Interpreting 35W in South Minneapolis Through Art and Media

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

<li>Before the advent of unleaded gasoline cars would emit lead through their exhaust. This has contributed to high levels of lead in the soil surrounding freeways. Prolonged exposure to lead can cause brain, liver, and kidney damage with children and the unborn being at higher risk.</li>

- Success of Freeway Surgery in Doubt, Minneapolis Star. November 14, 1968.

To place yourself in the shoes of the people impacted by this construction consider these questions and impacts before moving forward.

With Post-WW2 progress in full swing and the flight of middle America to newly built suburbs the United States had mobility like never before. In response to this economic prosperity, mobility, and continued growth President Dwight Eisenhower led the charge for the Interstate and Defense Highways Act in 1956. $25-billion dollars was authorized for 41,000 miles of highways to ensure fast speeds and quick travel times. Ensuring productivity and mobility for decades to come.

Additionally, it may help to keep in mind the essential questions as you move forward:

”35W went through a Mexican and Black area to the north of Lake Street," says Beverly Larkin who lived at 2431 Fourth Ave. during the time the freeways were built. "The neighborhood was blue collar mixed," she explained. "Some people from the South, lots of Mexicans… The guy who owned the store was Mexican and he owned three little houses, the one we lived in and two next to it. Each one was as neat as a pin with a little fence and a gate and flowers in the yard.”

Despite avoiding direct destruction from the concrete flood of 35W the freeway landed a mere three blocks away. While the homes were spared the neighborhood fabric was ripped apart, isolating and displacing residents while contributing to a feeling of disconnectedness in a formerly connected area.

During this prosperous period, South Minneapolis was a dense, mixed demographic, and blue-collar area. Vibrant neighborhoods showcased the city’s diversity while giving space for unique cultures to flourish. Though racist and segregationist attitudes still existed there were multiple African American, Native American, and Hispanic enclaves: including one African American business district at 4th Ave. S and E 38th St, three blocks from the site of 35W. 

Showcasing diversity and early integration across the Field, Regina, and Bryant neighborhoods were the Tilsenbuilt homes. The homes were one of the first privately funded integrated housing initiatives in the United States and the first to receive federal funding.

I-35W Disrupted Minority Community, Boxed-in Phillips, August 1990, The Alley.

I-35W Disrupted Minority Community, Boxed-in Phillips, August 1990. The Alley.

The following excerpt from the Minneapolis Star illustrates the tension between South Minneapolis residents and government officials trying to build the freeway:

Discriminatory policies such as redlining, <a href="https://www.mappingprejudice.org/what-are-covenants/index.html#what" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">housing covenants</a>, and racism had residents of color worried about finding similar homes in safe neighborhoods, along with the prospect of being greeted with violence or discrimination. Many residents across racial demographics felt that the offers they received for their homes were too low to move to a comparable home in a new area.

Civil Rights Hearing Draws Testimony on 35W, September 1992. The Alley.

With roaring engines sounding the battle call of progress bulldozers came and homes fell like dominoes. Starting in 1962 homes were razed as the ground was dug up and families relocated, neighborhoods were torn apart until only a river of concrete remained. Neighbors along the freeway were greeted with gifts of noise and dust from construction that would continue for years to come. The first section, 62nd Street to 31st Street, opened in January 1967. With the completion in sight Minneapolis City Council approved an accelerated construction schedule to finish the freeway by year's end, 35W was completed in December 1967 and opened in 1968.

It may be helpful to pick one part of the history that stuck out to you and work from there. You could consider some of the following impacts to work from:

With a new trench and speeding cars where cross streets used to be, a 1971 grassroots effort would lead to the construction of a 650-foot pedestrian bridge at 24th street. In an effort to reconnect neighborhoods on the East and West sides of the freeway a small coalition of neighbors petitioned the city to build a pedestrian bridge. After much lobbying from the grassroots coalition the city finally agreed with the bridge opening in 1971. The 24th St. pedestrian served Phillips and Whittier until being demolished in 2018, with plans to rebuild the bridge by 2021.

Many of the properties to be destroyed affected some of the most vulnerable and important parts of our populations: section 8 apartments, domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters, health care centers, homes, and businesses. As plans for expansion evolved the number of properties to be taken varied between 100-400.

Through the process of <a href="https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=4/41.212/-105.513&amp;text=intro" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">redlining </a>housing and financial lenders would draw red lines around areas deemed not safe investments. Typically these lines were drawn around African American neighborhoods, allowing for financial discrimination by limiting assistance from banks and preventing wealth building. The route went through two redlined areas, with the majority of the route running directly beside a redlined area East of the freeway. Giving those residents a noisy new neighbor.

Citizens Oppose 35W Expansion at Public Hearing, July 1988. The Alley.

Pointing out that the civil rights commission hearing was being held in the former Bryant Junior High School (now Sabathani Community Center), McLaughlin noted that Warrington Elementary and Central High School are also no more. “All of these schools are closed now, and the reason the schools are closed is because of I-35W cutting a swath through and depopulating the area,” he said.

I-35W Disrupted Community, Boxed in Phillips, August 1990. The Alley Newspaper.

