In 2016, the Minneapolis Parks Foundation teamed up with Humans of Minneapolis street documentarian Stephanie Glaros to produce a series of 15 portraits of visitors to Minneapolis neighborhood parks.

Here, we’re re-posting Stephanie’s series of portraits of parks visitors from her Humans of Minneapolis blog. Look for all portraits in the series on this blog – 2016 and, coming soon, 2017 – by clicking on the Humans of Minneapolis category.

—

Lacey, at Lyndale Farmstead Park

“I come here at least once a week, I live just a block away. I live in an apartment, so I kind of use it as my yard.  It’s a very quiet park. There are bigger parks around here, so there’s not a lot of traffic. Being outside is important to me and my partner. It’s one of the reasons why we live here.

Hammocking. It’s gotten super popular. These lightweight hammocks were made for camping. They’re super easy to pop up and they have straps that don’t damage trees. You don’t have to tie knots or anything. It’s an easy way to get out and have a very relaxing spot anywhere you go. It’s just swinging in a hammock, breeze in the trees.

I work for a cycling distributer called Quality Bicycle Products. We own and manufacture eighteen consumer brands like Surly, All City, Salsa. Bikes you see around the cities because we’re located here and there’s a lot of great bike shops here.”

“Why is biking so big here?”

“One, it’s the money that the City puts into supporting it. It makes it easier to get around. And then companies like QBP give kickbacks to employees for riding their bikes. You ride your bike, you get a buck a day. You ride your bike so many times and they’ll put twenty bucks into your Health Savings Account. They really support it and want to encourage it as a method of transportation. There’s a lot of those like-minded companies here.

Minneapolis has the whole spectrum of cyclists. Everything from road racers to mountain biking. Lots of commuters. If you ride your bike, you automatically have hundreds of friends out roaming the streets with you.”

Listen to Lacey’s story:

—

Images and content are reposted with permission from Stephanie Glaros/Humans of Minneapolis.