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Minnesota Children's Museum

1981 establishments in MinnesotaChildren's museums in MinnesotaMuseums in Saint Paul, Minnesota
Minnesota Children's Museum 01
Minnesota Children's Museum 01

The Minnesota Children's Museum is a children's museum in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1981 in Minneapolis, the museum moved to St. Paul in 1995. The museum includes natural exhibits of Minnesota, developmental learning areas for small children, a creativity and problem- solving area, and national traveling exhibits .

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Minnesota Children's Museum (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Minnesota Children's Museum
7th Street West, Saint Paul Downtown

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N 44.947777777778 ° E -93.096944444444 °
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Minnesota Children's Museum

7th Street West 10
55102 Saint Paul, Downtown
Minnesota, United States
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mcm.org

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Minnesota Children's Museum 01
Minnesota Children's Museum 01
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Second Minnesota State Capitol
Second Minnesota State Capitol

After fire destroyed Minnesota's first capitol building on March 1, 1881, the second capitol, completed in 1883, served as the seat of Minnesota state government for just 10 years before state officials began planning a grander, more efficient Capitol. The second Capitol building stood on the site of the first Capitol for 55 years until its demolition in 1937. The loss of the first capitol prompted quick action. The legislature approved $75,000 to cover costs to rebuild the capitol, assuming the reuse of the walls of the old Capitol and the governor issued a call for proposals in June. Architect Leroy S. Buffington won the contract. When the old walls proved unstable, the legislature approved an additional $100,000 for a completely new building. The total budget came to $185,000 and carried the stipulation that costs could not exceed this amount. Exceeding the budget carried a misdemeanor penalty. Buffington designed the new three-story building in the shape of a Greek cross. It featured a foundation of cut stone and walls of red brick with Dresbach sandstone trim. Each wing measured 150 feet in length. The central dome reached 200 feet in height. The main entrance on Wabasha Street opened onto the first floor, where the governor, attorney general, auditor, treasurer, and secretary of state had offices. Two iron stairways led to the second floor from the rotunda. The Assembly (House of Representatives) chamber in the Tenth Street wing featured a twenty-five-foot ceiling with a large stained glass skylight. Eight windows provided natural light supplemented by two large chandeliers and four electric lights for evening sessions. A third-story viewing gallery ran across the south side of the room. The Senate chamber, finished in yellow birch and birdseye maple, took up the Wabasha Street wing. A stained glass skylight, wine-colored stained glass windows in the gallery, a large chandelier, and four electric fixtures lit the chamber. Stairways from the hallways led to an upper visitors' gallery encircling the room. The Supreme Court chamber in the Exchange Street wing featured woodwork of cherry and Hungarian ash. The court wing included five private rooms for the use of the judges, a retiring and consultation room for attorneys, and a law library. The third floor housed House and Senate galleries, a large caucus room, and a committee room. The building had twenty meeting rooms on the upper two floors. The basement contained offices for the state historical society, supply rooms, a barber shop, and restrooms. To minimize the threat of fire, slabs made of ashes and cement covered floors and walls. Buffington designed stairways of iron and slate. He covered the hallway surfaces in tile set in cement to prevent fire from spreading from one floor to the next. He included a separate forty-foot-square red brick boiler and engine house on the northeast corner of the Capitol square. Heat entered the main building through tunnels to radiators located throughout the building.The ventilation system of four large air shafts running from basement to the roof, thought to be state-of-the-art, proved the fatal flaw in the building's design. Poor ventilation played a key role in the push for a new Capitol building in 1893.Cost overruns dogged the project from the beginning. By March 1882 Buffington's estimate had risen to $245,000. Governor Lucius Hubbard knew that costs had to stay within the $185,000 appropriation. He estimated that another $40,000 would finish the building enough for it to host the 1883 legislative session and made an appeal for the money. Donations came from the public without conditions, and the legislature met for the first time in the nearly completed Capitol on January 2, 1883. To reimburse the private donors and complete the building, lawmakers approved another $175,000 during the 1883 session. State auditor reports from 1881 to 1884 show the total cost of the building as $359,897.60, nearly twice the original estimate. Due to poor ventilation lack of space, and other building concerns, plans were laid for a new state Capitol. With the completion of the third state Capitol in 1905, the second state Capitol, after only being used as a statehouse for 22 years, was used for meeting space, storage, and parking until its demolition in 1937, 55 years after being built.

