Minneapolis »

By neighborhood:

St. Paul »

By neighborhood:

Foshay Tower party

by Todd Melby, 6/12/08 • Back in the 1980s, I worked at the Foshay Tower as a security guard. I was in college and often pulled the late shift, 11 p.m.-7 a.m. I remember sneaking into the wood-paneled penthouse suite once occupied by Wilbur Foshay, the businessman who built the obelisk skyscraper in 1929. Although I was the only one in the building at the time, I felt like I had to keep the lights off because I wasn’t supposed to be in there. Still, it was a heady feeling, knowing this was the place ol’ Wilbur smoked cigars and worried about his future as the stock market tumbled and he lost his fortune. (At least how that’s I imagined it.)

On Friday, August 22, I’ll have a chance to return to the Foshay Tower. The Preservation Alliance of Minnesota is sponsoring “The Foshay Soiree: A Roaring 20’s Restoration” to celebrate the restoration of the Foshay, which reopens as a W Hotel on July 28. The party starts at 6:30 p.m. and costs $50 per person for Alliance members and $60 for nonmembers. You can register beginning July 1 at the Preservation Alliance website.

Tags:

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
4 + 10 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.

News you can use

Mississippi Watershed group retools grants program, hopes to reach diverse communities

By Paul Purman , TC Daily Planet

A Twin Cities watershed organization has a quarter million dollars of grant money to divvy up over the next few months, and they’re hoping groups that have traditionally not applied for funding will show up for an information meeting on Monday, September 8.

“Look at the demographics of our watershed,” explains Jenny Winkelman, Education & Outreach Coordinator for the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization (MWMO), which covers portions of the cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Lauderdale, and St. Anthony. “We have a huge audience we’re trying to reach, many of them fairly recent immigrant communities, such as the Hmong and Somali communities. Most traditional watershed materials are produced for a literate, English-speaking audience and may miss important populations.” MORE »