Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Train Stations

As I sit here, watching the clock tick toward 12:30am, I wonder. I wonder if anyone else on this planet, or at least at the university, has ever written 8 pages and 4,088 words on union train stations in America from 1840-1940. I know the answer is probably no, but to make myself feel better about myself, I'm going to say yes. There is somebody on campus that will cry with me over the loss of Penn Station in New York, or cringe at the notion of St. Louis's Union Station as attempting a unified facade, or even freak out when the book I checked out of the library features a very detailed exterior elevation of Kansas City's very own Union Station. With them, I could have a very heated debate over which Twin City station was superior, Minneapolis's Great Northern Depot or St. Paul's Union Depot. We could even have Google map parties where we try to find these stations in relationship to the city centers without the help of the search feature.

In reality, I know no such person exists. It's a little lonely in my architortured mind, but it's okay. Someday, society will catch up to my superior level of brain function, and everyone will appreciate good architecture. Oh what a world that would be.

(I'm kidding. I promise I'm not this vain. Also, that would be a very scary world, if people could relate to me)

Resuscitation Attempt

So, I haven't posted since September. Boo me. But this is my attempt to revive my blog from the catacombs of laziness. Being in the middle of the final stretch to winter break, I don't have a lot of creativity left (and what was left was used to come up with the phrase 'catacombs of laziness') so this post is going to be mostly pictures I have taken throughout the semester for projects and the like. They are all from Minneapolis/St. Paul, so I guess you could say that this is my plug for the Twin Cities (see my earlier Kansas City plug). Here you go! Oo's and Ah's appreciated.


The following pictures are taken from Indian Mounds Park, on the Mississippi River bluffs above downtown St. Paul.

Downtown St. Paul

Minnesota State Capitol through the fall folliage

Architecture of the Earth

The next photos are from Lock and Dam No. 1, in the Mississippi River Gorge on the border of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Tug boat leaves the lock heading upstream

Stairs to nowhere

Tour boat in the lock

The next three pictures (noticing a pattern here?) are from the Minneapolis Central Riverfront, where the Mississippi River runs through downtown and falls over St. Anthony Falls, the only natural waterfall along the entire length of the great river. I chose some lesser photographed views, because I didn't want to post something that everyone has seen before.

Grain Belt sign, red house boat, Hennepin Ave Bridge

North end of the Stone Arch Bridge

General Mills "A" Mill

The final set of pictures is from Lake Como, St. Paul. Sorry, I broke from the 3 picture pattern.

Lake Como in St. Paul

Historic Como Pavilion

Anybody lose a chair?

I love these old cottonwoods

Well, that's all for now. Hope this will get my butt in gear and I can fit some posts in before winter break, even if it is just my teardrops on the  keyboard. Gotta love architorture school.

Ciao for now!