The vacant Abbott Hospital building is a hulking eyesore that neighbors say drags down the whole Stevens Square neighborhood - now an engineer-turned-developer named Swami Palanisami says he'll create 123 apartments in a $20 million renovation, with government help, Eric Roper reports. If you want to see how creepy the place looked like when some urban explorers broke in a number of years ago, check out the "Minneapolis Urban Adventurers Action Squad" photo gallery.

A 16-year-old was gunned down Monday evening at 30th and Dupont avenues in north Minneapolis - it's the third street killing of a teen in 30 days on the North Side, Pat Pheifer reports. While community leaders gathered to offer support, police haven't made any arrests in the killings.

Sgt. Walter "Wally" Carlson is back at work in the Minneapolis Police Department, now that the misdemeanor count against him - that he used a driver record database to look up something unrelated to police work - is headed for dismissal, Matt McKinney reports.

A Dinkytown street heavily traveled by U students on bicycles will get a safety upgrade, four months after Audrey Hull was run over and killed by a dump truck, Paul Walsh reports. Mayor R.T. Rybak and council members Diane Hofstede and Cam Gordon will announce the changes on 15th Street SE. Plenty of bicycle-oriented improvements, including the Bryant Avenue Bike Boulevard in south Minneapolis, are coming on line in the next few weeks.

After 10 years, the local hardware store owner who organized the annual 9/11 Tributes at the Lake Harriet Bandshell has called it quits, Jean Hopfensperger reports. Bob Bayers said he has to concentrate on his business, which faces new competition after Settergren Ace Hardware bought the old Linden Hills Co-op building around the corner.

Finally, the aquatics report: Swimming is probably over for the year in city lakes, but that didn't keep 24-year-old Benjamin Quinn from driving his car into Lake Calhoun about 4:30 a.m. Sunday, Paul Walsh reports. Gail Rosenblum's column describes how two St. Olaf students used a more conventional craft - a canoe - to paddle the 2,250-mile route from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay made famous by Eric Sevareid in his book, Canoeing with the Cree. Sevareid's book, I should note, was compiled from dispatches to the Minneapolis Star, which financed that (cheap) excursion back in 1930.