Viewing flights at MSP: People are still crazy about aviation
For the first time in years, the Metropolitan Airports Commission has designated a dedicated viewing area inside the airport proper, located on Cargo Road off Cedar Avenue.
The Stroll
The Stroll, penned and drawn by Andy Sturdevant, is a weekly look at the art, architecture, history, and visual culture of the Twin Cities — with each article focused on one geographic area, shown in a hand-drawn map. The Stroll draws readers’ attention not only to traditional works of visual art but also to architecture, street art, historic sites, public art, advertising, artists’ projects, and events on the streets and sidewalks around town.
A handsome new Ridgedale and the fine art of hanging out
Located between two wealthy suburbs, and boasting a chic new Nordstrom as an anchor store, Ridgedale is the best argument a developer can make for the contemporary enclosed shopping mall.
The subterranean caverns that protect the U’s Andersen Library collections
The building is an impressive feat on its own merits. Aside from the materials within, it’s quite an architectural experience.
The latest in thrift-store art: Monets, pastel color schemes, and the obligatory IKEA print
The most interesting investigations in the art aisle are in finding original, one-of-a-kind works of art. You often – not always, but often – find something quite striking.
‘Old Bandbox’ on Hennepin was the center of Minneapolis’ early arts scene
As much as the Bandbox studios were a place for work, they were also a place for hanging out.
3rd Avenue Bridge: Built (in 1918) not to be seen but to showcase the Falls of St. Anthony
The headlines trumpeting the bridge focused on the aesthetic: The bridge would “add wonder to the historic waterfall already made famous.”
Seven stories down: U building serves as a tribute to Minnesota experimentalism
The Civil Engineering Building is inverted and built into the ground. When you get in the elevator, the floors go in reverse.
Two great Northstar/bike day trips: Elk River and Oliver Kelley Farm
Trains and bicycles work well in tandem as complementary modes of transportation. The train does the heavy lifting. The bicycle, in turn, extends the range.
Minnesota State Fair T-shirt bingo, 2015 edition
You can’t use last year’s bingo cards and expect accurate results. The culture has moved on!
Hardcore Architecture: Punk bands and underground culture rise from often unremarkable homes
Chicago artist Marc Fischer explores the relationship between domestic spaces, urban and suburban neighborhoods, and underground hardcore and punk bands of the 1980s.
Green Line’s Fairview Avenue stop: Unassuming street has some interesting surprises
Walk south from the Green Line and you’ll see two attractive buildings dating from the 1910s. Both tell very interesting stories in the names carved above the front doors.
Minneapolis-born James Hong: If you watch movies, you know him
If anyone deserves a star on Hennepin Avenue alongside Tippi Hedren and Marion Ross, it’s James Hong, one of the great cult character actors of the past 50 years.
St. Paul’s 7 hills: 6 contenders vie for the last 2 spots
The two remaining slots are open to at least six possibilities: Ramsey Hill, St. Clair Hill, Mount Airy, Mount Ida, Crocus Hill and Prospect Park.
St. Paul’s 7 hills: There seems to be agreement on 5 of them
To claim seven hills is a way to draw a parallel between your city and the glories of Rome, to say, “We, too, deserve triumphs, adorn villas, and our posterity will erect convents.”
Going east on I-94? Get off the phone and check out these two stand-out buildings
To the south, there’s the glowing mural on the side of Creative Lighting. To the north, there’s the perspective-shifting facade at Flannery Construction.
Barges and railroads shaped the Childs Road area, a lonely industrial corridor in St. Paul
The lowlands, valleys and floodplains along the Mississippi River are less visible and less celebrated than the city’s bluffs and hills.
Morningside: Home to an independent spirit, Tippi Hedren, and two years of ‘Harold and Maude’
Morningside can lay claim to all sorts of other bona fides, besides those in the realm of film. It’s a little urban village with a fascinating history; a part of Edina, but only fitfully.
Prosperity Avenue: Look for a metaphor and you will find it
Prosperity Avenue will never be mistaken for Summit Avenue. But I encountered four sites (sights?) that seemed to me, under the circumstances, to say something about prosperity.
‘High Weirdness by Mail’: mapping the Twin Cities’ late ’80s fringe
The ’88 guidebook focused primarily on organizations providing free literature related to the supernatural, the occult, the political, the radical, and other varieties of non-mainstream thought.
Playful signs, cotton-candy clouds make Jordan candy store a place of pleasure and wonderment
There may be no commercial enterprise in the state of Minnesota that utilizes more handmade signage per square foot than Jim’s Apple Farm, aka MINNESOTA’S LARGEST CANDY STORE.
