360: The city of old

Random Tumblr find of the day:

via Robot Cosmonaut on Tumblr

Minneapolis has some nice-looking office towers, but the drive through downtown would be a lot more interesting if the storefronts still looked like this.

343: Alcoho-ho-ho

If you're in Minnesota, North Dakota, or Wisconsin, consider buying yourself a Finnegans beer this month.  Why?  Let the Star Tribune tell you:

Throughout December, beer distributors will give donations that match sales of Finnegans beer, doubling the money going to food shelves. To find where it's sold near you: finnegans.org.

(During the other eleven months of the year, 100% of profits from sale of the beer goes to local charities.)  Read the full article about Finnegans at the Strib's website here.

Relevant because I'm halfway through a bottle while writing this post.  Trufax.

337: Winter

I wish I had a wintry photo of my own, but I was too busy trying to see through the snow while driving to pull out whatever camera-enabled devices I had on me.  Alas.  Here's one found on the Minneapolis tag on tumblr:

by dmd.hashw on Flickr

336: Chandelier

Semple Mansion, Minneapolis, 2009.

I'm not sure if I like this or not.

Slightly creepy.

333: Campus flashback

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 2006.

Going way back into the archives for this shot of my daily commute from the U of M's West Bank to the East Bank campus, back when I lived in Middlebrook Hall.  I believe this part of the Washington Avenue bridge is now fenced off and inaccessible during Light Rail construction.  Trufax.

331: When in doubt...

...post a photo of animals making faces.

Minnesota Zoo, 2009.

Check.

302: Goldy

The athletic fellows from my alma mater apparently beat Iowa today, but the real entertainment -- for me, at home, on Twitter -- was Goldy Gopher's Halloween costumes:

First quarter: Buzz Lightyear

Second quarter: Donatello

Third quarter: Gladiator

Fourth quarter: Austin Powers

Never change, Goldy.  Never change.

296: Main Street

via siftingforseeds on Tumblr

Milwaukee Street in Minneapolis.

I've never seen it in person, but maybe I'll go snoop around this fall.

295: Bibliophile

2011.

The local library's book sale was today.

Beat-up copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and a collection of detective stories from 1929: a grand total of $2.00

253: Local color

I spent the afternoon today on a 12-mile bike tour led by the local police department, advertised as a tour of notable areas in the city.  In actuality "notable" areas?  Crime scenes.  And the unoffical nude beach.  Don't get me wrong, it was a great ride and an interesting look into violent crime in the area.  We stopped by the sites of several murders (or body-dumps) and hiked down to what is colloquially known as Bare-Ass Beach (no bare asses today, just some law-abiding teenagers and swimmers).  We also rode past scads of trees that were snapped by the tornado earlier this summer, which also tore up the paved trail to the point where we were essentially riding on uneven chunks of asphalt at some points.

And then the cops gave us sandwiches and cans of pop.  It was pretty cool.

via Flickr

Semi-coherent rambling, aaaaaaaand scene.

229: Flashback

I included one of the photos from this set in yesterday's blog for my grandmother's birthday, but these two offer an interesting look at Minneapolis streets in the 1940s:

Above is my great-uncle, the late Albert "Pat" Hum (who later in life, owned Hum's Liquor on Lyndale Ave.) probably standing on either 5th Street or 3rd Avenue.  The building behind him appears to be the Qwest building.  It's almost impossible to find a modern-day street view equivalent for this photo because so many newer buildings have gone up in the last sixty years that it's hard to tell from which direction this was shot.

This photo has been fairly perplexing for years.  It appears to be in Northeast Minneapolis (where the family's laundry business was located), but no one has been able to pinpoint exactly where, and none of the "historical building" plaques were of any help.  I think I've figured out that this picture of my great-uncles Andy and Abie Hum was taken near the East Hennepin-University Ave intersection.


View Larger Map

See the buildings at the far right in the photo and at center in the street view?  They look similar, don't they?  It looks like the Spielberg's Food Market (as printed on the awning) was in the vicinity of Surdyk's or Panera's present-day location.  In any case, the difference between East Hennepin in the 1940s and today is incredible -- it looks like the street isn't even paved in the 1940s photo.

(We've been going through a lot of old photos recently, so I get to do some History Detectives-type work and satisfy my secret desire to be a sleuth.)