Skyway open putters along

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

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!

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

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

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

Nelson Aldrich, at your service

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

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

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

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

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...

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

The skyline barely emerges from the vast bowl of baseball.

Waiting for the news

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

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

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

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...

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

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.

Feral Brides in store

Hip. Jaded! Predatory? This is the pose of the modern bride? This makes guys want to grow up and make sure forever is not a lonely place? Maybe this look is more appropriate to the"marriage as a one-night stand" theme park show on cable.
Cupid, just shoot me now.

Sun behind the Capella UFO

A halo. A crown of glory.

The metaphors of modern life

This sculpture looks even more interesting with the snow providing a stage set for the action.

Major Skyway #FAIL in Downtown Minneapolis

It came to my attention today that the library is not on the skyways. Hey, I knew that. But I had to walk over there in -4 degree temperatures, and found out exactly how far off the skyway system it is...the distance it took my knuckle hairs to freeze and fall off my naked fingers. Yikes, get a skyway going to the library, downtown people. Now, before I have to return the books!

Train art in the skyways...see it Thursday Feb. 3rd at Qwest.

John Cartwright simply seems like the happiest person I have met in a long time. He has done hundreds of meticulous drawings of local train stations around Minnesota, many of them of historical interest. He was sitting at a small table drawing when I walked by in the Qwest building today. I chatted a bit and disclosed that I had been, in fact, the last Union brakeman hired by the Great Northern before their merger with Burlington in 1969/70. That certainly broke the ice, and he regaled me with station and train lore. Go see him and buy a drawing of your favorite Minnesota town's station, for a mere $20. Own a wisp of the great fading lore of history. Make a happy man even happier.
His website.

This must be the Burger Place

The Burger Place in the Soo Line Building has arguably the best burgers on the skyway if you like that sort of thing. This antique toy roadster symbolizes the carefree life of the open road that no one around here can imagine anymore.

Images of the underworld, emergence of the new year from the dark

This photo was taken six floors aboveground, but it feels like the exit ramp from Hades, the path that Persephone must have taken in her annual escape from the underworld. The light slants down the walkway at a precise angle parallel to the cement surface, something that happens at this exact time of day only twice yearly, a kind of parking ramp equinox. The day grows longer, even if the distance from hell to spring seems longer yet.

The lonliness of the skyway luncher

In the Northstar Center, there are long counters for the overflow crowds from the Arbys, China Gardens, Loma Tortillas, Walking the Dog...They attract the solitary lunchers, who prefer the company of a book or smart phone browser to more office prattle from their coworkers.