From this photo it is fairly obvious that the set of "sawhorses" on the left is being used as a wire support.

      The other one like others I have seen here seems to be built a bit more sturdier and are usually stationed near the edge of the building.

     Could they be block and tackle rigs which were not only used to get pianos up to the fifth floor but were also indispensable tools for the slapstick comedies of the day to get people into fine messes?

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Note the two awnings on the building to the left. Must be the boss's office, and his secretary's. I put up awnings in the 1960s and we did most of our work with extension ladders. Of course, office buildings were air conditioned by then and didn't need awnings. Whoever installed those two probably climbed out through the window. Doubt they hung from the roof. A job for young guys.

Frank Plumbing was at 11th Avenue S. and Washington.

The dome was known as the Cyclorama Building, later occupied by two different furniture stores.

Block E is bounded Sixth and Seventh Streets N., First Avenue N. and Hennepin Avenue. The 11-story building right of center with its back to us is the Lumber Exchange. Block E would be one block west and across the street.

Mary threw her hat in the air at S. 7th St. and Nicollet. That intersection is on the left where the four storey building with the single cupola is. Her house is about two miles southwest of here on Lake of the Isles.

To Brian Stabinger, Butler Square wasn't built until 1909.

I just want to know where Mary Richards's apartment house is. Oh, and the street where she threw her cap in the air. Where's that?

The Furniture Journal - volume 21 - 1904
[The New England Furniture and Carpet Company] building is one which has been fashioned out of a roller skating rink, a modern four story business block, an octagonal building erected for a war cyclorama and a barn. It is the kind of building which would make good food for flames and if it had been burned in the recent disastrous fire in Minneapolis would have undoubtedly given place to a modern structure, better adapted for the purposes of its occupants. [Link]

Is this the infamous "E Block," source of everything dirty in Minneapolis before they tore it down, had a failed development that turned into a parking lot, then had a successful development that tries to look like the torn-down block? Omaha would hardly recognize it.

Several days ago we had a few comments on these sawhorse like apparatuses as seen in previous Shorpy photos. Actually, it began with someone (who, me?) noticing a "real" sawhorse being used as a temporary utility line cross arm with insulators mounted on it. But another sharp-eyed Shorpy reader uploaded some other sawhorse shaped examples being used for the same purpose, but on flat roofs. That's why I presumed that one from the Baltimore photo was a real sawhorse because the legs had not been adjusted for the roof slope, and that it was sturdily reinforced as any self-respecting sawhorse would be.

Think those were used to hold telephone and telegraph lines up over the roofs of the buildings. I wonder if I learned this a few weeks ago from Dave on Shorpy.

This is looking northwest with Fourth Street on the far right, and Hennepin cutting in front of the last row of buildings. In the top-right corner you'll see Butler Square, as well several other buildings which are still in good repair. Those in the foreground are now where City Center, IDS and all that currently are.

on the roof there? These things are all over the place.

That is quite a dome on the furniture store, anyone know the story?

I don't recognize anything. I can't even tell which direction it's facing. Is the building in the lower right what would one day be (but no longer is) Frank Plumbing?

Obviously the round building in the center was an early prototype for the Metrodome.

Find the horseless carriage!