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 […]
As the 210-unit Snelling Yards development nears construction, a rare named alley appeared on site plans and city documents, leading the author down a rabbit hole to investigate this anomaly and double down on the need to apply names to even the most mundane public assets.
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 […]
I gave this presentation to the Lowry Hill Neighborhood Association (LHNA) Annual Meeting in May 2014. Several people requested that it be made available to the general public, so I have created this brief overview for Streets.MN in anticipation of a Hennepin-Lyndale Reconstruction Project Open House Monday August 4th, 2014 at 6:30 PM at the Walker Art Center. Special […]