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Lost Healys on the Healy Block
Note: This is a corrected version of the May 23rd posting, edited after a recent interview with Wayne Tinberg. A new post on that interview will follow.
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| The roadbed for 35W being laid in Richfield in 1960. |
The previous blog post was devoted to three Healy houses lost to freeway construction and one to changes in fashion. So far, the entries on this blog have presented the building list of Healy houses in roughly chronological order.
At this point, it may be helpful to take a look specifically at all the houses wrecked for I-35W construction in 1959-60, no matter what their building date.
According to city records, nine houses designed by T.P. Healy were built on the west side of the 3100 block of Second Ave. South. In order of house number, they are:
3106, built in 1888 for $3,000
3108, built in 1888 for $3,000
3116 (directly across the street from the Healy family home), built in 1896 for $4,500
3120, built in 1892 for $9,000
3130, built in 1889 for $5,000
3132, built in 1889 for $5,000
3136, built in 1891 for $7,000
3140, built in 1887 for $6,000
3142, built in 1887 for $4,000
Here they are again, in order of year built:
1887–3140
3142
1888–3106
3108
1889–3130
3132
1891–3136
1892–3120
1896–3116
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| An old photo of 3130 Second Avenue (courtesy Robert-Jan Quene). It would be interesting to find more photos of these lost Healy houses. |
One can deduce that the three pairs of houses built side-by-side in the 1880s were probably built on spec by Healy. The house built in 1891 is apparently a much fancier house, a stone veneer dwelling costing $7,000. The one from the next year, 1892, a brownstone, is fancier yet, erected for the princely sum of $9,000.
The most famous resident of that block was Richard W. Sears, co-founder of the Sears and Roebuck Company.
According to the Sears company archives:
Richard Warren Sears was born December 7, 1863, in Stewartville, Minn. Although Sears’ father was at one time fairly prosperous, he lost all of his money—about $50,000—in a failed stock-farm venture.
Consequently, at a young age, Richard Sears found it necessary to work in order to help support the family. Working as a station agent for the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad, Sears looked to supplement his income. In 1886, he found an ideal solution when a local jeweler refused a consignment of watches. Sears asked the manufacturer’s permission to try to sell the watches. Permission was granted, and soon he had sold all of them to fellow agents.
Within six months, Richard Sears’ watch business escalated so much that he resigned from the railroad in 1886 and moved to Minneapolis, where he could devote full time to his growing mail-order enterprise, which he founded that year as the R.W. Sears Watch Company. He was only 22 years old.
Sears joined forces with watch repairman Alvah C. Roebuck in 1887 and then with key financier and future president and chairman Julius Rosenwald in 1895. The headquarters of Sears, Roebuck and Co. had been established in Chicago in 1893.
In 1908, poor health forced Richard Sears to retire from active participation in his company, which had grown to annual sales of $40 million. He died six years later.
The chronology of Sears’ rise is interesting. When Sears bought 3132 from Healy in 1889, the latter was only 26 years old. By then, Sears had partnered with Roebuck and set up the company that bore their names (today, only Sears’ name remains).
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| “If you buy a good watch you will always be satisfied, and at our prices a good watch will influence the sale of another good watch; and that’s our motto: “Make a Watch,Sell a Watch.” (Richard Sears in 1892) |
Wayne Tinberg, who bought the Healy-built house at 3124 Third Avenue South in 1959, told Madeline Douglass that the homeowners on that block used to celebrate Healy’s birthday each year–hence the hastily-organized birthday celebration behind Healy’s family home at 3115 this year. It is remarkable that even many years after Healy’s death, the people who lived in the houses he built on Second Avenue remembered and celebrated his work.
The “urban removal” of the 1950s and ’60s changed all that and brought many Victorian houses into the clutches of slumlords or in front of the paths of bulldozers. The revival begun in the ’70s with the designation of the Healy block to the historic register continues today, through fits and starts, enduring ups and downs. But sadly, for many houses in Central Minneapolis, the danger from bulldozers, slumlords, and “flippers” has not gone away. The housing crisis of 2008 has only made it worse.
Much research remains to be done on the architectural legacy of Healy, including work on his connection with Sears and many other prominent people of his day in Minnesota. If people value something, they will make an effort to keep it safe, and it is through this research that we hope to preserve T.P. Healy’s splendid architectural legacy.
–T.B.
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| A freeway exit marks the place where the Healy houses on the west side of the 3100 block of Second Avenue once stood. They were wrecked in 1960 when the building of I-35W cut a swath of destruction through the center of South Minneapolis. |
1.) Permit information:
3132 Second Ave. So.
40 x 52 Frame dwelling
Owner: T. P. Healy
Architect:
Builder:
B19302
6-22-89 / 10-1-89
Est. cost: $5,000.
This house is much wider than he is typically building at this time. By starting this house, we can see from the dates on the permits that he is working on three different houses in two different neighborhoods–Central and Kenwood.
