A year after Floyd unrest, a Minneapolis neighborhood emerges from ashes

Former customers might regard the empty dirt lot where the Indian restaurant once stood as a burial plot for an immigrant’s dream. In 2008, eight years after moving to Minneapolis and a dozen after arriving in America, Ruhel Islam realized the aspiration he had carried with him from his native Bangladesh. Defying the Great Recession, he opened Gandhi Mahal in the Longfellow neighborhood on the city’s south side, his path through the economic gloom lit with energy and optimism.

Mr. Islam’s restaurant soon gained a loyal following and citywide reputation for its vibrant cuisine and inviting ambience. In the dead of winter, when all lies fallow on the Minnesota tundra, he harvested peppers, spinach, tomatoes, and herbs from an aquaponics garden he built in the basement. Praise for his chicken tikka masala, palak paneer, and other classic Indian dishes spread beyond Minneapolis, eliciting satiated raves from Guy Fieri, who visited Gandhi Mahal in 2016 for his Food Network show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.”

The restaurant’s success added to the gradual renaissance of Longfellow. The neighborhood of 5,000 residents, located a 10-minute drive from downtown Minneapolis, began to grow in size and diversity in the 1990s after stagnating for two decades as white residents departed for the suburbs. A steady flow of immigrants from Africa, Latin America, and South Asia settled in Longfellow and adjacent neighborhoods to raise families and re-imagine their future.

Little reason existed for residents or business owners to wonder if the area’s revival would continue – until last May, when in the span of four days, a quarter century of progress went up in flames.

A bystander’s video captured Derek Chauvin, then a Minneapolis police officer, kneeling on the neck of George Floyd as two other officers held him down and a fourth stood