Double Helix

Minneapolis, Minnesota
N 44° 58' 48.918" W 93° 17' 19.884"
 
Located inside Minneapolis’s International Market Square, the Double Helix staircase is a striking survivor from the building’s earlier life as the Northwestern Knitting Company factory, later known as the Munsingwear Building. The factory complex was built between 1904 and 1915, and the paired stairways were designed so arriving workers could go up one side while departing workers came down the other, keeping traffic moving smoothly through the plant. Believed to be one of the first double-helix stairways of its kind in the United States, it remains one of the building’s most distinctive features and a rare reminder of Minneapolis’s industrial past.