Wells Fargo Place
Wells Fargo Place

Wells Fargo Place (30 East 7th Street) is an office tower in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It stands at 471 feet (144 m) tall, and is currently the tallest building in St. Paul. It was designed by Winsor/Faricy Architects, Inc. and WZMH Architects, and is 37 stories tall. The building opened in September 1987, a month ahead of schedule and under budget. It is a concrete and steel structure, with a facade of brown-colored granite and glass. The granite came from Finland. The building contains 156 underground parking spaces. It was formerly known as The Minnesota World Trade Center. Anthrosphere, a large sculpture by Paul Granlund, is in the lobby.The tower houses offices used by Wells Fargo, who renamed the building Wells Fargo Place on May 15, 2003. It also houses the headquarters of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System. The building was designed for the 36th and 37th floors to be used as a restaurant with a dedicated elevator between the floors. While built to design, including the dedicated elevator, this was never implemented and the space was divided up into storage lockers that are listed for lease on their website.The building was developed by Oxford Properties Inc, the design architect was WZMH, the general contractor was PCL, and the permanent lender was Principal of Des Moines, Iowa. Windsor Faricy was the local production architect. Radio station WDGY has an FM translator located atop the building on 92.1 MHz.

McNally Smith College of Music
McNally Smith College of Music

McNally Smith College of Music was a private for-profit music school in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Initially founded in 1984 as the Guitar Center of Minneapolis, it was renamed Musictech College and moved to St. Paul in 2001. The school was renamed again as McNally Smith College of Music by the school's two founders, Jack McNally and Doug Smith, to memorialize themselves on the school's 2005 20th anniversary. Initially, the school's concept was vocational, with a mission of providing students with real world skills in which to earn a living in the music industry. The vocational school began with six instructors and 200 private lesson students in a 3,000 square foot space within the Minneapolis warehouse district on Washington Avenue. In the fall of 1986, the Guitar Center began offering a state-approved full-time program. By 2000, the guitar school had become a music college, with over 250 students pursuing associate degrees and diploma certificates. With financial assistance from the state of Minnesota and the city of St Paul, the college purchased and renovated the former St Paul Arts & Science Center building into a 60,000 square foot campus with a 12-studio audio production complex, customized classrooms, library, bookstore, café, and a 300-seat auditorium with a 20k-watt Midas/EV sound system. The school offered degree programs in Music Production, Music Business, Composition and Songwriting, Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, Brass and Woodwinds, Strings, and Liberal Arts. In the fall of 2009 the school opened the much-ridiculed "first nationally accredited diploma program for hip-hop". Over the next several years, BA and MA degree programs were added to the school's academic offerings. The school's graduation and employment record was fairly unimpressive, but there are several ex-MSCM students who have carved out successful and creative lives in the music and audio world. In 2005, the reorganized McNally Smith College of Music, moved away from vocational training to more become a traditional liberal arts school with higher tuition and dramatically more administrative overhead. According to CollegeCalc.org, “Tuition for McNally Smith College of Music is $27,040 for the 2015/2016 academic year. This is 89% more expensive than the national average private for-profit four year college tuition of $14,323. The cost is 31% more expensive than the average Minnesota tuition of $20,702 for 4 year colleges. Tuition ranks 43rd in Minnesota amongst 4 year colleges for affordability and is the 17th most expensive 4 year college in the state. Price does not vary by residence. The school charges additional fees of $900 in addition to tuition bringing the total effective in-state tuition to $27,940.” The college attempted to operate a European campus at the Media Docks in Lübeck, Germany, opening in 2004. The German campus was officially closed in 2009. School enrollment peaked in 2007 and began a downhill slide to the eventual bankruptcy declaration on December 17, 2017; a week before the end of the 2017 fall semester. “On Tuesday, December 14, 2017, it was announced without forewarning that the college would close the next Wednesday, December 20 for financial reasons.” “In an email, McNally Smith board Chairman Jack McNally asked staff to continue working without pay until then so students could get credit for the term. ‘We fully understand the awkwardness and unfairness of this request,’ he wrote in the email to employees.” Faculty and staff were not given a hint of notice before the sudden announcement and were not offered any opportunity to assist in preventing the school's closing. The financial decision to close the school was solely made by McNally and Smith, as the school's CFO had abruptly resigned a few weeks before the bankruptcy announcement. Bankruptcy proceedings were completed in late 2018 and the bankruptcy process complicated the lawsuits that were still in process (as of 2019). However, the bankruptcy court auctioned off the school's assets by mid-June, 2018.The loss of the school, its facilities, and the contribution the students and faculty made to downtown St. Paul would be felt by the downtown community for many years as the school and students provided a significant source of income, employment, and entertainment resources for an otherwise dormant urban downtown.

