Andrew Schroeder

From The Gateway Reconstruction Project

I’ve been thinking a great deal about how one can actually inhabit a place. With the economy sliding into oblivion and funding in the art-world drying up, I realized that I am going to be in Minneapolis for a couple more years. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing… but… the entire time I was in graduate school, the general pressure was to move (to NYC or Europe) and live the life of an artist-in-residence/panhandler. Not exactly the ideal situation for someone who likes to work on perfecting his banana-bread recipe late at night, in the confines of his small, but rather delightful apartment.

Anyway. Back to the point.

One of the ways that I believe humans inhabit a place is through research into its history. My personal obsession right now is wandering around the Gateway District in downtown MPLS and wondering how amazing it could have been… had they not built a modernist dystopia on top of it. This website has a great overview and tons of photographs that depict the Gateway in its heyday… very impressive.