In the early integrated neighborhoods of Field, Regina, and Bryant at least one African American neighborhood, from 18th to 32nd Streets, was displaced. Along with additional pockets of African American and Hispanic residents. Many of the areas destroyed have been described as blue collar, mixed income, and mixed demographic.

Quotes From Local Residents in Newspapers

With the wounds of neighborhood division still fresh the city of Minneapolis was putting plans in place to expand the freeway in the 1980s. Public memory of what happened to neighborhoods due to 35W, along with Phillips’ slow degradation due to neglect and its boxed-in position from freeways, led to much community opposition. Learning from past mistakes, the city allowed more room for discussion with one meeting drawing 2,000 residents in opposition to the expansion.

<li>What makes a neighborhood?<li>What places in your neighborhood are important to you? What if they disappeared?</li><li>How do you define a neighborhood and its boundaries?</li><li>What does a freeway give? What does a freeway take away?</li></li>

Buildings weren’t the only thing to fall for 35W with over 1,300 trees scheduled to be cut and not replaced. Dreading the loss of aesthetic beauty and cooling shade residents saw tree cutting as a lack of oversight from elected officials. Residents organized, with pushback some cutting was halted and a few trees replanted. But the damage had been done and the tree canopy was decreased, increasing urban heat island effects and eliminating a tool that could absorb carbon dioxide emitted from vehicles.

start

<li>Tree shade cools surface areas and a decreased tree canopy can increase heat island effects: heatstroke, exhaustion, and overall temperature increase.&nbsp;<li>Less carbon dioxide (CO2) absorption. Vehicles emit CO2 which trees then absorb and turn into oxygen, in turn purifying the air.</li></li>

Plans evolved and stalled as opposition continued throughout the 80s and into the 90s. When funding fell through in the mid-90s, 35W expansion was dead. The celebration was short-lived when a few years later considerations to revamp 35W would begin again, with neighborhood politicians and advocates pushing for more transparency and community input.

This story map is designed to walk you through the history of Interstate 35W, situated on Dakota land, in south Minneapolis from the 1950s to the present. Beginning with the political charge to create freeways we will then explore the neighborhoods where 35W was placed, the process of creating the freeway, effects on residents, and the continued issues and struggles presented by the freeway. Once you've read this history we hope you will provide a creative response to some of the themes and impacts throughout. These responses require no prior artistic experience and are open to all skill levels. Your type of creative interpretation is open to you but could be a drawing/painting, visual art piece, poem, short story, creative essay, video, song, or spoken word. The form for submitting your art is at the bottom of this page, submissions will then be&nbsp;placed on a digital map with other responses.

(Note: Click on the form to interact and scroll to see other submission fields.)

<li>Impact on a family/home/renter<li>Impact on a neighborhood</li><li>Impact on a business</li><li>Environmental impact</li><li>Health impact</li><li>Impact on wealth. For whom?</li></li>

Judy Adams, another Phillips resident whose duplex would be taken by the freeway expansion described the noise and pollution problems of living next to 35W. Adams said she is against any new sources of soil lead pollution which is already at a critical level in the Phillips area.

"The residents’ other major complaint was that the freeway has become a barrier which has broken up neighborhoods. R.P. Braun, assistant highway commissioner, said a study done by planning consultants in the mid-fifties concluded that “no functional neighborhood” existed in the freeway corridor.

The study itself was less specific. It said “neighborhood elements, such as schools, parks, and shopping districts do exist of course, but the Planning Commission could not find any unified and strongly functioning groupings.”&nbsp;

<li>What makes a neighborhood?<li>What places in your neighborhood are important to you? What if they disappeared?</li><li>How do you define a neighborhood and its boundaries?</li><li>What does a freeway give? What does a freeway take away?</li><li>Impact on a family/home/renter</li><li>Impact on a neighborhood</li><li>Impact on a business</li><li>Environmental impact</li><li>Health impact</li><li>Impact on wealth. For whom?</li></li>

With thousands set to be displaced by construction the act of informing and negotiating with residents needed to move quickly. In the 1950s only one community meeting was legally required, with records indicating only two meetings total were held for the entire freeway system despite such large numbers of people affected. The 35W meeting notice was tucked away and easily missed in the classified ads. 

35W at Age 25: Life Near the Fast Lane, May 31, 1992. The Minneapolis Star.

Most who chose to remain along 35W have gotten used to it. But some say that despite the undisputed mobility it has provided, 35W represents a permanent scar on the psyche of south Minneapolis. "The impact of that corridor was to destroy the heart of the city," said August Rivera, a Minneapolis schools administrator.”

"The freeway did a number on my childhood space. It barreled right through the middle of a minority neighborhood. I watched the houses go down one by one. There were caterpillars that started waking us up in the morning. They went up and down, up and down, till they hewed out a ravine. Before that it was flat across to St. Stephens," Larkin adds. "The freeway creates barriers; the barriers become very real. Even though it was only two blocks for miles, it displaces [people and their way of life]," Judith Martin pointed out.

