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Find out what ReConnect Rondo has been up to lately. See what progress has been made in our collective efforts to reverse racial disparities in Minnesota. Think about how you can support this restorative movement in the Rondo community.
As state considers repairs to I-94, Rondo residents look for reconnection
By Nina Moini, MPR. Photos by Nicole Neri for MPR News. Originally published March 16, 2022. The break room inside of Taste of Rondo Bar and Grill overlooks a well-traveled portion of...
Read MoreMarvin Roger Anderson was displaced from St. Paul’s historically Black Rondo Neighborhood as a child when Interstate 94 was constructed.
By Sheila Mulrooney Eldred, Sahan Journal. Photo by Ben Hovland. Originally published March 31, 2022. Marvin Roger Anderson was 8 years old when he heard the question for the first time: “What...
Read MoreRondo residents advocate for federal help to build land bridge over I-94
By Katie Galioto, Star Tribune. Photo by Elizabeth Flores, Star Tribune. Originally published February 25, 2022. Those who grew up in St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood remember it as a vibrant, tight-knit community...
Read MoreCan a new vision for Interstate 94 repair historic harm in Rondo?
By Angela Davis and Maja Beckstrom. Photo by Derek Montgomery for MPR News File. Originally aired May 5, 2022. More than a generation ago, the construction of Interstate 94 dug...
Read MoreRondo Dreams Becoming a Reality
By Zoë Jackson, Star Tribune. Photography by David Joles, Star Tribune. Originally posted July 5, 2021 Advocates have spent 12 years planning a way to reconnect Rondo. While walking through...
Read MoreConnecting past, present, future
By Margie O’Loughlin, Monitor St. Paul. Originally posted May 12, 2021 ReConnect Rondo (RCR) is leading the effort to revitalize St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood. The non-profit organization and its partners...
Read MoreCould a land bridge project help minority communities recover from displacement?
By Fred de Sam Lazaro, PBS Newshour. Originally posted May 26, 2021 President Joe Biden has proposed using some of the $2 trillion of his infrastructure plan to repair harm...
Read More‘It’s just justice’ | Historic Black neighborhood gutted by interstate remembers George Floyd, seeks reconnection
By Charmaine Nero, KARE 11. Originally published May 24, 2021. “George Floyd and all of these African American men whose lives have been taken have shined a light on the basements...
Read MoreSt. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood celebrates Juneteenth with dedication of new community garden
By Deevon Rahming, KARE 11. Originally published June 19, 2021. ST PAUL, Minn. — St. Paul-based home improvement nonprofit, Rebuilding Together Twin Cities, received a $150,000 National Neighborhood Promise Grant from the Republic...
Read MoreSt. Paul’s ReConnect Rondo Is Working to Right Past Highway Development Wrongs
By Cinnamon Janzer, Next City. Originally posted June 23, 2021 Since the late 1800’s, St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood was a thriving Black community. Churches, businesses, schools, and homes all coalesced into a...
Read MoreOrganizers for bridge reconnecting the Rondo neighborhood seek public input
By Alex Chhith, Star Tribune. Originally posted May 10, 2021 Online sessions will gather community input. A bridge proposal to reconnect a historically Black neighborhood in St. Paul is facing...
Read MoreMinnesota’s racial divide: Will land bridge right Rondo’s wrongs?
by Ben Piven, Aljazeera. Originally posted May 11, 2021 In the historically Black neighbourhood of Rondo in Saint Paul, Minnesota, community leaders hope US President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan will help...
Read MoreIn Biden infrastructure plan, advocates see opportunity to revive St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood with I-94 land bridge
by Ashley Hackett, MinnPost. Originally posted May 5, 2021 The Reconnecting Communities Act would establish grants to address the “legacy of highway construction built through communities… that divided neighborhoods and erected...
Read MoreMN lawmakers hear plan to reconnect historic Black neighborhood
by The Associated Press. Originally posted February 3, 2021 Minnesota lawmakers on Tuesday heard a proposal that would construct a “land bridge” to reconnect a historically Black St. Paul neighborhood...
Read MoreNonprofit seeks $6M in state funds for land bridge to reconnect St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood
Residents of St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood, which was torn apart when Interstate 94 was built in the 1960s, are continuing their years-long push to reconnect the predominantly Black neighborhood and...
Read MoreBiden infrastructure proposal has Rondo Land Bridge supporters optimistic
By Maury Glover, FOX 9. Originally published March 31, 2021. ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) – President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan has encouraging news for supporters of the Rondo Land Bridge project in...
Read MoreGroup testifies before Minnesota House Transportation committee about possible Rondo land bridge
By Sharon Yoo, KARE 11. Originally published March 25, 2021. ST PAUL, Minn. — A neighborhood destroyed by an interstate is a story that’s not unique to St. Paul but one...
