Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church is a church across Lowry Hill from the Walker Art Center

Walker Art Center

The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...

 in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. 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

Interstate 94

Interstate 94 is the northernmost east–west Interstate Highway, connecting the Great Lakes and Intermountain regions of the United States. I-94's western terminus is in Billings, Montana at a junction with Interstate 90; its eastern terminus is the U.S...

 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

T. B. Walker

Thomas Barlow Walker was a highly successful American businessperson who acquired timber in Minnesota and California and became an art collector. Walker founded the Minneapolis Public Library. He was among the 10 wealthiest men in the world in 1923. He built two company towns, one of which his son...

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

Harriet G. Walker

Harriet Granger Hulet Walker was an American hospital administrator and leader in the temperance movement.-Early life:...

, was a member.

In 1993, the congregation became a reconciling ministry that specifically welcomes LGBT

LGBT

LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

 members (lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

, gay

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

, bisexual

Bisexuality

Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...

, and transgender

Transgender

Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....

 people).

Design

The architects Hewitt and Brown designed the church in English Gothic style, and modeled it after Ely Cathedral

Ely Cathedral

Ely Cathedral is the principal church of the Diocese of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, England, and is the seat of the Bishop of Ely and a suffragan bishop, the Bishop of Huntingdon...

. Edwin Hewitt, who had earlier built St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral

St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, Minneapolis

Saint Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis, Minnesota is one of two cathedrals in the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota. It was built as a parish church overlooking Loring Park in 1910...

 nearby on Hennepin Avenue

Hennepin Avenue

Hennepin Avenue is a major street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It runs from Lakewood Cemetery , north through the Uptown District of Southwest Minneapolis, through the former "Bottleneck" area west of Loring Park, through the North Loop in the city center, to Northeast Minneapolis and...

, 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

Minneapolis City Hall and Hennepin County Courthouse , designed by Long and Kees in 1888, is the main building used by the city government of Minneapolis, Minnesota as well as by Hennepin County, Minnesota...

 was taller. The exterior face is soft gray Bedford limestone

Indiana Limestone

Indiana Limestone, also known as Bedford Limestone is a common regional term for Salem limestone, a geological formation primarily quarried in south central Indiana between Bloomington and Bedford....

. Gustavino tile lines the interior to absorb sound. The pews, altar and balconies are built of white oak.

In 2006, HGA

Hammel, Green and Abrahamson

Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, commonly called HGA, is an architecture firm based in Minnesota. It was founded in 1953 by Minnesotans Dick Hammel and Curt Green ....

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

External links

• Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church (haumc.org)
• Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church (hennepinchurch.org)