Archive for January 2012

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Crest of the Wave by Harriet W. Frishmuth

This statue is in the very center of the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory Palm Dome. Harriet W. Frishmuth created Crest of the Wave in 1925, it was modeled on a woman names Desha, a popular concert dancer at the time. Years ago, I photographed the feet of this statue.

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Como Conservatory North Garden Pond

The pond in the North Garden is one of the most peaceful places in the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory at Como Park. I think the statue is of Francis of Assisi, but I'm not sure. If you know, please comment.

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The Como Conservatory North Garden

The North Garden at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory is a "living grocery, pharmacy and building supply store." It has papaya, pomegranate, fig, mahogany and chocolate as well as a really nice little pond with statues and is stocked with poi.

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Orchid at the Como Conservatory

I really enjoy the Como Conservatory in the winter, it's strangely pleasant to be uncomfortably warm, surrounded by high humidity.

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Como Conservatory Sunken Garden

I went to the Como Conservatory to 'get a little green' and found that the Sunken Garden is closed for planting. If you ever wondered what it looks like without all the beautiful flowers, well, here you go. You can see the garden with flowers on my buddy Dusty's site. Fear not, I found plenty to photograph in the rest of the conservatory. Tune in over the coming days to see...

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Minneapolis Snow

It's finally snowed up here in the great midwestern plains. It's been a long wait, last year at this time, we'd had 9 major snow storms and we had completely run out of places to put it. As Joe Soucheray would say, we needed to practice 'space management' in a big way. As you can see from this image, it's barely any snow at all, yet the highways are stopped and everyone's driving like a Floridian.

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Sunset Over Lake Calhoun

Another winter day comes to an end. We finally have snow here in Minneapolis. It's been unseasonable warm; strange to be reminded what winter is supposed to look like here.

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Colorful Street

The city of Minneapolis has added 'green' bike lanes and by green, I mean they painted the whole lane green. Very strange. Not a color you usually see on a street. Reminds me of the movie 'Little Shop of Horrors' where Audrey dreams of a house with a painted green concrete lawn. Oh yes, have you ever noticed that when the city opens a manhole, they never put it back so it lines up with how it was painted?

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Happy Hour On Hennepin Avenue

A quiet morning smoke break on Hennepin Avenue. I was watching the Ken Burns’ three-part series on Prohibition last night and learned the origin of the term ‘Skid Row‘; it comes from Skid Road in Vancouver or Seattle where the loggers would ‘skid’ the logs from the docks to the lumber mills. It was home to hard-working and hard-drinking workmen. It eventually became the term for the rough vice-riddled neighborhoods in big cities like Minneapolis. Eventually the city planners in the 60′s demolished our skid row and put in the cold boring buildings all along the area north of Washington at Hennepin. They destroyed a lot of really interesting buildings as well including the Metropolitan Building. This photo is of The Gay 90′s, which was on the edge of the area and managed to survive the do-gooders and their wrecking ball.