No one passed petitions to save the Physicians & Surgeons building; no rallies by the preservationists. You have to pick your battles, and this was one everyone was resigned to losing. For most of its life it was an ordinary structure like many others on Nicollet - an old early-20th century building with a boom-time addition. Note how the top floors are a bit more pedestrian than the bottom floors - Okay, we’ve satisfied the mandatory classical-details convention, now let’s make some money.

This picture is pure black-and-white beauty, but that has more to do with the licorice car and the marvelous Walgreen sign. Middle America, middle of the century. I always wondered who went here for surgery. The big gleaming Medical Arts building was across the street; if you went here, you might wonder if you were getting a sawbone who couldn’t afford the rent on a nice place, and had a shingle from a Mexican mail-order medical school.

Coming up: well, more. But first . . .