Skyways

I built a skyway once. Skyways are unique to the Twin Cities; in any other city they are called pedestrian bridges.

A skyway starts with a negotiation with the building you want to ‘mate.’ This involves a building owner who is already on the skyway system and one who wants to be. The needy building has no leverage and must appeal to the reasonable nature of the other building to accept the skyway. This usually means the owner who wants a skyway pays. In this particular case, the owner paid for the bridge, all of the improvements to the other building to allow it to accept the bridge (structural reinforcing, escalators, public corridors), plus a chunk of “whole” money. As in “I need a chunk of money to make me whole on this deal.”

To build the bridge, the project team created an artistic design to replicate a canal bridge in Venice. This was a departure from the typical “glass tubes” of the 60’s and 70’s. We added color, gave the structural steel shape and image, and put a clock in the middle. The clock was initially rejected by the city of Minneapolis as a potential traffic hazard because people would look at the clock instead of traffic. They relented however, when we pointed out the Twin City Federal time and temperature flashing on the kitty-corner block.

Construction began on a very cold Sunday morning in January 1988. We closed off the street to traffic, and brought in a huge crane and two prefabricated steel bridge trusses, each 90 feet long and 4 feet wide, for the skyway base. The crane strained and lifted the beams, swinging them into the prepared openings on the two buildings. But, alas, it was 3 inches too long. Luckily, the steel erector was one of my best friends who had attended summer camp with me as a kid. He had one of his best welders on the job, who was able to cut 1 ½ inches off the ends of both trusses. He rewelded the end plates on which the trusses bear on the buildings, and swung them into place. Our street closure permit was good from 5-9 AM. We finished at 11 AM, after buying everyone breakfast and coffee, and more than a little bit of begging and pleading.

The bridge was completed on a weekday in mid-April. The mayor was there to cut the ribbon. Everyone was all smiles. It was a beautiful thing to have finished.