Secrets of the City

I have never liked the oddly-sized Herb Brooks statue in St. Paul.

I like the whole Sculpture Garden.

I don’t like the anemic-ill-with-malaria-looking statue on the Capitol mall honoring our vets and POWs.

The Cherry and Spoonbridge can die.

Giant Adirondack chairs… die.

Also, there’s a statue on the Capitol grounds outside the Veterans’ somethingorother and it looks like a soldier basically asking for a handout. I hate it.

But getting back to Adirondack chairs, pet peeves, and public art, I have a some new items that you may have seen around town. Old buildings are razed, fences go up, and the prairie overtakes a cancelled condominium project. I like to call the series “Progress.” One installation is 2626 West Lake, which used to be an office building with a giant adirondack in the yard, but is now fenced-off gravel.

I really like the statues of the 12 Apostles in the Basilica of St. Mary. A lot of movement. Dynamic.

I like the fat people in front of that steak house (Maury’s?) near the Mill City Market and he bulls on the St Paul Campus.

I hate the spoon cherry and pretty much the entire sculpture garden.

I really enjoy those little cartoon dudes walking around and the grass mounds outside the Hennepin Courthouse.

I’m with RC re: “little cartoon dudes outside of the courthouse.”

I’m simultaneously fascinated and horrified by the giant bronze rabbit on Minnehaha parkway.

I liked the peanuts characters when they were scattered throughout the cities. But,then it was kind of ruined for me when they tried to follow-up with ugly snowmen and dinosaurs.

The Don Quixote is in front of my grandmother’s condo. Another piece of sculpture nearby: Richfield Mayor Marty Kirsch, sitting on a bus bench.

The bus bench is real, but they went ahead and wasted one stone butt’s worth of seating space on a Marty Kirsch statue.

Residents of the apartment complex decorate Marty according to the holiday season. It turns out statue Marty sometimes has a thing for wearing red hats and feather boas.

I see the Quixote statue all the time on my way to my rental property in that neighborhood. I find tilting at windmills to be an appropriate metaphor for trying to maintain a rental duplex. Here’s Marty dressed up for Abe Lincoln’s birthday.

I love the Howard Ben Tre obelisque/fountain outside of the Target headquarters on 11th and Nicollet. I also like that if you look inside you can see a Chihuly chandelier in their lobby.