Hennepin County: City of Minneapolis

(NEW SITE)


Downtown Skyline going east on I-94

Hanging-Out in downtown while the Twins played and later clinched the 2006-Central Division Championship

My friends (Sean, Ric, Rianna, Gina, and sister-Thelma) and I chilled in downtown on Saturday, September 31st of 2006. We rather do this instead of going back home to St. Paul after not getting into the Metrodome (last Twins baseball game of the season sold out!). We were very dissapointed! We ended up going to the Warehouse District, which we took the Light Right (first for most of us)...

We ended up eating at Applebees at Block E (citysearch)and watching part of the Twins game and Vikings too..
...

Then we went to Gameworks to watch the rest of it, but they wouldn't allow us too (only NFL games on NFL Sunday).

Bulgarian Couple Tours Downtown

I've been to Minneapolis many times, but haven't really had the chance to take pictures until this past weekend. I took a Bulgarian couple around Minneapolis and decided to take some pictures with my camera phone.


View coming from the parking lot on 7th St. going towards the IDS Center

IDS Center


Outside View at night!

Inside the Shopping Plaza

Related Sites:
Minneapolis Marquette Hotel
Wikipedia

Holidazzle Parade

Wells Fargo Center

Related Sites:
Cities Architecture
Wikipedia

U.S. Bank Building

Macy's "Mary Poppins" Display

Related Sites:
Judy's Book
Mary Poppins' magical secret: See Macy's display on a weekday, from Twin Cities-Pioneer Press (Nov 18th 06')
"The annual holiday display began in 1963 with Santa's Enchanted Forest as the theme. Since then, millions of people have made it a part of their holiday season. We caught up with the MacGregor family from St. Paul near the exit, where a dangling Mary Poppins floats away on her open umbrella. The MacGregors come every year after Paul's birthday Nov. 11. This year, he turned 8 and collected hats and mittens, which he and his 12-year-old brother, Brian, and his mother, Cynthia, had just delivered to a charity in downtown Minneapolis. The boys said they liked the floating table"
Up, Up, and Away, The Magic of Mary Poppins, from Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine
*awesome picture to picture of the displays

Walk on the Stone Arch Bridge

On Saturday, August 25th of 2007-I wanted to see what was left of the recent (earlier this month) bridge tragedy. Here are some beautiful panoramic views from part of this long stone arch bridge...

Related Sites:

  • City of Minneapolis
  • Stone Arch Bridge Festival, about.com

  • *went here with a friend (Gina N.) of mine back in 2005
  • Wikipedia

  • "The Stone Arch Bridge is a former railroad bridge crossing the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. Positioned between the 3rd Avenue Bridge and what was the I-35W Bridge,[1] the Stone Arch Bridge was built in 1883 by railroad tycoon James J. Hill for his Great Northern Railway, and accessed the former passenger station located about a mile to the west, on the west bank of the river. The structure is now used as a pedestrian/bicycle bridge. It is an Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 as a part of the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District, (District #71000438). "

    Good News Stories from Minneapolis

    Living in Minnesota and watching the local news, we hear more "negative" than good about the inner-city of Minneapolis. Well, I'm here to share the "positive" of what God has and is doing here.

    I decided to write about an outreach I was a part of back in 1999. I volunteered with other UMM colleagues/peers in a outreach headed by my friend's (Dan S.) church in Burnsville-Apple Valley area. They invited Convoy of Hope to set their "food give-away" (physical and spiritual) in the "heart" of South Minneapolis (Cedar and Lake St.). This past month (January 2007), I was driving around this neighborhood and God reminded me of this event. I decided to write about it to help me not forget God's goodness in Minneapolis. Other cool stories I remember as I write this is...

    -Heart of the City worship services (many of them)
    -Jesus March during one summer in North Minneapolis

    Keep praying for this city, especially when you watch or hear "bad news" through the media. It's the least thing we can do and then pray to ask God how you can be used to help in this situation/circumstance-instead of complaining about what's going on in Minneapolis. Just do it!


    Reccomended Sites

    Architecture

    Downtown Minneapolis from Mississippi Riverfront

    "In this time-lapse recording of sunrise over downtown Minneapolis on a pleasant September morning, one second of video represents 24 seconds of reality. The video starts 30 minutes before sunrise with the Hennepin Avenue bridge still lit. A partly cloudy sky turns red at sunrise, and the video ends an hour later. "

  • Downtown Minneapolis, personal site on angelfire.com
  • List of Buildings in Minneapolis, from Cities Architecture
  • Art

  • Walker Art Center

  • Walker Art Center: Introduce yourself.

