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Listen to Looch: 'Return To Skid Row' sheds fresh light on a lost Minneapolis community

October 13, 2021

The corner of Nicollet and Washington was the heart of Minneapolis's Skid Row, now known as the Gateway District. This view shows Nicollet Avenue in the foreground and looks east on Washington Avenue.Courtesy of the City of Minneapolis

This week, Mary Lucia has something for those fascinated by the history of Minneapolis: Return To Skid Row, a Twin Cities PBS Original production.

At the film's core is "Skid Row," a color film shot on a 16 mm movie camera by bar owner and amateur photographer John Bacich between the years 1955 and 1961. The footage was shot with no sound, yet Bacich provides his own narration — and because Bacich was part of the community, he knows several of the people on camera by name.

In Return to Skid Row, Bacich's original footage is bookended and contextualized by commentary from authors James Eli Shiffer and Stewart Van Cleve, and University of Minnesota professor Brenda Child. Mary Lucia's takeaway from this commentary is "you can knock down buildings, and you can gentrify certain things. But what you're what you're trying to do is get rid of a community — and it may be unsavory — but it was nonetheless a community of people."

Return to Skid Row is available for streaming on Twin Cities PBS website as well as on the TPT Originals YouTube channel, also embedded below.