The West Bank , with the locally infamous Seven Corners district , mouldered into a skid row scene in the 1950s . In the mid-to-late 1960s , the area became the center of the University-oriented counterculture and antiwar movement . It was home to local hippies , protesters , and other anti-establishment groups between the 1960s and early 1970s . During those days , the neighborhood was known as the " Haight-Ashbury of the Midwest . " The West Bank was home to McCosh 's secondhand book store , a center for Beat and Hippie left-leaning bookworms , and later Things , probably the first head shop in the Twin Cities , which sold counterculture curios , anti-war buttons and posters , incense and drug paraphernalia . Marijuana , hashish and LSD were readily available in the area after about 1967 . A community of hippies — and numerous students and hangers-on who emulated the hippie lifestyle ( at least on weekends ) — lived in old rental houses in the area and congregated at coffeehouses , such as the Extemporé , The Scholar and the Broken Drum , and at bars , such as the Triangle Bar , the Viking , Caesar 's , The Mixers and the Music Bar . ( The latter burned down the night Robert Kennedy was assassinated , and eventually was replaced by a " people 's park " ) . The Triangle often featured performers and recording artists Dave Ray , Tony Glover and John Koerner , who had associated to some degree with Bob Dylan during his brief Minneapolis sojourn
Robert Kennedy was assassinated
Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis