I bike to work most days, and because of moving around, I’ve entered Minneapolis from many different directions. They way I get downtown now is my favourite. As I bike down my street towards downtown, I see the Foshay Tower, framed on the left by the IDS Center and on the right by the former Norwest Tower (now the Wells Fargo Center). Right before getting to I-94, I cut over a block to 3rd and cross the freeway on the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired 3rd Avenue Bridge to enter downtown. Continuing on 3rd, the Minneapolis Convention Center is on my left with its Art Deco style parking ramp on my right. Just past the ramp, I pass the neo-gothic Central Lutheran Church, and see Century Plaza rise up before me. Century Plaza is a cool-looking building, used for a lot of Hennepin County offices, but I can’t find any good information about its history on Google. It looks like a WPA building design, though.

Continuing on my way, the Foshay shoots up like a rocket ship, overlooking a parking lot, so you get a really good view of its entire length from this vantage point at the corner of 3rd and 11th (I think that’s the right corner). By the time I pass it, I’m right in the heart of downtown, in the manmade crevasses of the city, soon to arrive at my urban workplace.

Related posts:

1. Shout out for the TC
2. old = good. progress = good. So why can’t we do both?
3. Foshay Tower print at Aesthetic Apparatus
4. Day 1 at work in the Forbidden City
5. The case of the missing bike racks