Written by: MGG Project Team
Created: 07/20/06
Story ID: 476
Times Viewed: 602
Continued from Part V.
I believe that one of the most innovative programs for the homeless men on relief was the Lilac Way ERA Work Program that the city of Minneapolis pioneered. (This was prior to WPA).
The Engineering and Planning Departments of the city of Minneapolis were exploring the possibility of a belt line highway around the city. The gridiron street pattern, with business district in the center, caused a north-south traffic jam. The planners suggested a solution. Why not build a belt line highway around the outskirts of the city with a limited number of connectors? It would involve a great deal of land acquisition, engineering skills, public funding, and manpower.
One day the heads of the Planning and Engineering Departments visited the Men's Bureau and were surprised to find a large pool of common laborers who had worked on highway construction, "gandy dancers," who had worked on the railroads, and ex-lumberjacks being helped at the Men's Bureau. Their questions were: Would these homeless men wish to work? Are they in good physical condition? And do they have adequate outdoor work clothes?
Our staff was confident that the able-bodied homeless men would be able to be productive workers. So the original manpower for the belt line highway came from the pool of homeless men. Of the 4,500 Men's Bureau clients who were given physical examinations, approximately 3,000 qualified for heavy labor and agreed to the highway work. The balance were too old, mentally ill, or handicapped. The eligible were completely outfitted with new, warm work clothes including a sheepskin mackinaw, boots, caps, and gloves. Each week one fourth, or 750, of the able-bodied men worked six hours a day for six days. They received 55 cents an hour or $19.80 in cash in lieu of the $10.80 they had received in meal and lodging tickets.
The workers were transported from the Gateway District to the proposed Lilac Way off Wayzata Boulevard in Golden Valley, the point of origin for the belt line. Work began in September of 1934 and continued through the sub-zero weather the following year. The men were transported to work in open dump trucks at first but later in buses. A minimum of powered mechanical equipment was used so that the landscape was, in the main, change by pick and shovel and strong backs. The supervising engineers were very complimentary of the men's production. This was several years before WPA (Works Program Administration), a program that was to receive much unjustified criticism.
Unique in the planning for the highway was the input of the Park Department. The highway planting of shrubs consisted in the main of lilacs, hence the original name, Lilac Highway.
Under this ERA project (Emergency Relief Administration) the homeless men dropped off relief, worked two shifts each month, and were paid $19.80 by check for each shift. A chance to work again became a real morale booster. For months these men had patiently sat on benches with little complaint, waiting to be interviewed for their relief vouchers, but after working and earning a check, they would storm the office at the break of day for their earnings. Now they were working again. Their pride had been restored, and the myth that the homeless men won't work had been challenged.
For decades casual laborers worked on farms, mines, and lumber camps through out the Northwest. With their earnings, many would head for the Minneapolis Gateway District to "hole up" for the winter. Most of these intermittent laborers with their savings found the Gateway District a comfortable community to spend the winter. There were plenty of economy hotels, working men's clothing stores, friendly saloons, a burlesque theater, movies with good westerns, steam baths, free haircuts at the barber college, pawn shops, street evangelists, and private employment offices. In the spring, the men could check the employment offices and their display boards on the sidewalks and choose the best offering and "ship out," sometimes as far away as Montana. This all came to a halt with the 1930 Depression. Many homeless men became marooned in Minneapolis.
Now, half a century later, the Gateway District had been renewed, and the cosmopolitan habitat for homeless men with all its color and glamour is gone. The belt line highway that circles the Twin Cities has been completed, and the part played by the Men's Bureau laborers in building Lilac Way, its first section, has long been forgotten.
As my memory of the Great Depression is being written in 2006, another recession that may develop into a Depression may be in the making. It is a paradox that our infrastructure is in such great need of repair while millions are unemployed and without funds.
Lilac Way was made possible with a combination of federal, state, and local funding and the advance planning of Minneapolis departments of city government: Engineering, Planning, Parks, and Relief. The launching of Lilac Way is a monument to imaginative planning and political leadership in response to human needs resulting from a Great Depression.
Edited:
Written by: MGG Project Team
Created: 07/20/06
Story ID: 476
Times Viewed: 602
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