16 years ago, today, the 35-W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed. But the bigger story about 35-W is a tale that leads from racist urban planning to the death of George Floyd.
A curious phrase, "functioning grouping," to affirm perceived value in someone else's neighborhood. Some people demand that others "function" by a standard that's never defined.
Brian, I drove across that section of 35-W everyday for years while in grad school at Minnesota in the 1990s. It was shocking to say the least. But the point of interstate highways locking in systemic racism and “ghettos” is far from new. Listen to the John Mellencamp song, Pink Houses from 1983. The opening is haunting commentary about race in the US.
“There’s black man, with a black cat, living’ in a black neighborhood. He’s got an interstate running through his front yard, you know he thinks he’s got it so good.”
The way the interstates carved up Minneapolis and the neighborhoods was something to behold when I lived there. I lived in one of those neighborhoods (Elliot Park) when I first moved to Minneapolis to go to school and had to walk across the overpass on 35-W everyday to get to the west bank. (A mere mile) and the difference was night and day in the neighborhoods and businesses.
Absolutely - you can see the difference in a lot of intersections in Minneapolis/St. Paul that are bisected by the interstate. I didn't know about the song -- thanks for sharing (one of the joys of writing for such an engaged audience)! It's astonishing to me that this history isn't taught in schools, though, as far too many of these practices are still unknown to most people. Terms like racial covenants and redlining are not terms that the majority of Americans could define, and very few people really understand the deliberate nature of the interstates with respect to racial segregation/subjugation.
George Floyd's murder was the catalyst for a long overdue reckoning over police brutality and is be ing recognized for the huge movement it engendered. I am grateful to his memory.
Thanks for bringing attention to the issue of the overt racism that existed in urban planning when the interstate system was developed. That this occurred in Minneapolis is unconscionable; it also occurred across the Mississippi River in St. Paul. The Rondo neighborhood (seen on the third map of your article) was devastated, as were SO many other neighborhoods in SO many other cities, as you mention. Reparations for the overt racism of what was done are definitely long overdue!
Thanks for the comment - and for reading, Terry! Yes, I deliberately didn't focus on Rondo for two reasons here. First, it's more well known in the Twin Cities and it's also a classic example often used to make this point (so I wanted to discuss a lesser known example). And second, the link with George Floyd and how he died so close to 35-W, along with the anniversary of the 35-W bridge collapse being today. But I could have certainly written the same sort of story about so many interstates around the US, which....I suppose that's the point of how awful and widespread it was.
BTW, my son, who was in med school at the time as your brother, was doing his emergency medicine rotation in the ER at Hennepin when the bridge collapsed. He said that so many doctors from everywhere converged on the hospital that the med students could only watch. Such amazing commitment during a terrible crisis!
Thank you for another thought provoking article. I live in Vancouver, Canada and the same thing was done to the one, small Black neighborhood in our city. It was bulldozed and a highway overpass built.
Excellent piece, as usual. I do want to point out though that the map shown near the beginning of the article is not a proposed map of interstate highways, but a map of the separate US highway system, which was approved in 1926 and would have already been mostly constructed by 1938.
Thanks for reading! It’s not - it’s as I said - FDR drew those blue lines on top of the map of the state highways system in 1938, showing possible interstates.
I got to see the I 35-W collapse from a much more direct perspective. I was on a river boat coasting into the lock pictured in the photo you used (the photo is clearly taken after the boat backed out of the lock, tho!). We got to watch it collapse in real time.
If we'd left dock on time, we would have been underneath it.
It didn't, really, but thank you for saying so, and it was definitely not my intent to do more than share the experience. In the moment, it was...almost too "big" to be traumatic, if that makes sense. It was a "major infrastructure failing happens to other people" kind of moment. It took a while to sink in that yes, it really had happened, right in front of us.
I also realize it wasn't really your point in the article, except that it was the catalyst for it. The larger point -- how Interstates wrecked thriving Black neighborhoods, deliberately, as a matter of policy -- is an important one, and one I also bring up whenever a pertinent moment arrives. People often blanche when I tell them about the Rondo neighborhood; or, to deviate from Interstates per se, how Robert Moses' design choices in greater New York were often about keeping the "wrong sort of person" away...
Yes, I can understand that (or at least understand it intellectually; I've never seen a mass casualty infrastructure collapse). And I think the collapse actually was one of the the points I wanted to make, in a way. When you write, you don't always have just one point, I suppose, and here, I wanted to juxtapose a failure of negligence (the 35-W collapse) with a success of injustice (the construction of 35-W in the first place).
I get that. They're both calamities. They both derive from deliberate government decisions -- one to neglect, one to do harm -- both passed off as necessities or trade-offs. They both had far-reaching consequences of various kinds.
Racism, I suppose, is a valid perspective although once the commitment to auto-centric planning was Fait Acompli, a route through an area with little political power and less cost for eminent domain may likely have been as much pragmatism as it was racism.
A curious phrase, "functioning grouping," to affirm perceived value in someone else's neighborhood. Some people demand that others "function" by a standard that's never defined.
