File:Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, Groveland Avenue and Lyndale Avenue, Loring Park, Minneapolis, MN - 51797656066.jpg

English: Built in 1916, this Gothic Revival-style church was designed by Hewitt and Brown for the congregation of the Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, which formed in 1875. Modeled on English Gothic architecture, the church takes heavy inspiration from the design of Ely Cathedral, with an octagonal, layered form and a spire that was, at the time of its completion, the second-tallest building in Minneapolis, only exceeded by Minneapolis City Hall. The building features a limestone exterior with a roughly plus-shaped form, centering around a central octagonal section that rises above the rest of the church before having a setback below the bell tower, and a second setback at the base of the metal-clad spire. The church features lancet windows, buttresses, crenellated towers flanking the main entrance, decorative stone railings, blind gothic arches, multiple pinnacles, a decorative surround framing the front entrance, historic lampposts at the front steps, and very small windows near the base of the building. To the rear of the sanctuary structure is a wing containing classrooms, offices, and a fellowship hall, completed around the same time as the church and featuring many Gothic Revival elements in its design, though less ostentatious than the main church building, and with oriels and flat-topped window openings. The church was protected during the construction of the Lowry Hill Tunnel, carrying Interstate 94, immediately adjacent to it in the 1960s by installing refrigeration equipment that froze the ground, ensuring the building would not be undermined in the event of an accidental tunnel collapse. In 2006, a new handicapped-accessible entrance, designed by Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, was added to the rear of the educational wing to provide access directly from the church’s parking lot.