While we wait for the snow . . .

A bit of Minneapolis history revealed: let's all goggle at an old exposed brick wall!

It's part of this 510 Marquette, which suffered the worst modernization of any building in Minneapolis.

It's the interior wall, not the old exterior. All the classical details were scraped off and disposed here and there; two of the columns ended up at the MoZaic's art park. Where they were before I can't possibly imagine.

It was a Cass Gilbert building, the first Federal Reserve. Even before they plopped a tower atop the building, it was a forbidding thing.

From the newspaper the week it opened: Not even the Beagle Boys dared crack it!

Can't find any pictures of what it'll look like when it's finished. It can't be worse.

BTW: A commenter on the UrbanMSP forum makes an interesting suggestion:

MOVIES About that painting in "Grand Budapest Hotel": there's a reason art history majors were scratching their heads. From The Week:

The painter said Wes Anderson provided "a lot of input — particularly paintings by Bronzino, Holbein, Cranach; all sorts of stuff." You can see the Cranach in the kid's hand.

Related: Another lost silent film turns up in a closet. It's this:

That was 91 years ago. The movie is "Love, life and Laughter, starring Betty Balfour, and it's one of the British Film Institute's 75 missing films. Well, 74 to go.

The article also has a complete copy of the movie's ad campaign booklet, which ultra-20 images such as this: Betty did a comedy for that noted master of hilarity, Alfred Hitchcock. The entire film survives, and the print quality is remarkably good. Here's half a minute from 1928. Even in a comedy he made the audience jump.

More here.

VotD The page says "Flour Power," but knowing Russia, it's probably asbestos.