The Foshay Tower, now the W Minneapolis – The Foshay hotel, is an Art Deco skyscraper in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Modeled after the Washington Monument, the building was completed in 1929, months before the stock market crash in October of that year. It has 32 floors and stands 447 ft high, which made it the tallest building in Minneapolis until 1972 when the IDS Center was completed. The antenna mast extends the total height of the structure to 607 ft. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Its address is 821 Marquette Avenue, although it is set well back from the street and is actually closer to 9th Street than Marquette.
Early skyscraper
The Foshay Tower marked a significant landmark locally in the push skyward, as the tower was the first in the city to surpass the height of Minneapolis City Hall, completed in 1906. It remained one of the tallest buildings in the Midwest for 48 years and was the tallest building in Minneapolis until the IDS Center surpassed it in 1972.
Elevators served the 32-floor tower and the observation deck.[2] The elevators were converted to automatic in 1957.[2] The fee to ride the elevator was 50 cents from its opening in 1929 until the late 1960s.