Minneapolis City Council

The Minneapolis Aquatennial is an annual outdoor event held in the U.S. city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, during the third full week of July. Originating in 1940, the Minneapolis Aquatennial celebrates the city's famous lakes, rivers, and streams. Advertised as The Best Days of Summer the festivities previously included some 70 events, including sand castle building, beach volleyball, a tennis invitational, a triathlon, parades, Subway Block Party and the final Target Fireworks. The annual "Milk Carton Boat Races," featured various divisions of boat races with boats constructed of milk cartons. The fireworks display is one of the largest in the country, and larger than the city's Fourth of July celebration. Minneapolis celebrated its centennial in 1956 in conjunction with the Aquatennial. The city's sesquicentennial was July 18–27, 2008, the year Minnesota celebrated 150 years of statehood.The Aquatennial was cancelled from 1942 to 1945 because of World War II, and in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Minneapolis City Hall and Hennepin County Courthouse (also known as the Municipal Building), designed by Long and Kees in 1888, is the main building used by the city government of Minneapolis, as well as by Hennepin County, in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The structure has served as mainly local government offices since it was built, and today the building is 60 percent occupied by the city and 40 percent occupied by the County. The building is jointly owned by the city and county and managed by the Municipal Building Commission. The Commission consists of the chair of the County Board, the mayor of the City of Minneapolis, a member of the County Board and a member of the Minneapolis City Council. The County Board chair serves as the president of the Commission and the mayor serves as the vice president. The building bears a striking resemblance to the city hall buildings in Cincinnati and Toronto. The City Hall and Courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Government Plaza station is a light rail station on the Blue Line and Green Line in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This station is located on 5th Street South, between 3rd and 4th Avenues South in Minneapolis. This is a side-platform station. Service began at this station when the Blue Line opened on June 26, 2004. To retain a pleasant view of the Minneapolis City Hall from the adjacent plaza area, the shelters at this station are spaced widely apart, at each end of the long platform. This is the only segment of the line downtown along 5th Street where there is not a roadway for automobiles running next to the rails.

The CenturyLink Building in Minneapolis, Minnesota was completed in 1932 and became the tallest building to be built in the city during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Named for its current owner, it was previously known as the Qwest Building and the Northwestern Bell Telephone Building. Originally standing 346 feet (105 m) tall, the structure grew to 416 feet (127 m) with the addition of a microwave antenna "crown" in 1958, followed by the addition of a second tier of microwave antennas in 1972. It was the second-tallest building in the city after the slightly older Foshay Tower for many years, and stands slightly taller than the tower of its neighbor, Minneapolis City Hall. The building has many small details on the exterior, including electric bolts and a stylized bird above the main entrance. When under construction, an unusual move was made by stripping a 1920s Northwestern Bell building on the site and the steel frame was incorporated into the new structure. The building was expanded on its west side in the 1940s.

The Hennepin County Law Library is a law library located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, founded in 1883.

Hennepin County Government Center is the courthouse and primary county government administration building for Hennepin County in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is located in downtown Minneapolis, the county seat of Hennepin County. Before its construction, the Hennepin County government offices were housed in the Minneapolis City Hall-Hennepin County Courthouse. The building was opened in 1974 and occupied in stages in 1975.

Hennepin County ( HEN-ə-pin) is a county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. Its county seat is Minneapolis, the state's most populous city. The county is named in honor of the 17th-century explorer Father Louis Hennepin. The county extends from Minneapolis to the suburbs and outlying cities in the western part of the county. The county’s natural areas are covered with extensive woods, hills, and lakes.As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,281,565. It is the most populous county in Minnesota, and the 34th-most populous county in the United States; more than one in five Minnesotans live in Hennepin County. Hennepin County is included in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The Flour Exchange Building is an office building in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, designed by architects Long and Kees, who also designed Minneapolis City Hall and the Lumber Exchange Building. Construction originally began in 1892, but halted abruptly in 1893 after only four floors had been built. This was due to the effects of the Panic of 1893. Construction resumed later, and the building was completed in 1909 with eleven stories. The building is generally in the Chicago school, using a relatively straightforward approach without a lot of historic details. The modern influence of this style later influenced the Butler Square building. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

The US Bank Plaza is a two-tower high-rise building complex in Minneapolis, Minnesota. US Bank Plaza I is a 561-foot (171 m) tall, 40-floor skyscraper. US Bank Plaza II is a 321-foot (98 m) tall, 23-floor skyscraper. Originally called Pillsbury Center, the complex was completed in 1981. The complex has a 500 car parking garage below and is connected by skyway to the Capella Tower, Hennepin County Government Center, Canadian Pacific Plaza, and the McKnight Building. Tower I served as the corporate headquarters of the Pillsbury Company from its 1981 completion until Pillsbury's acquisition by General Mills in 2001. The name of the building was changed to US Bank Plaza in 2004. The towers are clad in travertine marble and have bronze-tinted reflective windows.

Thrivent ( THRYVE-int) is a Fortune 500 not-for-profit financial services organization headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Appleton, Wisconsin, and founded by Lutherans. As a member-owned fraternal benefit society, it operates under a chapter system, serving nearly 2.3 million members.Operating through its local chapters nationwide, Thrivent and its subsidiaries offer financial products and services including life insurance, annuities, mutual funds, disability income insurance, credit union products, money management, brokerage services, retirement planning and more. In 2013, the organization and its members provided volunteer services to charitable organizations and schools. Reportedly, Thrivent members volunteered more than 8.6 million volunteer hours in 2013 and contributed $182.7 million to organizations and activities that aim to strengthen families and communities.In June 2013, members voted to allow non-Lutheran Christians to join, and in March 2014 the marketing name was shortened from "Thrivent Financial for Lutherans" to "Thrivent Financial". In the middle of 2020, the company was rebranded as "Thrivent".

The 1891 Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank building in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, is a Beaux-Arts style building that formerly served as the headquarters of Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank. The building is now home to The Downtown Cabaret, a strip club. Architecture critic Larry Millett writes, "If you step inside for a view of the, ahem, scenery, you'll discover a glass dome that once illuminated a 'ladies banking lobby' but is now the scene of activities not everyone would consider ladylike."The building was designed by the locally prominent firm of Long and Kees as a one-story building. Long and Kees usually preferred the then-popular Richardsonian Romanesque style for their buildings, but deviated from this style for the bank. In 1908 architect William Kenyon designed a second-story addition that enlarged the façade while retaining the Beaux-Arts style. The exterior is faced with white limestone, with five piers of rusticated stone supporting fluted Corinthian pilasters. In 1942, the bank moved to a new location at 88 S. 6th St. at the corner of Sixth and Marquette. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

The Metropolitan Building, originally known as the Northwestern Guaranty Loan Building, is considered to be one of the most architecturally significant structures in the history of Minneapolis, Minnesota. It stood from 1890 until it was torn down starting in 1961 as part of major urban renewal efforts in the city that saw about 40% of the downtown district razed and replaced with new structures. At the time, the pending destruction of the Richardsonian Romanesque building provided a catalyst for historic preservation movements in the city and across the state.