The Dr. Sullivan sign with the pointing hand and painted dentures is so classic, I'm looking for Norman Rockwell.

Below is the same view from September of 2008.

No, not one of those oft-seen individuals who just coincidentally appear to be holding a cell phone to their ear, but a retail establishments named simply "Unique" would seem to have fallen back in time from the 2000s.

Behind the streetcar, to the right of the Unique Theatre and to the left of Lenin's doppelganger on the wall sign, is the West Hotel. Despite the tackiness of its peppermint-stripe facade on its lower levels, it was the destination hotel for visiting celebrities. A young Winston Churchill stayed at the West during the final week of Queen Victoria's reign, when giving stirring accounts to packed houses at the Lyceum Theater (located behind the cameraman) of his exploits in the Boer War. It survived Churchill, the Republican National Convention in 1892, a fatal fire in 1906, and the Great Depression, until its demolition in 1940.

Rarely do we see a street so flithy as this one. And not just the typical horse waste but trash in the gutter!

If you look at this picture long enough, you'll see a Starbucks.

The Masonic Temple building still survives as the Hennepin Center for the Arts, and the Lumber Exhange building survives as, well, the Lumber Exchange.

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Next time I walk by those old buildings I'll keep 1908 in mind.