Category: Architecture

Green Line train passing table and chairs, with plants in foreground, brick pavers, pollarded trees

Assessing the Stadium Village Green Line Public Space

There’s a the public space on Washington Avenue between the tracks of the Stadium Village Green Line station. What’s it like as a place to hang out in? What can it tell us for other spaces like this, which some of us wish for in the future, as in the Twin Cities Boulevard vision?

Street view of an alleyway in Tokyo, Japan.

National Links: Energized Cities

Michael E Smith, professor of anthropology at Arizona State University, describes how early cities thrived through energized crowding; Oslo plans for major emissions reduction; and how Seattle has radically changed within this past decade.

Dog Nearly Bites Man and Converted Churches on Dayton’s Bluff

September 27, 2021 Downtown, Lowertown, Dayton’s Bluff 20.1 miles The route map of my September 27, 2021 ride. The map is zoomable. A sunny late September day with the temperature in the mid-70s is a day to ride. And so I was winding my way east on Kellogg Boulevard Downtown toward Dayton’s Bluff. At the […]

Some serious engineering and construction went into the design of the two-story retaining wall at 2300 Doswell!

The ‘Irregular Hillocks, Ridges and Hollows’ of St. Anthony Park

August 25, 2021 20.8 Miles St. Anthony Park I’d never thought of St. Anthony Park as being unusually hilly – that is, until this ride. About halfway through it dawned on me that I was getting a nice workout thanks to the elevation changes. The 1920 edition of the Minnesota Historical Society’s Minnesota Geographic Names […]

Shutter Spotting Around the City

This post focuses on a familiar but mostly overlooked decorative accoutrement – window shutters. Before I get to the multiplicity of shutters I’ve laid eyes on while riding around St. Paul, here’s a bit of historical context. A Brief History of Shutters According to several websites, shutters first appeared in ancient Greece; constructed of marble […]

The ADUs of St. Paul … and why aren’t there more of them?

With St. Paul having recently announced plans to once again tinker with its Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) ordinance, it seemed like an apt time to try to figure out just how many people have taken advantage of the citywide ADU ordinance passed in late 2018, and to see just what they’ve been building. So, on a recent beautiful Saturday, I set off on my bike in search of the 12 ADUs that have been permitted and built in St. Paul under the rules set in 2018.