Created to emulate and augment the sidewalks they were built two to three stories above, the skyway systems of many American cities offer a mildly eerie, climate controlled streetscape. Divorced from the grid and the navigational cues of the street, the skyway meanders through space both public and private, inverting the traditional pedestrian experience. The intimacies of these spaces offer an entirely different urban experience within a downtown. In a day and age when more and more of our public spaces are being swallowed by the private sector, I am drawn to photograph in these spaces because of this inverted experience. I am compelled by the intersection of interior and exterior, by the ebb and flow of the usage of the system, by the human presence and lack there of. A simulacrum of the sidewalk and reminiscent of many shopping malls, the skyway is a space now common to the American landscape, a place that echoes another, yet cannot, nor wishes to, achieve the authenticity of what it has been modeled upon.

All of these photographs were made in 2009 in the following cities: Cedar Rapids, IA, Des Moines, IA, Duluth, MN, Minneapolis, MN, Rochester, MN, and St. Paul, MN.