Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church is a church across the Virginia Triangle (

Hennepin Avenue Hennepin Avenue is a major street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It runs from Lakewood Cemetery (at West 36th Street), north through the Uptown District of Southwest Minneapolis, through the Virginia Triangle, the former "Bottleneck" a ...

Lyndale Avenue Lyndale Avenue is a major street in the U.S. state of Minnesota that traverses the cities of Minneapolis, Brooklyn Center, Richfield, and Bloomington. A noncontiguous portion also exists in Faribault, part of Highway 21. There are several co ...

) from the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

. Its address is 511 Groveland Avenue.

History

The church was organized as Hennepin Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in 1875 by about ninety members of Centenary church, which at the time was the only Methodist church in the city. The Quaker church organized the Sunday school. During the 1960s, the ground around the Lowry Hill I-94 tunnel was frozen with special refrigeration equipment to protect the church from structural damage in case the tunnel walls should collapse during construction. The church stands on land donated by

T. B. Walker Thomas Barlow Walker (February 1, 1840 – July 28, 1928) was an American business magnate who acquired lumber in Minnesota and California and became an collection (artwork), art collector. Walker founded the Minneapolis Public Library. He was amon ...

, a trustee of the church. Walker also donated several paintings to decorate the Sunday school. His wife,

Harriet G. Walker Harriet Granger Hulet Walker (10 September 1841 – 13 January 1917) was an American hospital administrator and leader in the temperance movement. Early life She was born in Brunswick, Ohio in the United States. She attended Baldwin Univer ...

, was a member. In 1993, the congregation became a reconciling ministry that specifically welcomes

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

members ( lesbian,

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

, bisexual, and

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

people).

Design

HGA entry-Hennepin Avenue United Methodist

The architects Hewitt and Brown designed the church in

English Gothic English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed ar ...

style, and modeled it after Ely Cathedral.

Edwin Hawley Hewitt Edwin Hawley Hewitt (March 26, 1874 – August 11, 1939) was an Americans, American architect from Minnesota. In 1906, he designed the Edwin H. Hewitt House in the Stevens Square, Minneapolis, Stevens Square neighborhood of Minneapolis, listed on ...

, who had earlier built St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral nearby on

, was a design partner who traveled to England to see Ely Cathedral before this church was built. Completed in 1916 and measuring 238 feet from the sidewalk to the top of the spire, at the time it was the second tallest building in Minneapolis. Only the clock tower of

Minneapolis City Hall Minneapolis City Hall and Hennepin County Courthouse (also known as the Municipal Building), designed by Long and Kees in 1888, is the main building used by the city government of Minneapolis, as well as by Hennepin County, in the U.S. state of M ...

was taller. The exterior face is soft gray Bedford limestone. Gustavino tile lines the interior to absorb sound. The pews, altar and balconies are built of

white oak The genus ''Quercus'' contains about 500 species, some of which are listed here. The genus, as is the case with many large genera, is divided into subgenera and sections. Traditionally, the genus ''Quercus'' was divided into the two subgenera ''C ...

. In 2006, HGA designed a new entry for the church that won an IES/IIDA Twin Cities Waterbury Award for outdoor lighting design.

References

External links

Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church
(haumc.org)
Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church
(hennepinchurch.org) {{Authority control Churches in Minneapolis zh:亨内平大道卫理公会教堂