More photos from the Borchert Aerial Map Archive at the University of Minnesota, this one a bit closer to the actual archive itself.
The West Bank neighborhood of Minneapolis fascinates me because you can find so many different eras of the city juxtaposed with each other.
Here’s one of those: the old intersection of 5th Street and Cedar Avenue, which disappeared and then re-appeared.
You can see, when the Heller-inspired plans were put into place in the 70s, they removed part of the street grid, closing off 5th, making 18th into a pedestrian-only “street.”
I particularly like this example because of the block where 5th ought to intersect with Cedar, the site of the old Dania Hall, is still a major walking thoroughfare for the neighborhood. You can see this in the wintertime, as “desire paths” trace themselves through the snow.
[These are all from a few years ago, obviously.]
PS. The site of the bocce courts next to the Nomad Pub was actually where a huge concrete staircase descended for a pedestrian overpass from the Riverside Plaza. I’ve seen photos of this ped bridge in the late Judith Martin’s book on the subject, but haven’t found any online. It was torn down sometime in the 80s because it was horrible and blotted out the sun. Now people cross Cedar willy-nilly.