Following upon the success of Minneapolis skyways, the first skyway connection in St. Paul was introduced by Watson Davidson, a private developer, between the Federal Courts Building and the Pioneer Press Building in 1967, but was conceived of as part of a larger, downtown-wide scheme. The St. Paul skyway system is about five miles in length and connects more than 30 city blocks. Unlike their Twin Cities counterpart, the St. Paul skyways are publicly developed and accessible and are of uniform design standards and signed much like streets. Urban critic William Whyte once decried the uniform, inward-facing nature of the system, dubbing St. Paul “the world’s blank wall capital.”