The 1942 Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank building in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, is a former bank building that is now the home of a Westin Hotel. The building is an example of the Streamline Moderne phase of the Art Deco movement and is notable for its bold relief sculptures of a farmer and a mechanic framing the main entrance. The sculptures were designed by Warren T. Mosman, who headed the sculpture department at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
The previous Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank headquarters was built in 1891 on 115 S. 4th St. It is now home to The Downtown Cabaret, a strip club.
The walnut-paneled main banking hall of the building is now the lobby of the hotel. The taller wings of the building once held offices, but now house 214 hotel rooms. The hotel conversion preserved several historic features of the bank building. The main banking lobby with a 34-foot (10 m) high ceiling, marble staircase, and carved wood emblems have been retained. The bank's boardroom on the 10th floor, with floor-to-ceiling windows, is now a conference room. The original bank vault on the lower level is also a conference room, while the former safety deposit vault is now a wine vault and the entire bank has been made in to a restaurant, called B.A.N.K. The restaurant kept as much of the original woodworking from the actual bank as possible. Former offices now serve as private dining rooms and the teller counter now serves as a bar.
Famous quotes containing the words farmers, mechanics and/or bank:
“Well, farmers never have made money. I don’t believe we can do much about it. But of course we will have to seem to be doing something; do the best we can and without much hope. The life of the farmer has its compensations but it has always been one of hardship.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid’s geometry
And Newton’s mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“It was like passing a boundary to dive
Into the sun-filled water, brightly leafed
And limbed and lighted out from bank to bank.
That’s how the stars shine during the day.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)