3132 Second Ave. So.
40 x 52 Frame dwelling
Owner: T. P. Healy
Architect:
Builder:
B19302
6-22-89 / 10-1-89
Est. cost: $5,000.
This house is much wider than he is typically building at this time. By starting this house, we can see from the dates on the permits that he is working on three different houses in two different neighborhoods–Central and Kenwood.
2.) Permit information:
3130 Second Ave. So.
30 x 52 Frame dwelling
Owner: T. P. Healy
Architect:
Builder:
B18375
4-17-89 / 8-1-89
Est. cost: $5,000.
3130 Second Ave. So.
30 x 52 Frame dwelling
Owner: T. P. Healy
Architect:
Builder:
B18375
4-17-89 / 8-1-89
Est. cost: $5,000.
3) Permit information:
3136 Second Ave. So.
35 x 60 Stone ven. dwelling
Owner: T. P. Healy
Architect:
Builder: T. P. Healy
B25946
8-5-91 / 11-1-91
Est. cost: $7,000.
Wrecked: 1960
3136 Second Ave. So.
35 x 60 Stone ven. dwelling
Owner: T. P. Healy
Architect:
Builder: T. P. Healy
B25946
8-5-91 / 11-1-91
Est. cost: $7,000.
Wrecked: 1960
This is the most expensive house up to this date that Healy built on this his “home” block. It stood directly across the street from the first house that we know he built.
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| 425 Groveland Avenue |
4) The house shown is not a Healy, but a Healy house built for Gilbert M. Walker (whose wife founded the Walker Art Center) stood on this site from 1892 until 1923. This is the first Lost Healy, lost to the Roaring Twenties. Think of everything that happened between 1891 and 1923; the world had changed in so many ways. A man like Walker wasn’t going to live out his days in a Victorian house. It was so last century.
The house pictured above was Gilbert Walker’s new house.
Permit information:
425 Groveland Ave.
82.9 x 56.7 Tile Dwelling
Owner: Gilbert M. Walker
Architect: Ernest Kennedy
Builder: Nels Jenson
B173713
10-3-23 / 5-1-24
(Interior to be completed later.)
Est. cost: $30,000.
–A.C.
Permit information:
425 Groveland Ave.
82.9 x 56.7 Tile Dwelling
Owner: Gilbert M. Walker
Architect: Ernest Kennedy
Builder: Nels Jenson
B173713
10-3-23 / 5-1-24
(Interior to be completed later.)
Est. cost: $30,000.
Gilbert Walker would die in 1928; his wife lived until 1951.
From Wikipedia: The (Walker) Museum’s focus on modern art began in the 1940’s , when a gift from Mrs. Gilbert Walker made possible the acquisition of works by important artists of the day including sculptures by Picasso, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti and others.
T. P. Healy had built a house for J. B. Gilfillan at 218 Clifton Ave. in 1905-06, designed by the same architect, Ernest Kennedy.
Nels Jenson, the builder of this house, was Healy’s foreman.–A.C.
In 1960, miles of homes on the west side of Second Avenue South were wrecked to permit the construction of the new Interstate highway, 35W. Among those destroyed were half of the houses on the current Healy Block.
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There are only two houses on the Healy building list from 1887: 3140 Second Ave. So. and 3142 Second Ave. So. This is where they sat from 1887-1960. |
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| The view looking north on the Healy Block from 32nd Street. At left is the strip of grass at the I-35W off-ramp. |
Permit information:
3142 Second Ave. So.
28 x 45 Wood dwelling
Owner: T. P. Healy
Architect:
Builder:
B13561
12-28-87 / 5-1-88
Est. cost: $4,000.
3142 Second Ave. So.
28 x 45 Wood dwelling
Owner: T. P. Healy
Architect:
Builder:
B13561
12-28-87 / 5-1-88
Est. cost: $4,000.
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| The site of 3106 Second Ave. S. |
Permit information:
3106 Second Ave. So.
24 x 40 Wood dwelling
Owner: T. P. Healy
Architect:
Builder:
B15363
6-14-88/11-1-88
Est. cost: $3,000.
He has gone back to a much smaller and cheaper house. House was wrecked in 1959 for I-35W
3106 Second Ave. So.
24 x 40 Wood dwelling
Owner: T. P. Healy
Architect:
Builder:
B15363
6-14-88/11-1-88
Est. cost: $3,000.
He has gone back to a much smaller and cheaper house. House was wrecked in 1959 for I-35W
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| The site of 3108 Second Ave. S. |
Permit information:
3108 Second Ave. So.
24 x 40 Wood dwelling
Owner: T. P. Healy
Architect:
Builder:
B15364
6-14-88/11-1-88
Est. cost: $3,000.
3108 Second Ave. So.
24 x 40 Wood dwelling
Owner: T. P. Healy
Architect:
Builder:
B15364
6-14-88/11-1-88
Est. cost: $3,000.