If you find yourself in downtown Minneapolis, the Foshay is the best place to stay. Located on Marquette Avenue, the luxurious skyscraper hotel has a remarkable interior with cutting edge designs. The interior is made of African Mahogany, Italian marble, etched glass, and has gold plated doorknobs and faucets, silver and gold ceiling, three busts of American president George Washington, a terrazzo, and hand wrought iron. The outside top facade of the building screams the name “Foshay”. The namesake came from the name of the owner, builder and businessman Wilbur Foshay who amassed his wealth through three companies he built up. It was modeled after the Washington Monument which Foshay admired as a young art student. It was completed in 1929. The building has 34 floors, stands 447-feet high plus the antenna so that’s a total of 607-feet. The building was constructed months before the Wall Street Stock market crashed in the 1920’s. The Foshay tower became the tallest tower in Minneapolis for more than 40 years. During the building’s grand opening, twenty thousand guests were invited. Most of them were cabinet members, congressmen and senators. Many of the guests were also accommodated with an all-expense paid trip. To entertain them, several half-nude dancers were hired and each guest was given a gold pocketwatch.In 2006, the building was transformed from Mr. Foshay’s office tower into a 230 room hotel. An interesting discovery was found during the renovation when a worker replacing the ceiling which was to be the hotel’s lobby found the original ceiling intact with its elaborate engravings and embossed with numerous logos. The name was then changed to W Minneapolis – The Foshay and the observation deck was converted from the meeting room to a sky bar.Photo DSC_0183.12.10 The W @ Foshay by Joe Bielawa is licensed under CC BY 2.0