1006 West Lake Street
Minneapolis, MN, USA

1006 West Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN, USA

1006 West Lake Street Home History
1907 / additions. Magney and Tusler, 1923-27 / renovated, 1971 and later

This concrete and brick industrial building, mildly Classical Revival in style, is among the largest structures in Uptown. The oldest portion dates to 1907 and was originally built for the Self- Threading Needle Co. It was purchased in 1923 by the Buzza Co., once the nation's second-largest maker of greeting cards and calendars. The company's namesake and founder, George Buzza, was a commercial artist who produced posters before branching out into the greeting card business in 1909. Buzza brought in talented artists to design his company's cards, which were known for their rich colors. He also hired popular poets, Edgar Guest among them, to endow the cards with memorable sentiments.

The company grew rapidly and enlarged this building three times in the 1920s. Most of it was loft space, but the upper floors once included elegant offices and showrooms furnished with Italian antiques. The company merged with a New York firm in 1928 to become the Buzza-Clark Co., and Buzza himself retired to California the next year. The company's fortunes sank during the Great Depression, and it went out of business in 1942, when the federal government acquired the building. The government sold it in 1971 to the Minneapolis Public Schools, which two years later turned it into an education center.

Citation: Millett, Larry. AIA Guide to the Minneapolis Lake District. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009.