Down & Out: The Life and Death of Minneapolis's Skid Row (Minnesota) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Edwin C. Hirschoff (Author)

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Product Description

Minneapolis's skid row, known as the Gateway district, was a lively area consisting of dozens of bars, flophouses, pawnshops, burlesque houses, charity missions, and office buildings that had aged past their prime. Encompassing some twenty-five blocks centering on the intersection of Hennepin, Washington, and Nicollet Avenues, the neighborhood was demolished between 1959 and 1963 as part of the first federally funded urban renewal project in America. Gathered here for the first time, Edwin C. Hirschoff's stark and moving images of the Gateway district's final days-its streets, buildings, and parks, the rubble, smoke, and heavy equipment of its destruction-eloquently capture its demise. Down and Out provides a unique historical perspective and the most extensive photographic record available of the Gateway demolition project.

Joseph Hart's engaging and comprehensive essay complements Hirschoff's photographs by detailing the district's social and economic evolution and the political decision making that led to its destruction. Hart presents a popular history of Minneapolis's skid row and the people who lived there, migrant workers who learned that changes in the local economy could quickly degrade their status from valued laborer to societal menace (vagrant, tramp, or bum). By capturing the texture of life on skid row, Hart reveals the lost American culture of a bygone community.

A creative photographer, entrepreneur, and inventor, Edwin C. Hirschoff had a successful career in public relations before founding Art-o-graph, a Minneapolis business that has prospered for more than half a century. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1905, he lived in Minneapolis for almost ninety years.

Joseph Hart is a writer, editor, and teacher living in Minneapolis. A former staff writer at City Pages, he is a freelance journalist who writes for local and national publications.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press; illustrated edition edition (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816640548
• ISBN-13: 978-0816640546
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 9.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,132,210 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is such a lively and engaging read!, August 1, 2005

By	C. Crooke (Minnesota) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Reading "Down & Out" was like looking through a window onto a fascinating world I never even knew existed. I especially enjoyed how much the book focuses on people who inhabited Skid Row--how they lived, slept, ate, worked--and the culture that grew up around them just decades ago. The author has a knack for putting you there, with sounds and smells and great details, and the tone is friendly and smart, and not at all dry or scholarly. The photos are great, too. I keep this book out on my coffeetable, though sometimes visitors to my home get so engrossed in the book and I have to take it away from them.

This would be a good read for anybody who likes really interesting, hidden slices of history, but it's a must for anybody who lives in the Twin Cities area--especially downtown. It gives you a whole new perspective. You'll never walk around down there and see the streets the same again.