Minneapolis 1981 Part 3

Yet another shot of the yellow ribbon around the Foshay Tower in January of 1981. This shot was taken near the stage door of Orchestra Hall just off 11th and Marquette.

Minneapolis 1981 Part 2

Another shot of the yellow ribbon around the Foshay Tower in January of 1981.

Minneapolis 1981

Found this old photo recently. The yellow ribbon tied around the Foshay Tower was to welcome home the 52 American hostages that had been held in Iran. I took the photo in January of 1981.

Minneapolis 1986 Part 3

Another shot from the roof of the Nicollet Center which was located between 6th and 7th Streets on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. The old J.C. Penney building is across the street in the lower left corner of the picture. On the bottom right side you can see where one part of Gaviidae Common was later built. The top of the Foshay Tower is peeking out from behind the building in the top right quadrant of the photo and the Campbell Mithun Tower is in the upper left quadrant of the photo.

Minneapolis 1986 Part 2

Another photo I took from the roof of the Nicollet Center. The building in the middle of the photograph is the Rand Tower (formerly Dain Tower).

Minneapolis 1986

In the summer of 1986 I was working as a security guard at a building called The Nicollet Center. I don't believe it's there anymore. Anyway, because I was the guard I could get up on the roof of the building. Here's a photo I took from the roof. I like it because of the clouds reflected on the IDS Tower (now the American Express Tower). You can see the top of the Foshay Tower, for a number of years the tallest building in Minneapolis, peeking up from behind one of the other buildings that's part of the IDS complex at the left of the photo.

Boulevard Theater Part 4 - More Photos

Supposedly the Boulevard Theater is featured in the song Eiffel Tower High by Minneapolis band Husker Du. The lyrics describe a gal "Walking towards the Boulevard", buying a ticket and some Junior Mints and then sitting down to watch a movie.

The Boulevard Theater Part 3

During my time growing up in the Tangletown (formerly Fuller) neighborhood in Minneapolis the Boulevard Theater was was a second-run theater known for it's cheap seats. Because it only charged 99 cents to see film that had already been in wide release, many neighborhood folks called it the "99 cent-er". I remember seeing a lot of movies there including A Christmas Story, Star Wars, Reds, The Verdict, The Breakfast Club, Peggy Sue Got Married, Moonstruck, and more.

Dad took me to see Paul Newman in The Verdict in 1982. I remember it was the first movie that just the two of us went to alone since a re-release of Disney's The Jungle Book in the early 1970's. I remember a couple of women sitting behind us going nuts over Paul Newman's blue eyes during a close-up of him.

Sam, Pete and I went to see Star Wars when it was re-released in the late 1970's and Sam and I hiked over to see A Christmas Story during Christmas break of 1982/83.

I have early memories of seeing Saturday matinees for kids in the early 1970's. The Pippi Longstocking films from Scandanavia were my favorites although I also had a good time seeing those Disney nature movies as well.

The above photo is my own that I took on July 17, 2011. Although the theater is no longer there, the marquee remains.

Boulevard Theater Part 2

I found the above photo, dated 1974, online. I remember the theater from this time but have no recollection of the structure on top of the theater. I'm guessing it was taken down when the theater was remodeled and divided into two theaters from one in the late 1970's. The Boulevard Theater closed sometime in the 1990's. The building now holds a restaurant named Prima, a Caribou Coffee shop, Anytime Fitness, Nokomis Chiropractic and a Subway sandwich shop. The Red Owl grocery store just to the left of the theater is now a grocery store named Kowalski's.

Boulevard Theater

The local neighborhood theater that we frequented when growing up in the Tangletown neighborhood (formerly named the Fuller neighborhood) of Minneapolis was the Boulevard Theater. I just did a web search for it and a website named cinematreasures.org came up. This is what they had to say about it:

"Designed by Perry E. Crosier in 1933 in Art Deco style and seating about 1,000, this theater opened as the Boulevard Twins, not beause it had two screens (though it was later twinned in the late-1970's), but because it was partly a movie house and part restaurant, a format it retained into the 1960's."

