St. Paul restores Rondo Avenue name to city street startribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from startribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Before the construction of Interstate 94 which drove a multi-lane wedge directly through the center of St. Paul’s historic Black neighborhood, there was a neighborhood called ‘Rondo.’ Mayor Melvin Carter unveiled the new sign.
Russel Balenger was eight years old when a suspicious fire destroyed the 18-room house his family lived in at St. Anthony Avenue and Fisk Street, a rooming house of sorts that his parents ran for Black railroad workers. That was in 1958, not long before construction of Interstate 94 claimed what was left of his home and bore a literal cavity through the historically-Black Rondo neighborhood. ...