Teresa Boardman

Quiet down along the river. Too early in the season for those wonderful moon light cruises.

The Ordway is packed.

There is a Minnesota Wild game going on at the Xcel center and a large roof top tail gate party on the parking ramp.

The local bars in and around downtown are packed.

Fun to walk around on a Saturday night and take pictures. Now that the weather is warmer the streets are full of activity again.

St. Paul Cathedral, St. Paul, Minnesota. I never get tired of photographing this building, both inside and out. Built in 1905, Emmanuel Louis Masqueray, a French architect trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, was selected to design what we know today as the fourth Cathedral of Saint Paul. The church is made of Granite stone from St. Cloud, MN

The Cathedral's most prominent feature is a 120-foot-wide dome made of curved steel beams, covered with a clay tile surface and overlaid with copper. A copper-clad lantern, approximately 30 feet tall, sits on top of the dome. From the base to the very top of the lantern, the Cathedral stands 306 feet tall.

I am working on getting some more pictures of the interior. They don't allow tripods so it has been tough to get good shots in low light.

Another great place to go on a cold day. The fern room is not a good place to take a camera because it is so damp inside. Not a cold damp but a warm damp, which is nice because we have enough cold here in Minnesota. The McNeely Conservatory at Como park is free. They ask for a $2.00 donation. It is a great place to go anytime but during the cold winter months people tend to linger.

The plant is called "little wart" funny name for such a beautiful flower.

Painted daisies.

An unusual photo essay even for me. I did not have to drive far to get the pictures and they are not pretty pictures. They are pictures of dispair, and of urban decay. There are more pictures like this each month.

There are currently 1624 registered vacant building in St. Paul, MN. The number goes up every month, and many of them are in foreclosure. Of the 2009 single family homes currently on the market 716 or about 36% of them are in some stage of foreclosure. Many of the homes that are in some stage of foreclosure that are on the market are vacant but not registered , many do not have for sale signs in front of them .

The data used to determine how many homes are on the market in various stages of foreclosure came from the MLS. Since listings are not categorized as foreclosures much of the data had to be gone through manually looking for phrases like "bank owned", "corporate owned", or "subject to bank approval".

Banks can not sell real estate. They do not have the staff or the know how. My clients make good offers on the vacant properties and have to wait so long for a response that they move on. The homes remain vacant.

First time home buyers who would like to live in some of the vacant homes can not get financing for them. This is only the begining. It will get much worse before it gets better.

Now I have new neighbors in St. Paul who own property here but live far away. They are not responsible property owners. They are banks, they can't sell real estate. I watch as our housing stock decays under their ownership.

Also see The Man on the West Coast
When the Bank is the seller

Downtown St. Paul has about 5 miles of indoor skyways connecting the buildings. In the wonter when it is cold out and I want to go for a walk without freezing I head for the skyways. I only wish I could bring my dog with, she would love it.

Walking in doors might not seem like fun but it is. Here is some of the wild life that can be found in the skyway between the trade center and the children's musuem of Minnesota.

Not all of the skyways are open on Sunday so the trick is to not get stuck in a dead end and have to turn around or go outside to get to the next building. Some of the skyways are heated and some are not. Some are full of people and others are empty. Most are well lit and much more pleasant than walking out side in the cold.