    "A PSA created by WCCO TV for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis."
    Sculpture Garden

    Sculpture Gardens 4: "Supersize It"

    "This is 4th in a series of 9 featurettes I made when I lived in Minneapolis. Some friends came to visit and we went to see the Sculpture Gardens in Minneapolis. I took my video camera and had some fun. Everything was impromtu nothing was scripted. "
    -Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge
    "..by the renowned local architect and sculptor Siah Armajani, allows you safely to cross the merged lanes of Hennepin and Lyndale traffic, and with its long ramps is great for bicycles and wheelchairs, but for pedestrians trying to get somewhere? It's not a complete waste of time for walkers, but its top uses may not be what Armajani had in mind..."

    Bottom Picture: Brett refuses to do any jumping jacks on a "dare" in front of cars by passing underneath the Walker Art Bridge on I-94 (Saturday, March 15th of 2008)

    Sculpture garden to Loring Park

    "OK it's a pedestrian overpass. It is very artsy and crosses Hennepin and Lyndale Avenues and I94"
    Bike ride on Walker Art Bridge,from youtube.com
    "Riding bike clip over Walker Art Bridge in Minneapolis sculpture garden."

    Below are more pictures from my visit with my Uncle Ely and Aunt Helen...

    Articles

  • Confession and repentance in North Minneapolis and beyond by Efrem Smith Published by Minnesota Christian Chronicle � March 2008

  • "As a pastor in North Minneapolis, I�m very grieved by recent events that show us that we still have a long way to go towards the �Beloved Community� becoming a reality in the city.
    A woman has her own children hold down a 4-year-old boy while she beats him to death for soiling his pants. An elderly woman is found dead in her home and a father turns his son in to the authorities, saying that his son didn�t commit the murder but is somehow connected. And these are just the major stories that have made the headlines recently.
    I could also talk about school closings, declining enrollments at schools currently open, housing foreclosures, and boarded up buildings on Broadway Ave. These challenges point to why there is such a need for healing and transformation in North Minneapolis.
    Before there can be healing and transformation, confession and repentance must take place. Now, there might just be way too much ego and pride (the enemies to confession and repentance) for this to take place, but there can be no healing and transformation without confession and repentance.
    You may believe that confession and repentance are the same thing, but there is a subtle difference between the two. Within the area of confession we need to be willing to tell the truth. Sometimes truth telling will lead to the one confessing having to take responsibility for what they�ve confessed�which would lead to repentance.
    We need to confess that millions of dollars have been poured into North Minneapolis with very little result. Foundations and corporations have given money to individuals and organizations that haven�t been held accountable for the resources they received. In some cases those giving the resources didn�t hold those receiving the money accountable because they didn�t want to be accused of racism. In some cases there was no accountability because the one giving the resources was too busy to do the hard work of demanding and monitoring results. Who will take responsibility for this and repent?
    We need to confess that in North Minneapolis there is a church on just about every corner, and yet the spiritual force of evil is not easily defeated, but rather it has influence in the Church. The Church being divided by denomination, race and class cannot be biblically justified. Only a reconciling Church can truly take on the demons of division and destruction in North Minneapolis and beyond. Who will take responsibility for this and repent?
    We need to confess that there are leaders in North Minneapolis, who I have high respect for, but who are unfortunately using Civil Rights and Black Nationalist methods to solve a Post-Civil Rights and Post-Black problem. North Minneapolis is multi-ethnic. North Minneapolis has a growing number of first generation immigrant African and Asian populations.
    This is not to take away from the fact that there are pressing issues facing the African-Americans in North Minneapolis, but to raise the issue that some of our methods are outdated and our pride has kept us from empowering the next generation to join older leaders in developing a new movement with new solutions. Who will take responsibility for this and repent?
    We need to confess that the government�at the city and state level�has failed North Minneapolis in two ways. At the state level, the government has failed because the governor of this great state has not made North Minneapolis a priority of his administration. He is a professed evangelical Christian. The evangelical community is not lovingly holding him accountable because in Minnesota you only need to be pro-life and pro-marriage to receive the love of evangelicals.
    I�m evangelical, pro-life and pro-marriage in terms of that institution being between a man and a woman. But I�m also pro-community development and pro-kingdom advancement in the city.
    When it comes to North Minneapolis, too many evangelicals are simply pro-charity and pro-pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps.
    The city government has failed North Minneapolis by not being able to admit they�ve run out of creative solutions and therefore only keep recycling old ones. There have been too many political meetings filled with nice sounding rhetoric lacking real solutions that bear fruit to transform North Minneapolis.
    We need to confess that parents are not taking full responsibility for what it takes to raise children. Too many young people are committing violent crimes because they learned the characteristics of a gangster lifestyle from their own family members. Who will take responsibility and repent?
    This may be a painful process, but there must be confession and repentance first in order for there to be major healing and transformation in North Minneapolis.
    I, for one, am willing to repent for any role I�ve played in these confessions. I repent for any territorialism and competition that has found its way into my soul and impacted my decision-making process.
    I repent for not being a loving prophet to government officials and elder leaders in North Minneapolis.
    I desire to go deep with others into confession and repentance, that there may be healing and transformation in North Minneapolis and beyond. Efrem Smith is the Senior Pastor of The Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minn., and an itinerant speaker with Kingdom Building Ministries. He is also the author of �Raising Up Young Heroes� and �The Hip-Hop Church.""

