Category: downtown

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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.

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Occupy MN

The party is over, now it's time to clean up. You can see more photos from Occupy MN! at North Metro Photo. When we went down there, I expected an encampment, but never such a sea of junk. Several workers in the area said that people would just drive up and drop off stuff for them. I’ve gone to photograph the tea parties as well, but they only gathered for a couple hours and then they picked up all the litter in the area on their way out. Afterwards, I walked around — not even a gum wrapper was left. If people think these groups are similar, they should compare the after-effects on the local environment.

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St Patricks Day Parade

I love the expression the girl with the big glasses has.

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Urban Electric Reindeer in the Snow

Lost it the wind, the herd or electric reindeer search for a place to spend the night and dream of electric sheep.

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Minneapolis Skyline at Sundown

Every photographer in Minneapolis has to have this shot. If you go looking, you'll figure out where to stand, in fact, it's delightfully obvious. The first time I went looking and found the location, it was like finding a geocache or and Easter egg.

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Lonely City in the Snow

When I was out in the storm with Snapshutter, we stopped to get out of the snow under at this little market. All the different lights caught my eye. It reminded me a little of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks. Oh yes, that's the famed Snapshutter on the phone in the corner.

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A Quiet Night on Hennepin in the Snow

Snow and pools of light fall upon the quiet street.

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Lightrail in the Snowstorm

Two Minneapolis Lightrail Trains pass in the snowstorm near the new Target Field.

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Snowmageddon Lightrail Station

Schnapsi and I went out in the snowmageddon last night to take photos during the storm. We went downtown and had quite the adventure! The snow was falling so fast and with the strong winds, it was a new experience in photojournalism, several times my camera bag got a drift in it and once my hood had blown back and by the time I put it back up it too had filled with snow, Yikes! I had planned a few locations ahead, but it turned out that the visibility was so bad that none of them worked. Schnapsi wanted to go to the lightrail station and I'm glad we did!