Read MoreRacism, not a highway, tore apart St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood
By Myron Medcalf, Star Tribune. Originally published February 20, 2021. In the 1950s, Debbie Montgomery, a former St. Paul City Council member and the first woman hired by the St....
Read MoreThe resurrection of Rondo
By Robin Doyscher, The Hamline University Oracle. Originally published March 17, 2021. Decades after Interstate 94 ran itself through the Rondo neighborhood, a land bridge could be built to reconnect...
Read MoreCan a Land Bridge Restore What a Black Community Lost?
By Kea Wilson, Streets Blog USA. Originally published February 19, 2021. At the height of the urban renewal era, state and local governments across the country strategically routed highway projects...
Read MoreCampaigns for Reparations Are Gaining Steam Across the Country
By David Lamb, The Progessive. Originally published March 3, 2021. As H.R. 40 gathers dust in the U.S. Congress, St. Paul, Minnesota, becomes the latest city to join the national...
Read MoreHow to connect and heal St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood
By EDITORIAL BOARD, Star Tribune. Originally published February 16, 2021. As part of America’s development of its highway system, Interstate 94 was routed through the Black community of Rondo in...
Read MoreReConnect Rondo project hopes to reconnect historic Black neighborhood razed by Interstate 94 construction
By Charmaine Nero, KARE 11. Originally published February 4, 2021. ST PAUL, Minn. — “I was born and raised in Rondo,” says Marvin Anderson Anderson’s personal story mimics that of countless...
Read MoreWill MnDOT be responsive to communities’ I-94 non-expansion demands?
By Bill Lindeke, MinnPost. Originally published February 2, 2021. For years, advocates and the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) have been engaged in a subtle game of three-dimensional advocacy chess. It...
Read MoreSt. Paul City Council supports ‘Rethinking I-94’ concept, but wants more than expanded traffic lanes
By Jay Kolls, KSTP Eyewitness News. Originally published February 4, 2021. The St. Paul City Council passed a resolution supporting a Minnesota Department of Transportation Concept of “Rethinking I-94”, which could...
Read MoreLawmakers hear plan to reconnect historic Black neighborhood
By Mohamed Ibrahim, Associated Press. Originally published February 2, 2021. MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota lawmakers on Tuesday heard a proposal that would construct a “land bridge” to reconnect a historically Black St....
Read MoreEffort Underway To Reconnect Rondo Neighborhood
by Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield, WCCO 4 News at 6. Originally broadcast February 2, 2021.
Read MoreGroup proposes land bridge to revitalize St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood
by Maury Glover, Fox 9. Originally published February 2, 2021. A pocket park at North Fisk Street and Concordia Avenue honors the memory of St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood, but Marvin Anderson...
Read MoreRondo Land Bridge makes $6 million pitch to Legislature for pre-design
by Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press. Originally published February 2, 2021. A lifetime ago, construction of Interstate 94 carved a deep trench through a historically middle-class Black neighborhood in St. Paul, destroying...
Read MoreMinn. House committee hears proposal for Rondo land bridge
Architectural renderings courtesy Design by Melo and Visuals by James. interview by Cathy Wurzer, MPR. Originally broadcast February 2, 2021 A proposal to reconnect St. Paul’s fractured Rondo neighborhood gets...
Read MoreReconnection, Revitalization, and Restitution for I-94 Communities
by Emilie Wille, streets.mn. Originally published December 10, 2020. Saint Paul’s historic Rondo neighborhood is a thriving, diverse community and home to many immigrant families and Black-owned businesses. It’s situated...
Read MoreThree U.S. “Highway Cap” Projects Reckoning with Urban Inequity
By Adina Solomon, ULI. Originally published October 7, 2020. Beginning in the 1950s, the Interstate Highway System began to span the continent, connecting cities across the United States and driving...
Read MoreThe Minnesota Paradox
by Professor Samuel L, Myers Jr, University of Minnesota. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed by a Minneapolis police officer during an arrest. The officer pressed his...
Read MoreRace and Housing Series: Rondo and I-94 — A Conversation with Nick Khaliq
By Blake MacKenzie, Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity. Originally published February 14, 2020. If you’ve ever driven on I-94 between Minneapolis and St. Paul, you’ve gone right over the heart...
Read MoreMarvin Anderson: Rondo and the many stories of ‘One Minnesota’
I was delighted to hear Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz mention the Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul during his inaugural address in January. While elaborating on his vision for One Minnesota,...
Read MoreReconnecting a Bisected Neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota
by Beth Mattson-Teig, ULI. Originally published March 29, 2018. ULI Advisory Services has presented their recommendations on a proposed Rondo Community Land Bridge in St. Paul—a project that is intended to...
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