FROM THE CITY

City considers redoing Chicago and 38th Ave.

In the next few years, Minneapolis Public Works staff plan to reconstruct the intersection of 38th & Chicago. Here is some information from the city along with links to webpages.

Background

In 2020, George Perry Floyd Jr. was murdered at 38th & Chicago, forever changing the intersection and surrounding community. This area is known as George Floyd Square (GFS), and it has evolved beyond its original roadway design.

Learn more about the history of George Floyd Square

Project engagement goals

  • Allow for racial healing
  • Honor the voices of the Black Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) community
  • Develop community relationships
  • Work together with the community to make decisions about the project
  • Lead an engagement process to work and learn together with the community

Project design goals

  • Redesign the street to reflect community needs
  • Include space within the public right-of-way (ROW) for community use
  • Explore transit and pedestrian design options
  • Maintain access for residents and businesses
  • Include trees and native plants

Read more about this project in our project fact sheet.

Share your thoughts

Share your input in the 38th/Chicago Ave. project.

UPCOMING MEETINGS

In person public meeting

  •  In-person at the 38th Street Event Center (3740 Chicago Ave South) on Saturday, April 23 from 12-3 p.m.

Virtual public meeting

SURVEYS

Engagement survey April 2022

 

FROM THE COMMUNITY
  • THE 24 DEMANDS

George Floyd Global Memorial & Museum

George “Perry” Floyd’s aunt, Angela Harrelson (at left), and cousin, Paris Stevens, board members of the George Floyd Global Memorial, speak in front of the fist sculpture.
“We are so blessed in the midst of it all. This year has been a trying time for all of us, our family and for the community. The community has been here since Day One keeping this place sacred and welcoming for anyone who comes from all over the world. And we thank you… What has taken place here is just amazing… You are all our community. You all are a representation of how other cities should act,” said Stevens.
Stevens called the event a celebration of life – to remember Perry but also to celebrate each other.
“We have to be there for one another. We can’t talk about justice and have our knee on our own neck. So continue to come together, love on one another, speak your voice. Everyone has a voice, however you want to protest, fight for justice, use your voice… We have to teach people how to treat us. These are the people that become police officers. So when we’re out in the public at our jobs our everyday lives, if you see injustice you have to address it immediately. We can no longer stand by and see injustice and think that it is okay. It is about us. We the people. We matter. Everyone’s voice is important. You are impactful and powerful. So use your voice.”
Harrelson added: “It’s been a long, hard ride. It really has. And we could not have done this without the community. 38th and Chicago. You guys did this. Stood with us from Day One… It all started a year ago, and you hung in there for us. Lord knows, I appreciate it. And we appreciate it.” She then introduced family members who came to show their support. “All the Floyd family, we stand together.”

On May 25, 2020, George Perry Floyd was lynched by the Minneapolis Police Department just steps away from the intersection of 38th Street East and Chicago Avenue South. In response to this atrocity, people came from across the world to pay respect, lay expressions of pain and hope as offerings, and grieve the ongoing violence against black bodies.

Offerings are tended to by over 20 community volunteers who adopted the name of caretakers. Caretakers opperate with two guiding principles: 1) Everything is somebody's offering. Therefore, nothing is thrown away. 2) The people are more sacred than the memorial itself.

Caretaking began when the memorial was simple. There were circles of flowers and a few distinct locations to lay offerings. The memorial has now expanded to encompass offerings in every direction, large and small. Caretaking operations also expanded. It could take a museum several years to build a collection of the magnitude to which we have grown. In five months, the caretakers of the memorial offerings built a greenhouse for the plants and delicate offerings, developed a temporary conservation room, kindly provided by the Pillsbury House & Theater and supported by the Midwest Arts Conservation Center, and continue to tend to the offerings at the intersection of 38th & Chicago laid in memory of George Floyd and other black lives lost in this community and across the nation.

Over 3000 offerings of street art, drawings by children, protest signs, rocks, letters, paintings, flowers, and meaningful gifts transformed this intersection into a sacred site. People all over the world continue to build the memorial, and through caretaking, we continue our preservation of history and storytelling in this unprecedented way.

Infomation from the George Floyud Global Memorial

https://www.georgefloydglobalmemorial.org/the-memorial