First Minnesota State Capitol
First Minnesota State Capitol

The first state capitol building was completed in 1853 and served as the seat of Minnesota's territorial and early state government until it burned in 1881. Minnesota Territory was created when Congress passed the Organic Act of 1849 which gave the president of the United States power to appoint a territorial governor, secretary, chief justice, and other officials; called for the election of a nine-member council and an eighteen-member House of Representatives; and provided for a temporary seat of government in St. Paul until a capital city could be determined. Congress approved $20,000 to erect government buildings in the new capital.The territorial legislature set up a temporary headquarters in the Central House Hotel in September 1849 and continued to meet in nonpermanent locations during the next three sessions. It wasn't until the second session that lawmakers turned their attention to the question of a permanent seat of government. The territorial government accepted an offer from Charles and Annie J. Bazille of a building site bounded by Tenth, Wabasha, Exchange, and Cedar Streets for the token price of one dollar.In 1851, work began to oversee finances and the hiring of contractors to build the Capitol.Its architect, N. C. Prentiss drew up specifications for the new Capitol that included digging a foundation measuring 125 feet by 65 feet and a stone foundation 4 feet high by 3 feet thick. Exterior details included brick work, cut stone floors and steps for the porches, a wood pediment, wood Ionic-style columns, and a well-framed roof covered with fireproof material. Interior work called for Norway pine flooring and staircases of oak and ash with oak handrails and turned balusters. The plan for the House of Representatives featured a viewing gallery on three sides of the chamber supported by columns. The specifications required the contractors to complete the work in a "good, substantial, workmanlike manner."The legislature moved into the new Capitol in time for the 5th territorial legislative session on January 4, 1854. As more people moved to the territory, the number of lawmakers needed to represent them grew. On May 11, 1858, Minnesota becomes the thirty-second state to enter the union. The population boomed when Minnesota became a state, and the small Capitol building needed improvements. Gas lighting replaced candles in 1867. Four years later, steam heat replaced wood-burning stoves and new plumbing brought city water into the building. Architect Abraham Radcliffe was hired to expand the Capitol with a new wing on the Exchange Street side of the building in 1873 and a second wing facing Wabasha Street in 1878. It was redesigned in the Italianate style popular at the time.Despite efforts to make the Capitol fire-resistant, the threat of fire remained a concern. During repairs conducted a few days before the Minnesota Constitutional Convention in July 1857, a fire started on the west side of the cupola. There was little damage to the building, but the fire consumed some of the Minnesota Historical Society's collections stored there. While legislators met on the evening of March 1, 1881, another fire broke out in the dome of the capitol and quickly spread. Legislators and nearby residents rescued furniture, many important documents, and historical collections. No lives were lost, but efforts to save the building failed. Newspapers estimated the total loss at $180,000.The newly completed Market House at Seventh and Wabasha Streets became the temporary home of state government the following day. The building housed government offices until the opening of a new state capitol in 1883.