Hennepin County Park Commissioner Patti Baker talks about the nostalgia, declining usage, and rehabilitation needs of Parade Stadium outside of downtown Minneapolis. The field was Minneapolis's first public football stadium (even hosting NFL games), though it was mostly meant for high school, amateur, and small-college games. It also was host to a number of high-profile concerts over the decades.
In 1990, the site would be re-utilized, becoming home for the Walker Art Center/Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
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PATTI BAKER: Well, it's an older facility, one that many high school students have played in and parades have started from, and there's a lot of nostalgia there. [? Granted. ?] Yet in the last few years, many of those same high schools that used to send their students down there now have their own stadium sites, and the parades have certainly diminished in number.
And the stadium itself is growing older and needs some rehabilitation, the price of which is quite astronomical into the hundreds of thousands to make it better handicapped accessible and everything that we need to make it a competitor in today's economical sense.
GARY: What's your best guess? Is Parade Stadium on its last go round here, or is there a chance that it'll be refurbished and returned to some of its old luster?
PATTI BAKER: I don't know. It would seem to me that I think once the people here, the problems and the expense that they might like to have some more open space or another use for it. Who knows? I'm not going to second guess them, but I would think that once they hear our problems with our dilemma, I think they may come up with some spectacular ideas. Who knows?
My crystal ball says that perhaps [? essay ?] would come up with, as I say, open space or something else that recreation is demanding at this point in time [INAUDIBLE] public park [? lands. ?]
GARY: But it sounds like, in your way of thinking, anyway, probably it's not going to be worth the money to fix up Parade Stadium.
PATTI BAKER: It would be hard to justify, [? Gary. ?] It really would, yes. Yeah. And, as I said once the public hears about that, they usually are very sympathetic and understand, and they can keep their tax dollar in their hip pocket for a while longer or use it for something else.
GARY: Do you think there's going to be a hue and cry when the wrecking ball does show up, if it does? A lot of memories there.
PATTI BAKER: Well, that's right. And those high school students who did play there have those fine memories. Yet, I wonder if many of them haven't left be, many of them go up to get committed to other things and understand our problem.
It'll be sad if it is taken down. I've seen it there all my life and others have too, so who knows. But, as I say, people are prompt to call, and the newspaper did carry an article about it. How many? Maybe a month or so ago. And so far, we've heard little from the public about keeping it.