A central element of the big new Downtown 2025 plan might sound familiar– the expansion of Gateway Park. The original Gateway Park dates to the City Beautiful era a hundred years ago, and the triangle-shaped space where Nicollet and Hennepin converged aimed to give some green space to what was then a crowded and aging section of the city. Instead, within 20 years Gateway Park was better known for the idle men sprawled out on the lawn or the fields of empty wine bottles. With the demolition of Skid Row in the early 1960s, Nicollet was cut off at Washington Avenue and Gateway Park was encroached by an an insurance office.

Today it's a lonely space. The historic Phelps Fountain with the spitting turtles was long ago replanted near the Rose Garden in Lyndale Park. None of the structures shown in the above photo, taken by John Vachon of the New Deal-era Farm Security Administration, remain.

Here are some other views of the old Gateway Park: