. On the Public Service Level of the Hennepin County Government Center, May 14, 2010.