Hennepin Avenue is a major street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It runs from Lakewood Cemetery (at West 36th Street), 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 the city's eastern boundary, where it becomes Larpenteur Avenue as it enters Lauderdale in Ramsey County.
In Downtown Minneapolis, Hennepin Avenue serves as a major entertainment thoroughfare, dubbed the Hennepin Theatre District. It also serves as the dividing line between "North" and "South" street addresses. Across the river, it divides "Northeast" and "Southeast" street addresses. To the east of the Minneapolis city limits, it becomes Larpenteur Avenue at Highway 280 which forms the northern border of Saint Paul.
The Theatre District contains four historic and architecturally significant theaters for live performances. The State Theatre, the Orpheum Theatre, the Pantages Theatre and the Goodale Theater (formerly the Shubert Theater). Also the Hennepin Center for the Arts is located there.
For sections south of the Mississippi River, Hennepin Avenue follows stretches of an old Indian trail from Saint Anthony Falls to Lake Calhoun. It was named after Father Louis Hennepin, a Roman Catholic priest and explorer of the interior of North America. It is one of the oldest streets in the city and was the first street to cross the Mississippi River, when the first Hennepin Avenue suspension bridge was completed in 1855.
Many important institutions and structures have been built on Hennepin, including Calhoun Square, the Suburban World Theater, the Uptown Theater, the Walker Art Center, the Basilica of St. Mary, St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, Minneapolis Community and Technical College, the Hennepin Center for the Arts, and the Lumber Exchange Building.
The street has achieved iconic status in Minneapolis culture, featuring prominently in the Prince movie Purple Rain and memorialized in songs by Tom Waits, The Hold Steady and Lucinda Williams, among others. It is also a popular parade route, used by the annual Aquatennial celebration held in July, and since the 1990s has been the traditional route of the city's GLBT Pride parade.
Once a two-way avenue, the Theater District portion was changed in 1980 to a one-way going north with only a bus only lane going south. "The Environmental Protection Agency was concerned with the air quality in downtown Minneapolis. Turning the streets into one-way lowered the near dangerous high levels of pollution"[2]. However, on October 10, 2009, it was changed back to a two-way avenue, with its bike lanes being transferred one block west to First Avenue (which was also switched from one-way to two-way at the same time). This change was hoped by the city to create urban vibrancy, quicker travel times to destination, and to avoid confusing one-ways.
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