Palmer’s Sideshow

A portrait of the best bar in America, according to Esquire

The area of Minneapolis known as the West Bank refers to the west bank of the Mississippi where the University of Minnesota straddles the river. The Bank always been an area of itinerant transition beginning as a Scandinavian immigrant center in the 1890s. By the 1950’s it had more of a skid row atmosphere that morphed into the hippie/antiwar counterculture center in the late 60s early 70s, catalyzed by the spread of the University of Minnesota to the West Bank. It has evolved back to an immigrant area with the largest Somali community in the US.

Palmer’s, a wedge-shaped bar open for nearly 120 years, became the West Bank’s musical mainstay as other bars on the Bank closed. It hosted Palmfest, an annual summer two-day music festival. In 2009 I went to photograph the patrons and musicians with a 4 x 5 film camera in front of a sheet of white backdrop. In 2025, anticipating Palmer’s closure, I compiled these portraits into a book, adding one last portrait: Cornbread Harris, who at 98, was the final performer on September 14. He didn’t die but took his show “The Church of Cornbread,” to The Schooner, another classic bar but not on the West Bank. Cornbread will probably outlive that one too.