<li>Exhaust from vehicles can lead to increased rates of asthma, decreased lung function, and cardiovascular diseases.<li>People who live along freeways also have disproportionately higher rates of asthma.</li></li>

Even after the chaotic symphony of construction equipment was gone residents were left with a new set of noise issues. The throaty rumble of traffic disturbed residents' leisure and sleep, while vibration from vehicles was said to shake pictures off the walls and cause cracks in plaster. Downplaying these concerns the city dismissed proposed solutions as unreasonable due to cost. After years of community outrage, sound walls were first built to curb noise pollution in 1973-1974 and have continued to line the freeway since.

Throughout Minneapolis and Saint Paul around 7,000 Homes were torn down with some 25,000 people displaced by freeways. Many along the Stevens Ave. route claimed they didn’t know about the freeway until they started receiving offers for their homes.

"35W was a social and economic barrier... When Blacks were trying to go over to the west of 35, houses were being sold for nothing to keep them white. If people were white they were more likely to get a purchase on a house," Steffel continues. "I remember Black guys getting chased down by cars at 38th and First Av. and high-tailing it back across the freeway… I was out with a bunch of guys driving across 38th Street one night and here comes a car full of white guys chasing a Black guy who's running toward us. Then a white guy jumps out of the car and, of course, I had to chase him back the other way," Steffel concludes.

Slowly people trickled out, leaving a ghost town from Stevens Ave to 2nd Ave. As homes sat vacant, they were subject to vandalism and looting that created an unkempt empty area for those surrounding the path. Eventually auctioned off homes would be salvaged for scrap and materials or moved entirely.

The throaty rumble that never lets up is punctuated by emergency sirens. When a motorcyclist launches down the 36th St. ramp opposite her house at 3 a.m., the whine doesn't fade until 46th St., more than a mile away. Her husband, Alex, wears earplugs to sleep. The grunting trucks are felt as much as heard. Their vibrations creep through the soles of her shoes, rearrange knickknacks, nudge pictures askew and crack walls and ceilings.

With damage to the physical landscape of South Minneapolis now a memory, the lingering environmental consequences of 35W are still at play. This still from the <a href="http://ceed.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">&nbsp;Center for Earth Energy and Democracy (CEED)</a> environmental justice map highlights the racial demographics on each side of the freeway, giving a better idea of who is most impacted by health effects and environmental consequences along 35W. Some of the environmental issues from freeways are:

We are interested in how you would interpret this story in a creative way. Your creative response can take any form: drawing/painting/visual art piece, poem, short story, creative essay, video, song, spoken word piece, or any form of creative interpretation that you like. No artistic experience is required and any skill level is welcome!

Content created by M. Tyler McDaniel for capstone in University of Minnesota's Heritage Studies and Public History graduate program.

A lack of assistance left business owners with nothing to offset the cost of shutting down and moving. Some grocery stores were destroyed, creating <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/documentation/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">food deserts</a> by cutting off the ability to easily get fresh food in certain neighborhoods.

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress

1956 aerial photograph, Bryant neighborhood pre-freeway. Courtesy of University of Minnesota's Borchert Map Library.

Eventually neighborhood groups were granted a bigger say. After years of negotiations and revising plans the construction, widening, and maintenance began in 2018, with plans to finish in 2021. Due to the hard work and diligence of community members the final collaborative plans took one non-residential property.

With the route laid out and the bulldozers in formation, offers were given based on “fair market value”. This practice failed to factor in home improvements or value for a specific property, defaulting instead to a market-based average influenced by lenders and financial institutions. This process limited mobility and options for low-income residents.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Department of Transportation

<li>Repeated and prolonged exposure to noise pollution has been linked to hypertension, anxiety disorders, cognitive issues, and cardiovascular disease.<li>In the 1970s 35W was generally found to measure around 80db of sound, with 85db being the range which can cause issues with prolonged exposure.</li></li>

Photo courtesy of Hennepin County Library

As offers rolled in for building owners one group was left to fend for themselves, renters. Whether a resident renting a home or a business owner renters were not compensated, nor were they offered relocation assistance as moving was not reimbursed as a hard policy from the city.

"From a low-income perspective there was no more community," says Joe Steffel. "We were caught in the middle, weren't involved downtown or out in the suburbs. We became transient. You don't feel like you have any roots, you're stuck in purgatory. It was like a whole area blown away.”…“You become strangers to people," Steffel continues. "[Before then] people were a lot more sociable. We weren't attached to the TV and didn't have a lot of air conditioning. You were out trying to catch any breeze you could.”

“Local neighborhoods have formed along the freeway and are not severed by it,” he said.

If there was no functional neighborhood then one might assume that no one would be affected, and that no one would oppose. These official Department of Transportation property taking maps illustrate the area and homes to be taken for 35W, with full maps listing the names of every owner affected.

Ernestine Belton has no doubt about the freeway's effects after living for 32 years in the 3600 block of 3rd Av. S., two blocks east of the highway. She blames it for making the block where she raised eight children a more rootless place. "I think the freeway created the poverty. It caused the property values to drop. I recall several families who left knowing the freeway was coming in," Belton said. Some who left couldn't get the price they wanted. Her block is dotted now with rented houses, many distinguished by grass that hasn't been mowed or has been trampled to dirt.