George Floyd Square: four years later
With the upcoming 4th anniversary of Floyd’s death, we revisit the intersection of 38th St. and Chicago Ave. in south Minneapolis. We’ve edited down this latest visit to a 51-second video:
It’s been almost four years since that fateful Memorial Day (May 25, 2020) when Floyd died outside of the local Cup Foods grocery. At that time, the intersection of 38th St. and Chicago Ave. in south Minneapolis was an ordinary commercial corridor in a residential neighborhood.
Today was our third trip to the George Floyd Square autonomous zone. Very little has changed since our 2022 and 2023 visits other than Cup Foods has been rebranded as Unity Foods. The site now has its own Wikipedia page.
Making lemonade out of lemons, the City of Minneapolis has been promoting the area as a tourist attraction. Motto: “Memorials, murals, and people milling about mark the area.”
The City itself has a never-ending process underway to reimagine the intersection. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the City may produce a plan by the end of this year,
Construction around the area of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in south Minneapolis isn’t expected to happen until after 2026, but by December 2024 the city is due to release a vision document defining key unanswered questions about the site.
The geography of the square is marked by a series of Black Power fist monoliths. Four announce the four entrances into the square, and a fifth sits at the center of the intersection’s makeshift traffic circle.
The placement of the monoliths causes the need for Metro Transit busses to detour around the intersection to continue serving their routes. As a result, bus stop shelters in the square have been repurposed.
The monoliths themselves promote an ever-shifting set of revolutionary causes, depending on the issue du jour.
Last year, the City purchased the abandoned Speedway gas station at the intersection from its private owners.
Four years on, George Floyd Square continues to welcome visitors from near and far.
