Twin Cities Tour Guide

          When I was a kid, anytime my family went on a trip, we always looked for weird things. When one of us saw something unusual, we would point it out and crown it “Weird Thing number 1″, the next would be “Weird thing number 2″ and so on. So I thought it would be fun to create a list of weird things in Minneapolis and St. Paul. So read on to find out about the first two items on my “Twin Cities Weird List”. Please comment if you know of other Twin Cities oddities. Enjoy!

Weird Thing #1 - The World’s Only Suspension … Building?

 At first glance the old Federal Reserve Bank Building (now Marquette Plaza) at 250 Marquette Ave (map), does not look particularly unusual:

Photo Courtesy of Paul Weimer

   However, this building is actually the first and only “Suspension Building” in the whole world! It was built in 1973 and its structure is essentially a building built on top of a suspension bridge. Imagine the vertical concrete walls on either side of the building are the bridge towers, the curving black line on the facade is the main cable, and the horizontal stretch between the concrete walls just below the lowest point of the u-shaped curve is the road deck. That is essentially how this building works. Behind the facade is a giant u-shaped cable and smaller vertical cables that support all of the floors above the lobby. Originally, there was an open gap between the ground level lobby and the floors above, but it has since been turned into office space. For some photos of the building with most of the facade removed and the support cables visible, check out this website. 

The Federal Reserve Bank moved to its new location on the Mississippi River at Hennepin Ave in 1997 because of structural problems and extensive use of asbestos in the “Suspension Building”, which may explain why no one has ever built another “Suspension Building”!

Weird Thing #2: The Suspension Bridge that Isn’t

How many of you have enjoyed the beautiful views of the Mississippi River, the downtown skyline, and Nicollette Mall, as you drive beneath the cables and towers on the Hennepin Avenue Suspension Bridge?(map). It looks like a historic old suspension bridge, right? … Well, appearances can be deceiving.

Photo courtesy of Doug Wallick

The secret that this suspension bridge is hiding is that it’s… well… not a suspension bridge at all! It’s also much younger than looks, having been built in 1990. It is officially named the “Father Louis Hennepin Bridge” after the Belgian priest who was supposedly the first European to see the area that is now Minneapolis. The superfluous suspension cables support very little weight and were added as a tribute to the first two bridges built on this spot, both of which were true suspension bridges. The first bridge, built on this spot in 1855, is believed to be the first permanent span across the Mississippi river anywhere on its entire length.  

Even if it were in fact a suspension bridge, it would still be weird because it would be one of the shortest road suspension bridges in the world today!

More Weird Things to Come:

These two structures are only first on a long list of weird things in the Twin Cities that I have created. If you’d like to learn about the strange “flying car” next to I-94 or find out where in Minneapolis you can see the world’s largest indoor brass lighting fixture plus many more weird things, subscribe to this blog using the box on the right. It’s easy, free, and will instantly update you when new posts are published. 

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to keep an eye out for more weird things. Also, I would love to get more suggestions for favorite Twin Cities spots, so please comment!

If you’d like to learn about more Twin Cities oddities, check out the weird list master list.

Explore posts in the same categories: Architecture Point of Interest, Great Photo Spot, Great Views, Inexpensive, Just for fun

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 11:58 am and is filed under Architecture Point of Interest, Great Photo Spot, Great Views, Inexpensive, Just for fun. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.