Del Lonnquist

Skinner at the International: Homeless in the 50's Del Lonnquist

Herring Choker the Swede they called him when he began working at the International Window Cleaning Company of the Twin Cities in the early 1950's. Most crew members had names that would be considered politically incorrect today. Mexican Joe, Black Bill, Chippewa Charlie, The Hungarian and more. Ethnic names were like honorary titles for the men who risked their lives cleaning windows on the buildings in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. A new member of the crew was called Skinner until he had proven he would do the work instead of just ?skinning? by. Some crew members would have been called the homeless of the fifties only the term homeless had yet to be coined. Instead they were referred to as drunks, winos, panhandlers and other less then polite names. Most had experienced a ?flop? as they called a fall from a building. Those who survived their fall were awarded the professional title of window cleaner instead of window washer. Survival from a fall gave them status among their co-workers. Herring Choker survived his fall from the old Empire Bank Building and attended night school at Brown Institute for radio announcing. He tells his story 25 years later as a small town reporter attending a news conference at the White House. He remembers the Hungarian who drank himself to death trying to forget the WW2 concentration camps and Harry the Cat who fell from the 12th floor as he tried to relive his days as a human fly crawling up the side of a building. Mexican Joe won the respect of his fellow window cleaners and Chippewa Charlie won the respect of his people while escaping from the illness called alcoholism. These stories from many years ago bring us new understanding of the homeless of today. MtSky Press