"Today, the former Boulevard Theater houses a video and DVD rental store, in a touch of irony. However, its beautiful Art Deco style marquee is still intact and still used by the store."

Actually, in a case of reverse irony, the video rental store has closed since that posting on cinematreasures.org. As far as I can tell the space is vacant.

I took the above photo on July 17, 2011.

Nicollet Park, Martin Luther King Park and the Nicollet Field Mural

On the block just north of Curran's is Martin Luther King Park. On the north side of the park building is this mural of Nicollet Field. There may have been a park called Nicollet Field on the MLK Park site but I think this mural is actually referring to Nicollet Park which was a ball park on the west side of Nicollet Avenue between Lake Street (30th Street) and 31st Street. The mural shows what looks to be a wading pool so maybe it is something altogether different than Nicollet Park. Regardless, I remember Father Wirth at Annunciation telling me that, as a kid, he used to take the bus to Nicollet Park to watch baseball games. The park was built in 1896 and was home to the Minneapolis Millers baseball team. The Millers moved to Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington in 1956. I'm not sure what happened to the Millers baseball team but the Minnesota Twins came along in the early 1960's and played at Metropolitan Stadium until the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome was built in Minneapolis in the early 1980's. Nicollet Park is no longer there and I couldn't find any information about when it was torn down. The block is now the site a Wells Fargo Bank branch, a condo building and a Hennepin County Medical Center clinic.

Top photo shows the mural Nicollet Field 1920 on the park building at MLK Park at 41st and Nicollet. The bottom photo shows Nicollet Park at Lake Street and Nicollet Avenue.

Curran's Part 2

More from the Curran's website: "Changes in the restaurant business prompted Mike to build an 84-seat dining room and coffee shop with expanded menu in 1974. Four years later, [a] 30-year era ended when we discontinued the drive-in service and removed the speaker system. In 1977, Mike's son, Dennis M. Curran, joined him as a partner in the business. In 1981, Curran's added another 60-seat dining room and continued to expand its menu, remodel, and update. In 1985 the complete dining area was decorated and a small dining and meeting room was added. The most recent remodeling and decorating [occurred] in the winter of 2001, [which] brings us to the present."

Curran's Restaurant

More often than not our family would go to breakfast after Sunday mass. Curran's Family Restaurant got a lot of our business. I loved getting omlettes with cheddar cheese and pancakes on the side. Dad usually got the now infamous (at least in our own family lore) Cakes and Eggs which I think was either number 7 or 8 on the regular breakfast specials menu.

The following is from the Curran's website:

"The Curran name has occupied the corner of 42nd and Nicollet since 1948. That name, however, has lived on through centuries in another part of the world. The Curran family name can be traced back to seventeenth century Ireland when it was the most popular name in Tipperary. By 1901, the Irish census had counted 142 Curran families in County Kerry alone."

"The Minneapolis Currans were part of that 142. Dennis Curran was born in County Kerry in 1861; he immigrated to the United States, landing in New York City. There he met and married Honora Sullivan, an Irish nanny. They left New York and began a journey that led them to the copper mines of Michigan and eventually to Green Isle, Minnesota, where they homesteaded a farm in 1870."

"Dennis and Honora had six children - one of whom was John Curran. The fifth of six children, hohn farmed with his family until his marriage to Katie Morrin. In time John married Katie Morrin and they bought their own farm and raised six children of their own."

"Their fourth child, Mike, decided that farming wasn't his vocation in life. Instead, he operated grocery stores and meat markets. During World War II, he managed the officer's club on Waikiki Beach. Upon his return in 1948, Make and his father, John, built a 14' by 14' drive-in restaurant at 42nd and Nicollet. Curran's opened for business on May 17, 1948, and Mike operated it as a carhop drive-in until 1954. That year he added a counter with nine stools inside the restaurant building. On year later, Curran's boasted the first electronic two-way car-to-kitchen ordering system in the Twin Cities."

Curran's is located at 4201 Nicollet Avenue South.