When a city’s downtown is destroyed, it’s usually by hurricane, earthquake, or tornado.
But in the early 1960s, Minneapolis lost nearly half of its downtown. And it wasn’t a natural disaster. It was progress.

Minneapolis was the first city in the nation to use federal “slum clearance” money to tear down its skid row district: 25 blocks of bars, brothels, flop-houses, and rescue missions in the heart of downtown.Some 200 buildings were chewed into gravel; nearly 4,000 residents displaced.

Down and Out tells the story of skid row: the hobos and tramps who created the
neighborhood, and the politicians and businessmen who tore it down.

Read the City Pages article on the book.

View the Minnesota Public Radio slideshow for the book.