Schmitt Music Mural - Minneapolis, MN
Posted by: 
FSU*Noles
N 44° 58.421 W 093° 16.398
15T E 478449 N 4980063
This is the "Music Wall" mural on the side of the old Schmitt Music building in downtown Minneapolis.
Waymark Code: WM3FX0
Location: Minnesota, United States
Date Posted: 03/31/2008
Views: 153
Schmitt Music Company (also known as Schmitt's) is one of the country's largest full-service music retailers, and it got it's start in 1890 when Paul A. Schmitt moved to Minneapolis from New York City. He founded Schmitt Music Company in 1926, and 1941, moved the company headquarters to this location in downtown Minneapolis, near the corner of 10th Street and Marquette Avenue. He chose this building because it had room for a warehouse and piano-rebuilding shop, which allowed the company to begin selling pianos and organs.
This building became an unofficial landmark when Robert P. Schmitt (the son of Robert A.) decided to beautify one of the large exposed exterior brick walls.
Like other American cities of the 1970s, citizens and business owners in Minneapolis were concerned about beautifying the older downtown buildings. Schmitt hired the repair of the old bricks and bricked up 32 exterior windows. He asked a company employee to choose notes from a musical score that could be painted as a mural over the enormous facade. The employee searched through the store's sheet music and came up with the most graphically attractive piece of music she could find, Maurice Ravel's "Gaspard de la Nuit." Pianist Van Cliburn posed playing a Steinway concert grand piano in front of the mural for a now famous photograph, which attracted the attention of national newspapers.
Schmitt's has since vacated the building, and it is now the sales office for the Nicollet on the Mall luxury condo project, but the famous mural remains - an informal downtown Minneapolis landmark. If you put the listed coordinates into Google Maps and click "street view", you can get a good look at this mural as if you were standing right there!
City: Minneaoplis
Location Name: Nicollet on the Mall sales office
Artist: Not listed
Date: Not listed
Media: Not listed
Relevant Web Site: Not listed
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Visit Instructions:
Please give the date and description of your visit. One original photo of the mural must also be submitted. GPSr photo NOT required.