    Current News

  • I-35 Bridge Collapses over the Mississippi River, personal site
  • Downtown

  • Photo Tour
  • 360 Degree Panorama, from Big Eye in the Sky
  • Education

    -Colleges

  • University of Minnesota

  • =stores:
  • House of Hanson, 433 14th Ave SE
  • Events

  • Hollidazzle Parade

  • Holidazzle Parade, from youtube.com
    "This is just a slideshow of the 12/16/06 Holidazzle Parade in downtown Minneapolis. We happened to be visiting the area and thought the parade would be entertaining, and it definitely was"
  • Minneapolis Aquatennial, (personal photos) annual event around July
  • Housing

    -Apartments

  • Riverside Plaza
  • Wikipedia

  • "Riverside Plaza is a modernist and brutalist apartment complex designed by Ralph Rapson that opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1973. On the edge of downtown Minneapolis in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, and next to the University of Minnesota's West Bank, the site contains the 39-story McKnight Building, the tallest structure outside of the city's central business district. Initially known as Cedar Square West, the complex was featured on television as the residence of Mary Richards in later seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
    Today, the imposing concrete structures are usually considered to be visually unappealing[attribution needed], particularly with their multi-colored panels (attempting to emulate Le Corbusier's Unit� d'Habitation design) which strongly date the period of construction. Interstate 94 and I-35W both pass nearby, giving good highway transportation options for occupants, but the corridors also act as barriers to pedestrians. Despite these drawbacks, the complex has been successful in maintaining a high occupancy rate, rarely dipping below 90% in three decades.
    It is composed of six buildings and has 1,303 residential units, making it the main feature of the city's Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. Each building has a different height, intended to reflect the diversity of its population. Rapson was inspired by the time he spent in European cities where people of different ages and levels of wealth coexisted in close quarters. The area was developed with support from the U.S. federal government's "New Town-In Town" program, and was originally planned to be part of a utopian design that would have seen 12,500 units spread across four "neighborhoods" housing a total of 30,000 people.
    About half of the complex is reserved for subsidized housing, much more than the 20% Rapson had originally planned. The low-income nature of the site has led to derisive nicknames such as the "slum in the sky," "ghetto in the sky," and the "crack stacks." A string of homicides in the early 1990s also contributed to a negative image. University student residents have been a declining portion of the population, while East African immigrants have dominated in recent years. More recent nicknames include "Little Somalia" and "Vertical Africa," reflecting the modern makeup.
    A major complaint by residents of Riverside Plaza is the shortage of elevators: The 408-unit McKnight Building currently has five (it was built with three), and other structures are also "under-elevated." Ground transportation has improved since the 2004 addition of the Cedar-Riverside light rail station on the Hiawatha Line."

    Ministries

  • Holding Forth the Word of Life Ministries, 2029-33 West Broadway

  • *Urban Spotlight at Heart of the City worship gathering in 2000
    " a dynamic ministry with urban roots, but with a global outreach. Our emphasis is to bring about the restoration of the family unit according to God's Word, to teach believers their redemptive rights and privileges in Christ, and to reveal the character of God as it functions in the believer's life."
    Heart of the City Urban Spotlight: Holding Forth Ministries

    "Sharing the restoration of the family unit in North Minneapolis and surrounding area. Their ministry is the Urban Spotlight during this regular worship gathering in the Twin Cities"
    *see Multicultural:Worship-Ministries

    Oasis of Love, Inc
    " Oasis operates a thriving faith-based outreach based in North Minneapolis with services to families throughout seven Metro Area counties. In its second decade, Oasis served more than 13,000 families and individuals with their holistic approach to"

    Testimonies

  • The science of surviving a 16-story fallUpdated: 01/23/2007 10:49:35 AM (KSTP)

  • " It's an incredible survival story, a Wisconsin man falls 16-stories and lives. 29-year-old Joshua Hanson is in critical condition Monday after falling from a hotel window early saturday morning.
    He's had surgery on one ankle and has a collapsed lung, but he's alive. Defying long odds.
    5 EYEWITNESS NEWS spoke with a physics professor to find out exactly how fast Hanson was falling when landed. "

    Transportation

  • Aiport

  • Fly-by of downtown Minneapolis, from youtube.com
    "Climbing out of MSP we get to see a view of downtown as well as Lake Calhoun and Lake of the Isles"
  • Light Rail

  • Hiawatha Train into Downtown Minneapolis

    "An over-the-driver's shoulder view from just north of Lake Street to the Hennepin Avenue Warehouse District station."

    Youth

  • Bridge for Youth, reaching out to the youth in the streets
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