The hidden cost of fury: Lake Street community's sense of belonging

The Lake Street corridor was always full of life — a place where diverse communities collided and people would come to work, shop and connect with each other and families could be seen walking up and down the boulevard. On a given day, multiple languages would be heard from block to block, as people ate at locally owned restaurants and shopped for necessities.

Now the thoroughfare, as well as other Minneapolis and St. Paul business districts hit hard by the riots following the police killing of George Floyd a year ago, still shows scars of damage. Even though some essential retail is now open, more businesses still have boards in their windows.

"I don't feel the same vibrancy and familial spirit along Lake Street that I felt before," said Alicia Smith, executive director of the Corcoran Neighborhood Organization.

Concerns about crime have pushed some residents to venture outside their communities for everyday necessities and store owners to consider moves. And the vast rebuilding that still needs to be done is leaving people to guess on the long-term effect on the character of their communities.

"Life on Lake Street has always been hard. But the last year has brought a new level of insecurity and uncertainty," said Luke Trouten, donor relations manager at Urban Ventures, a nonprofit just north of Lake Street.

More than 1,500 locations were damaged throughout the Twin Cities in the days following Floyd's death with buildings along a 5-mile stretch of Lake Street in Minneapolis among the hardest hit.

Wilbert Sawyer sat with a rolling cart of groceries as he waited for the bus on Lake Street near Chicago Avenue.

He motioned to the dirt lot across the street where he banked before the building was damaged by riots last year and demolished. He nodded to his left at a grassy block where the Family Dollar store he visited almost daily for snacks and household supplies once stood.

"It's been hectic for a minute," Sawyer said. "I hope things get back to normal."

Sawyer said he mostly uses ATMs now since the U.S. Bank was demolished (a new branch is planned in its place). On a recent weekday, Sawyer said he would have usually gone to the dollar store for cheaper items, but since it was no longer around, he opted for Walmart in Bloomington, which takes 40 minutes to get to on foot and by bus.

"I'm hoping it gets rebuilt," said Sawyer, 65, about the area.

Jamie Bright, 83, doesn't drive and relies on the transit system to get around. "I used to go to the nail place to have my nails done," she said. "That's closed, and Popeyes."

Lake Street is a connector bridging several south Minneapolis neighborhoods and diverse populations. But the area also has concentrations of residents who might not have the financial freedom or transportation for easy access to alternate services.

"For residents, you want them to have access to a financial institute where they can cash checks without a huge percentage they have to pay and access to health care, pharmacies, libraries and grocery stores," said Jill Heath, president and CEO of Washington, D.C.-based Heart of America Foundation. "Those all have to be reimagined in these neighborhoods. This is the moment to reimagine."

Heath also is a co-founder of the Twin Cities Community Rebuilding Coalition, a group of nonprofits helping small businesses in the Twin Cities rebuild after the riots.

Minneapolis City Council Member Alondra Cano, who represents large portions of Lake Street, also worries about the jobs lost. "The corridor employed a large number of people of color, of immigrants and multilingual community members who we don't know where they went," she said.

Mary Garrity, 24, who lives just south of Lake Street, is hopeful that some of the conglomerate-run businesses that have closed can be replaced by community-based stores.

"I think that there is a lot of work that needs to be done," she said. "I also think it ended up being a good opportunity to build up."

In the Phillips area, which includes the East Phillips, Midtown Phillips, West Phillips, and Ventura Village neighborhoods, more than 35% of households don't have vehicles, according to Minnesota Compass data compiled by Wilder Research. More than 53% of households earn less than $35,000 per year, according to the data.

Directly after the riots, there were immediate challenges to make sure food and other necessities were accessible to residents. Many nonprofits and neighborhood groups organized food drives and drop-off centers to help.

The Corcoran Neighborhood Organization continues to provide free food because people are still in need, Smith said. There are still access problems for some everyday things people need.

"It's a rich cultural corridor … but I think that now you don't have the same feel," she said. "People are like 'You know what? I would rather not go on Lake Street. I would rather not even have to walk up on Lake to walk across the street to the Aldi to get groceries.' Instead people will take an Uber to someplace else or a bus."

Lake Street wasn't the only place affected by riots. Parts of north Minneapolis still need to be reopened.

Juneau Robbins, who has lived there for 20 years and runs his own chiropractic office, drives up and down Broadway Avenue on a regular basis.

"All of the boarded buildings have just taken a toll on me mentally," Robbins said.

Like for a lot of northsiders, Robbins was directly impacted when the Cub Foods on Broadway Avenue had to close for months due to damage. It fully reopened in April.

In north Minneapolis as well as in south Minneapolis, some residents are worried that investors from outside the community might try to take advantage of the blight caused by the riots and buy and develop large parts of the area without much thought about those who lives there.

Despite challenges, many residents remain positive that their neighborhoods can rebuild what they lost and perhaps will grow to be stronger than before. Urban Ventures, which normally focuses on providing resources to help children reach college, in the past year distributed more than $750,000 for grants for Lake Street businesses to rebuild and to buy gift cards to support them.

In the immediate aftermath of the riots, Urban Ventures' Trouten, who lives in the Powderhorn Park area, initially had to travel outside his neighborhood to go to the pharmacy or grocery store.

"Having to drive down to Bloomington felt like I was abandoning my neighborhood," he said.

Ed Janezich, a board member of the Lyndale Neighborhood Association who has lived in the area since the 1980s, has had to deal only with the annoyances of driving farther for some routine errands, but also feels that some of the damage from the riots wasn't just physical.

"It was a sense of belonging, a sense of community — that's what was really damaged substantially for me," Janezich said. "I know there's a lot of rebuilding going on now, but it's been a tough time, a tough year."

Things will get better, though, said Ron Grams, 65, who regularly picks up garbage in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood with his wife. He believes the area will recover.

"It's going to come back," he said about Lake Street. "It's the main thoroughfare that everyone loves. We didn't know that until it was closed."

Staff writer Nick Williams contributed to this report.

Nicole Norfleet • 612-673-4495