The King of Skid Row

John Bacich and the Twilight Years of Old Minneapolis

Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States
Cover of the book The King of Skid Row by James Eli Shiffer, University of Minnesota Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: James Eli Shiffer ISBN: 9781452950198
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press Publication: April 1, 2016
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press Language: English
Author: James Eli Shiffer
ISBN: 9781452950198
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publication: April 1, 2016
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press
Language: English

City blue laws drove the liquor trade and its customers—hard-drinking lumberjacks, pensioners, farmhands, and railroad workers—into the oldest quarter of Minneapolis. In the fifty-cent-a-night flophouses of the city’s Gateway District, they slept in cubicles with ceilings of chicken wire. In rescue missions, preachers and nuns tried to save their souls. Sociology researchers posing as vagrants studied them. And in their midst John Bacich, aka Johnny Rex, who owned a bar, a liquor store, and a cage hotel, documented the gritty neighborhood’s last days through photographs and film of his clientele.

The King of Skid Row follows Johnny Rex into this vanished world that once thrived in the heart of Minneapolis. Drawing on hours of interviews conducted in the three years before Bacich’s death in 2012, James Eli Shiffer brings to life the eccentric characters and strange events of an American skid row. Supplemented with archival and newspaper research and his own photographs, Bacich’s stories re-create the violent, alcohol-soaked history of a city best known for its clean, progressive self-image. His life captures the seamy, richly colorful side of the city swept away by a massive urban renewal project in the early 1960s and gives us, in a glimpse of those bygone days, one of Minneapolis’s most intriguing figures—spinning some of its most enduring and enthralling tales.


View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

City blue laws drove the liquor trade and its customers—hard-drinking lumberjacks, pensioners, farmhands, and railroad workers—into the oldest quarter of Minneapolis. In the fifty-cent-a-night flophouses of the city’s Gateway District, they slept in cubicles with ceilings of chicken wire. In rescue missions, preachers and nuns tried to save their souls. Sociology researchers posing as vagrants studied them. And in their midst John Bacich, aka Johnny Rex, who owned a bar, a liquor store, and a cage hotel, documented the gritty neighborhood’s last days through photographs and film of his clientele.

The King of Skid Row follows Johnny Rex into this vanished world that once thrived in the heart of Minneapolis. Drawing on hours of interviews conducted in the three years before Bacich’s death in 2012, James Eli Shiffer brings to life the eccentric characters and strange events of an American skid row. Supplemented with archival and newspaper research and his own photographs, Bacich’s stories re-create the violent, alcohol-soaked history of a city best known for its clean, progressive self-image. His life captures the seamy, richly colorful side of the city swept away by a massive urban renewal project in the early 1960s and gives us, in a glimpse of those bygone days, one of Minneapolis’s most intriguing figures—spinning some of its most enduring and enthralling tales.


More books from University of Minnesota Press

Cover of the book Holidays in the Danger Zone by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Wild Child by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Witnessing by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Under Bright Lights by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Diaboliques by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Anti-Book by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Summa Technologiae by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Zombie Theory by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Science Fiction and Extro-Science Fiction by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Of Sheep, Oranges, and Yeast by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Mechademia 8 by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Juárez Girls Rising by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Bauhaus Weaving Theory by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book These Granite Islands by James Eli Shiffer
Cover of the book Desert Dreamers by James Eli Shiffer
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy