Post in Nicollet Island Pavilion, MPRB Financial Statements

Sep 25 21:35 UTC

At 2:56 PM -0500 9/25/08, Bill Kahn wrote:
>I thought I would continue experimenting with ways to get my photos
>to the forum. This one was taken from a long and skinny Minneapolis
>public park near where the new Grand Rounds link will go on Ridgeway
>Pkwy. As a Southern California native who lived a great part of my
>life in my automobile, I discovered this little strip where folks
>used to fly kites, perhaps still do; there is a large prairie plant
>planting there and several fast food outlets close by, so I indulge
>myself with junk food and a nice view here occasionally. Maybe I'll
>ride up there on the bicycle some day when it is more accessible that
>way. The billboard overlooking I-35W and sunsets are a draw for some
>of us. Here goes nothing; hope the server recognizes a picture this
>time as I am trying something a bit different.
>
Bill,

How neat, that your photos are up and we can all see them! Good to
have these snaps of Ridgway Parkway's view-from-on-high of the
freeway and downtown.

A little history: We have Ridgway (no "e") Parkway as a result of a
1929 request from Fred Chute that the land he had donated in 1913 for
the extension of St. Anthony Parkway down to East Hennepin Ave. be
returned to him, and the parkway abandoned.  He owned a gravel pit in
what was the Minneapolis Industrial Area (so designated in 1913) and
wanted to get the full use of it; much of the Industrial Area there
was marshland, but up on the bluff there was nothing but glacial
till, perfect forexpanding his business. That gravel pit would
become, by the late 1950s, the biggest in Minneapolis history.

Theodore Wirth had built the extension south of St. Anthony Parkway
with the assistance of the Armour Company of Chicago. That company
had planned huge stockyards on land it owned there and on
northeast-ward to New Brighton, but in the end decided to go to South
St. Paul with the other packing companies and better rail
connections. So Armour gave Minneapolis Parks the land for the Gross
Golf Course (formerly Armour Golf Course) and footed the bill for the
parkway between it and the cemetery Bill mentions. That part of St.
Anthony Parkway was opened for use in 1924 and continued in use until
the mid-1930s.

That extension was on the highest bluff in Minneapolis, the "river's
edge" in the late glacial age; everything else in the city, on both
sides of the Mississippi River, is much lower. The whole parkway
along the east side of the East Side offered a fantastic view of both
Twin City downtowns.

When the Park Board commissioners agreed to Chute's request--after a
number of contested public hearings and one lone commissioner's
protest--they ordered Wirth to bring the parkway back from the
southern edge of the Golf Course/Cemetery line to Stinson Boulevard,
which they again designated as parkway. The superintendent agreed
(what could he do? He had protested in the nearest thing to a
rebellion by a Superintendent from a Board decision in his tenure,
but he, and in his words, "the common good," lost out.) He did
demand, though, that he be allowed to move enough earth to shore up
the new [Ridgway] Parkway from erosion or future "digging into." So
Bill's pictures show the flat expanse on top of that east-west
Parkway that grew from Wirth's rather angry determination not to have
another businessman destroy his work.

And, even with 35W "cut" into the area in the 1960s, Ridgway Parkway
still exists up there.

Incidentally, none of the businesses on Stinson or along the south
edge of Ridgway ever paid the Park Board for the assessments always
made on "benefited property abutting the Parkway improvements." They
just ignored the bills. They were Big Time bankers, railroad men,
mill company owners, and "jobbers" and warehousmen downtown and
simply too important to be tackled by their buddies on the Park Board
for something as trifling as paying for a public amenity.

Connie
Como, in Southeast Minneapolis