Tag Archives: historic preservation

Concrete support pillars are among dozens of remains scattered throughout the Gopher Ordinance Works, a WWII munitions factory in Rosemount.

Embracing Ruins as Historic Preservation

For the most part, these sites are hidden behind railroads, below river bluffs, or at the end of gated dirt roads. We tend to either ignore or look at them as failures, awaiting either a visionary creative reuse or the wrecking ball.

21 North Washington Avenue, Minneapolis.

No, We Should Not Abolish the HPC. But It Could Look Different.

An essay posted January 15, 2021 on streets.mn entitled “Preserve The Future, Not Just The Past” is a fairly typical critique of heritage preservation and the role of heritage preservation commissions (HPCs) in American cities. The article points to the frequently absurd minutia and short-sightedness of HPC meetings and staff reports, but does not fully […]

Preserve The Future, Not Just The Past

Because I have a lot of important things to fill my time, I recently tuned in to a meeting of the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission. There was just one item on the agenda: the proposed demolition of a low-slung downtown office building at 17 N Washington Avenue, which would then be replaced by a 27 […]

Should We Try To Make Parking Spaces Extinct I1140

National Links: The Trouble with Parking Requirements

Every day at The Overhead Wire we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list.  At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the D.C. region. […]

Wildwood

Sunday Summary – November 18, 2018

Thank you all who Gave to the Max for streets.mn and to those who applied to join our board. streets.mn depends on its members, event volunteers, writers, board members, and donors to support its work. Yay!  And here’s last week on streets.mn:   Interesting journeys To the Gulf of Minneapolis by bike with Wolfie Browender. To […]

St Andrews St Paul

St. Andrew’s Church and the American Landscape

Editor’s note / correction: The original post did not state that Bob Roscoe is a paid consultant on this project. Per streets.mn editorial policy #14, possible conflicts of interest should be disclosed before publication. streets.mn regrets the error.   Many places of worship are built for unambiguously ecclesiastic use for the religious function of its […]

Totem Town Trek

September 7, 2015 34.5 Miles West End, Downtown, Dayton’s Bluff, Battle Creek, Highwood Hills A long ride to the eastern reaches of Saint Paul, which started with some quick stops, first on the West End. Today’s plan was to reach and explore Boys Totem Town, Ramsey County’s live-in program for boys 14 to 18 who […]

A Missed Opportunity for Placemaking

If you have ever referenced the Pannekoeken Building, the Days Inn, the Carlton Hotel, or that old building across from Rochester Methodist Hospital, well then you are already well acquainted with one of the only remaining historic hotels in downtown Rochester. And if you read the news every day, you are now aware that a […]