Brackett rocket gets fresh launch

by dennis geisinger

Decommisioned playground slide preserved

The cables give the sense of flight and illustrate the return of childhood memories

A venerable icon of the Minneapolis park system, the rocket slide in Brackett Park at 28th Street and 36th Avenue South has found new life as an art exhibit to be dedicated in a celebration set for Sept. 29 at 11 a.m.

The rocket’s place as a giant in the memories of neighborhood children for almost half a century would not allow it to go gently into that good night.
The 25-foot high rocket was originally installed as a climbing structure and slide for area children in 1962 as a symbol of America’s entry into the space race. Safety and liability concerns led to its removal by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board in 2004, according to Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program News.

The rocket symbolized “a time when we were more concerned with how high we might fly rather than how hard we might fall,” wrote Star Tribune columnist Doug Grow when the rocket made its untimely flight into supposed oblivion.
But a Save the Rocket campaign was initiated by a group of area residents, the Brackett Rocket Boosters, to rejuvenate it as a work of public art. With the structure now in storage they petitioned the MPRB and set out to raise the $51,000 needed for the design, fabrication, installation, transportation, insurance, administration, landscaping, materials, labor and lighting for its comeback. Another $22,350 would have to be raised for maintenance and contingency funds, as well as education and events.

Ideas ranging from special screenings of rocket-themed movies at local theaters to pancake breakfasts at local diners to the sale of rocket-shaped earrings at local events helped the fund take off. A group of 14 students from Anne Sullivan Communication Center and Seward Montessori School raised more than $1,200 toward the re-installation by staging three outdoor performances of “Star Wars.” Area businesses and individuals also contributed.

Even a local woman whose daughter managed to get her head stuck between the rocket’s vertical slats when it was still a piece of playground equipment contributed to its renovation.

Forecast Public Artworks, a St. Paul public arts nonprofit, was commissioned to head the project. Jack Becker, Forecast’s director, is a neighborhood resident and has facilitated more than $2 million in commissioned art projects.
Minneapolis artist Randy Walker’s re-design was chosen. His design raises the rocket on a 10-foot pedestal, tied down by 84 metal cables forming a cone within an oval path. Centered within an elliptical setting of boulders and fire-colored landscaping, the rocket will no longer be for climbing.

The new look, titled “Return Journey,” shows the rocket at an 80 degree angle lifting off from the southwest corner of the park, a landmark on the new Midtown Greenway.

“The cables give the sense of flight and illustrate the artwork’s theme; the return of the rocket to the park and the return of childhood memories,” Walker said.
“The rocket in Brackett Park—where I climbed as a kid and where we took our kids when they were young,” wrote Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak in an eNewsletter posted in 2005 to thank local businesses and citizen volunteers after the Minneapolis City Council had accepted the gift of the Brackett Park Rocket by artist Randy Walker, from Forecast Public Artworks, for replacement in Brackett Park.