Bird's Eye View of Mayo Clinic

I've been wanting to do this for a long time but haven't had the energy or time until now. Click on the picture if you want to see it a little bigger. I used my digital camera to take a picture of a drawing inside the Mayo Clinic brochure, A Guide and Map to Mayo Clinic's Downtown Campus 2005. Hopefully they won't arrest me for taking the brochure into my own blog. This drawing doesn't come anywhere near doing justice to how it looks in real time but it is better than nothing to give you a general idea of the size and scope of the clinic. It's kind of like visiting the Grand Canyon then posting one of the pictures you took in your vacation blog. The buildings are labeled with black dots which have letters inside. I know the letters are near impossible to read so I am going to copy the list below and try to point out some of the buildings.

Campus Buildings:
A. Baldwin----------- I. Harwick
B. Charlton---------- J. Hilton
C. Charter House---- K. Mayo
D. Colonial----------- L. Medical Sciences
E. Damon Parking--- M. Ozmun
F. Eisenburg--------- N. Plummer
G. Gonda------------ O. Siebens
H. Guggenheim------ P. Stabile

You can find a map of the complex including the skyway and underground at:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/travel-rst/maps.html

I have spent most of my time here in the Mayo, Gonda, Eisenburg, and Charlton buildings.

The Gift of Life Transplant House is on the corner of 2nd Street and 7th Avenue which is about three blocks down the street (West) from the Ozmun building. If you look closely at the top of the picture, you will see an arrow pointing West in the direction of Saint Mary's Hospital. That is 2nd Street. Turning around and heading back East, The Ozmun Building is the first one on the left (North) with a black dot (and white letter M which you can't read). Continuing East, what looks like one big building in the middle of the picture is the Mayo building on the south and the Gonda building on the north. Or, just looking at the picture, the Mayo building is on the left and the Gonda building is on the right. The black dot K is on the Mayo. Next to it is black dot E. Then quite a distance to the right is black dot G. The parking building (black dot E) is actually across 3rd Avenue from the Mayo and Gonda buildings and not connected to them (except through the underground).

But how are the two buildings connected you might ask. Well, remember the arrow pointing toward St. Mary's? Look real close and follow that in the opposite direction east all the way to what looks like a little bridge connecting the two shorter buildings in the front of the picture. That bridge connects the floors of those two buildings and is part of what is called the skyway. Outside is not a place you want to spend a lot of time when it is five degrees and the wind is blowing fifteen miles an hour. Therefore, there are a lot of those little "bridges" or sky ways between most buildings down town.

Now, take that concept to it's next logical level and you link multiple floors between buildings. Now you have a five decker "bridge" (which links Gonda and Charlton) or even a twelve decker in the case of the link between Mayo and Gonda. It isn't labeled with a black dot in the drawing but maybe it should be even though all it does is link every floor in the Mayo to every floor in the Gonda. Accordingly, the elevators are housed in the middle of that structure. It houses a good portion of the art in the clinic as well. The side you can see from the drawing is open from the underground level up to about the third floor. It forms a HUGE atrium which is named the Nathan Landow Atrium. As you can see on the drawing, the wall is a wave wall. Natural light streams through the 360-foot-long by 50 foot-tall glass wave wall into the atrium. The first time you see it, it is breathtaking.

Another thing about the connecting structure you don't really notice from the drawing is that it closed first street. The connecting structure is now the four lane, covered drive-up entrance to Mayo and Gonda. All the shuttles, cars, and taxi's form a constant stream all day dropping off and picking up patients, caregivers, relatives, and potential patients (especially if you lolligag too much in the four lane, covered drive-up -- BAM - another patient!).

Now, moving on to a couple of restaurants and a mall. If you are ever at Mayo, you will want to eat at the Red Lobster and Victoria's Italian Restaurant. Red Lobster is relatively easy to find. It pretty much slaps you in the face when you come into town driving north on highway 63 which by now has metamorphosed into Broadway. You will notice on the drawing an orangish front about ten story building on the corner of 2nd Street SW and 1st Avenue SW (runs parallel with Broadway). Well, that is exactly where Red Lobste is located -- in the corner of that building. The green triangle with the letter "N" is pointing north on 1st Avenue SW. Broad street is one street over to the ease.

Getting you to Victoria's might prove a bit more challenging. Although, if you continue North into the next block on the same side of the street as Red Lobster, Victoria's is in the middle of the block. Victoria's is known for their HEARTY portions. So, if you just got in from the airport, haven't had anything to eat all day except maybe an Egg McMuffin and coffee for breakfast and some airline snacks, you've checked into your room at the hotel, and now it is seven PM and you are absolutely starved. If all this is so, then you might be a candidate for a serving of Victoria's lasagna (which is out of this world!). I actually ate an entire serving of lasagna back in August when we flew here. One serving is actually a meal for a day. Now that we know better, we ask them to split an order. They charge $3 to split an order of lasagna but they bring an extra plate and rolls. If you do this at lunch, it only costs $17 (gratuity extra). I think it costs a couple more bucks at the evening meal, but then again, maybe not -- I can't remember.

After supper, if you want to go shopping, all you have to do is WALK across 1st Avenue SW to the Galleria Mall. It has a food court on the third level if you care for that kind of thing. On your way to the Mall, you will pass an old theater which was redesigned into a Barnes and Noble book store. It has two levels and you can spend most of a day in that one store. It also has a coffee shop.