We think of intersections as challenges and problems — a light we want to make, a crosswalk we hope to cross without getting nailed by a car. Some of the names of the streets are familiar. We might even know a bit about their histories. But the intersections themselves have stories. Let's take three well-known intersections where big-name streets converge, and see if they bear any resemblance to their origins. (Hint: Nope.)
Hennepin and Nicollet
One of the most important intersections in Minneapolis history — a compact, thriving, bustling triangle too messy for the postwar urban ideal — was obliterated by progress. In its day, the junction of Hennepin and Nicollet was at Bridge Square (with Washington Avenue charging in perpendicularly, just to add to the fun).
The symbolism was tidy: Hennepin Avenue and Nicollet Avenue both began at the banks of the Mississippi River, when the territory across the river was the rival town of St. Anthony. But like quarreling twins with different characters, they diverged as soon as they grew. Hennepin was devoted to theaters, bars, hotels — all the messy pleasures of the flesh. Nicollet was retail, genteel but no less profit-minded, with its shops and banks. They could agree on only one thing: Minneapolis started here, at this triangular interchange.
Union Depot, a long-forgotten train station, held down the south side of Bridge Square. Travelers would walk out the door of the depot and see a four-story stone structure with thin windows and a mansard roof, nothing particularly impressive, but it parsed the traffic like a rock in a busy river.
This was City Hall (and, by the way, the original home of the Minneapolis Tribune). Old photos show impossible throngs of horses and carts, cars and trolleys and a forest of utility poles carrying dozens of wires. The din — and stink — must have been remarkable.
By the early years of the 20th century, the city fathers no doubt tut-tutted over the boisterous chaos and the shabby structures. City Hall had moved in 1895 to its current location, but the old building was still there, a remnant of a tired architectural style. Solution? Raze, pave and plant.
After World War I, the city replaced the old building with Gateway Plaza, a serene classical temple whose columned wings opened their arms to people coming across the bridge over the Mississippi or leaving the new train station on the north side of the intersection. When the Nicollet Hotel rose behind the Gateway Plaza in 1924, the intersection looked like a theatrical stage.
The script, alas, turned out to be "The Drunkard's Curse," or "Sloshed by Noon." As often happens, a nice new building doesn't mean you get nice new people. The area sunk into decrepitude — cheap beaneries, dim bars, flophouses. When the post-World War II urban renewal came along, the Gateway was leveled for the common good and the Hennepin-Nicollet intersection was massacred.