| When I first came to Minneapolis, there was a small sign above a side street door that always gave me amusement: Syndicate Block. Did the Mafia own this thing? It was a bland beige building, a solid block, clad in metal panels sporting a jaunty Penney’s logo. I had no idea what was under the metal; few did. Then the wrecking ball came, and for a day or two, you saw the 19th century brought out into the light again. Under the modern facade was a building constructed in 1883. The hyperbolic newspaper accounts that heralded any new building back then usually proclaimed that the structure was the biggest, most modern, most wonderful structure erected by the hand of man, and that it would surely last for a hundred years. They usually lasted 30, or 40. This one hit a hundred and kept counting. She went down in 1989.
The name came from the 12 businessmen who pooled their money and bought the lot for $77,000. It was designed by - who else? - Frederick Kees, working with Burham Fisk. A quarter-million square feet. It looks fussy and gloomy to modern eyes, but it had a stern rigorous rhythm, and repaid the eye wherever you looked. Even though it was one building, it looks like six buildings blending into one, or one gracefully parcelling itself into six.
Of course, it caught on fire. The southern portion was ruined by a blaze in 1911, and redone in a bland classical style that had nothing to do with the rest of the building; the block now looked like two Siamese twins with wildly divergent taste in clothing. In the 50s, Penney’s took over the entire structure and hid it behind a typically stupid modern facade.
It was always the Penney’s building to me, and I never understood the Syndicate name over the side door. But the old, old-timers did. It stood for a century and never lost its name. A round of applause, please, and a salute. |