Brian, I drove across that section of 35-W everyday for years while in grad school at Minnesota in the 1990s. It was shocking to say the least. But the point of interstate highways locking in systemic racism and “ghettos” is far from new. Listen to the John Mellencamp song, Pink Houses from 1983. The opening is haunting commentary about race in the US.
“There’s black man, with a black cat, living’ in a black neighborhood. He’s got an interstate running through his front yard, you know he thinks he’s got it so good.”
The way the interstates carved up Minneapolis and the neighborhoods was something to behold when I lived there. I lived in one of those neighborhoods (Elliot Park) when I first moved to Minneapolis to go to school and had to walk across the overpass on 35-W everyday to get to the west bank. (A mere mile) and the difference was night and day in the neighborhoods and businesses.
Absolutely - you can see the difference in a lot of intersections in Minneapolis/St. Paul that are bisected by the interstate. I didn't know about the song -- thanks for sharing (one of the joys of writing for such an engaged audience)! It's astonishing to me that this history isn't taught in schools, though, as far too many of these practices are still unknown to most people. Terms like racial covenants and redlining are not terms that the majority of Americans could define, and very few people really understand the deliberate nature of the interstates with respect to racial segregation/subjugation.
I'm so happy to have substack and such penetrating, important articles. I plan to avoid what's left of Xwitter today. Thanks.
George Floyd's murder was the catalyst for a long overdue reckoning over police brutality and is be ing recognized for the huge movement it engendered. I am grateful to his memory.
Thanks for bringing attention to the issue of the overt racism that existed in urban planning when the interstate system was developed. That this occurred in Minneapolis is unconscionable; it also occurred across the Mississippi River in St. Paul. The Rondo neighborhood (seen on the third map of your article) was devastated, as were SO many other neighborhoods in SO many other cities, as you mention. Reparations for the overt racism of what was done are definitely long overdue!
Thanks for the comment - and for reading, Terry! Yes, I deliberately didn't focus on Rondo for two reasons here. First, it's more well known in the Twin Cities and it's also a classic example often used to make this point (so I wanted to discuss a lesser known example). And second, the link with George Floyd and how he died so close to 35-W, along with the anniversary of the 35-W bridge collapse being today. But I could have certainly written the same sort of story about so many interstates around the US, which....I suppose that's the point of how awful and widespread it was.
You are right! I totally get it!
BTW, my son, who was in med school at the time as your brother, was doing his emergency medicine rotation in the ER at Hennepin when the bridge collapsed. He said that so many doctors from everywhere converged on the hospital that the med students could only watch. Such amazing commitment during a terrible crisis!
Thank you for another thought provoking article. I live in Vancouver, Canada and the same thing was done to the one, small Black neighborhood in our city. It was bulldozed and a highway overpass built.
Excellent piece, as usual. I do want to point out though that the map shown near the beginning of the article is not a proposed map of interstate highways, but a map of the separate US highway system, which was approved in 1926 and would have already been mostly constructed by 1938.
Thanks for reading! It’s not - it’s as I said - FDR drew those blue lines on top of the map of the state highways system in 1938, showing possible interstates.
Ah! This is what I get for reading on my phone screen before I’ve had my morning tea. I somehow didn’t even notice the (now very obvious) blue lines!
No problem at all! They're very faint and Substack images are very small.
I got to see the I 35-W collapse from a much more direct perspective. I was on a river boat coasting into the lock pictured in the photo you used (the photo is clearly taken after the boat backed out of the lock, tho!). We got to watch it collapse in real time.
If we'd left dock on time, we would have been underneath it.
That is horrific and must have been incredibly traumatic. I'm sorry if I dredged up awful memories.
It didn't, really, but thank you for saying so, and it was definitely not my intent to do more than share the experience. In the moment, it was...almost too "big" to be traumatic, if that makes sense. It was a "major infrastructure failing happens to other people" kind of moment. It took a while to sink in that yes, it really had happened, right in front of us.
I also realize it wasn't really your point in the article, except that it was the catalyst for it. The larger point -- how Interstates wrecked thriving Black neighborhoods, deliberately, as a matter of policy -- is an important one, and one I also bring up whenever a pertinent moment arrives. People often blanche when I tell them about the Rondo neighborhood; or, to deviate from Interstates per se, how Robert Moses' design choices in greater New York were often about keeping the "wrong sort of person" away...
Yes, I can understand that (or at least understand it intellectually; I've never seen a mass casualty infrastructure collapse). And I think the collapse actually was one of the the points I wanted to make, in a way. When you write, you don't always have just one point, I suppose, and here, I wanted to juxtapose a failure of negligence (the 35-W collapse) with a success of injustice (the construction of 35-W in the first place).
I get that. They're both calamities. They both derive from deliberate government decisions -- one to neglect, one to do harm -- both passed off as necessities or trade-offs. They both had far-reaching consequences of various kinds.
Racism, I suppose, is a valid perspective although once the commitment to auto-centric planning was Fait Acompli, a route through an area with little political power and less cost for eminent domain may likely have been as much pragmatism as it was racism.