Down & out

About this book

Looks at the demise of Minneapolis's skid row, known as the Gateway district: once a lively area of dozens of bars, flophouses, pawnshops, burlesque houses, charity missions, and office buildings aged past their prime. Hirschoff's 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. Hart's 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. --From publisher description.