You're Going to Make (a Map) After All

I've been on a 1970s groove as of late -- possibly due to Hulu's recent addition of the first three seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show to its offerings.  With Minneapolis as its setting, the show highlighted life in the Twin Cities in the early part of the decade.

The then-and-now factor is worth noting.

The tallest building in the Twin Cities in 1970 -- which is when The Mary Tyler Moore Show first aired -- was the Foshay Tower, built in 1929. The Quest Building and Minneapolis City Hall were built in 1932 and 1909 and came in second and third place.  You can see these all in this shot from the opening credits, as Mary drives into town in her white Mustang.

The Foshay Tower is on the left (the "St Paul" sign is pointing to it), the Qwest Building (at the time known as the Northwestern Bell Building) is in the middle behind and slightly to the right of the overpass below Minneapolis's arrow, and the City Hall it the building that looks like a castle off to the right. 

The great thing about Google StreetView is that you can compare this to today.

The Foshay is still barely visible, in front of the IDS Center, built in 1975.  Everything else in the Mary Tyler Moore still is pretty well obscured.  But even though the exit ramp seems to have moved, the overpass toward which she is driving looks distinctly the same.

To give you an idea of what the Minneapolis skyline looked like back then, here's a 1975 photo from the Minnesota Historical Society. The Foshay Tower is on the left.  The big building in the center is the then-newly-built IDS Center.  The picture is probably taken from the top of City Hall.

Here is another view of the skyline in 1975.  Loring Park is in the foreground. The IDS Center is on the left and the Foshay is just to the right of it.

Compare this to the 2007 skyline.  Loring Park, where the above photo was taken, would be is just a bit to the left.  The IDS Center is still prominent, but the Foshay Tower is harder to find -- it's the shorter building, right in the middle of the photo.  Minneapolis, it seems, grew up.

[photo credit: Steve Lyon]

I suppose a blog post about Mary Tyler Moore on a map blog wouldn't be complete without a map to the statue of her on Nicollet Mall, right?