Get to Know Meyer Beckner

Meyer Beckner started as the Program Manager at Red Wing Downtown Main Street in March of 2024 (he became a permanent staff member in September). In his first year, Meyer has overseen projects like the History Stroll and Art in the Alley.

Meyer Beckner - Program Manager at Red Wing Downtown Main Street

Meyer was born in Seoul, South Korea, but Red Wing has been his home base ever since he arrived at six months old. He lived in Minneapolis while attending the University of Minnesota, for both undergrad and his master’s degree in Urban Planning, and he’s been able to travel the world to study, visit family, and simply be a tourist, and now his path has brought him back to Red Wing. The places he’s visited have been distant and different from his hometown, but he’s always found things in these cities that remind him of Red Wing.

Two of the places Meyer studied abroad were Hilo, Hawaii and Toledo, Spain. Like Red Wing, all three towns are, he explains, “alongside the largest river systems of their countries or states,” and “an hour journey from the major nearby city.” Those may feel like superficial similarities, but he also found both places had similar civic spirits to Red Wing.

Both of the cities he lived in, he says, “have that historic flair.” For Toledo, it is a history dating back to medieval times, much older than the history visible in Red Wing. This makes it a popular tourist destination, but in living there, Meyer was able to see the off-hours lifestyle of the town, and that lifestyle consisted of a lot of walking. Everything people needed was close by, so everyone walked. This made people healthier, but it also made them friendlier, and boosted the overall sense of community.

Hilo was similar to Red Wing in different ways. The history that shaped present-day Hilo was the era of the sugarcane plantations. Those plantations, much like the wheat production that put Red Wing on the map in the late 1800s, made Hilo a more industrial city.

But as the sugar industry has waned in Hilo and the grain industry waned in Red Wing, the cities followed matching paths. “Hilo has that mix of a little bit artsy, a little bit blue collar, just like Red Wing,” he says.

Meyer always had an appreciation for Red Wing, but living in these other places only added to it. “We have the natural surroundings and the historic buildings, that’s something a lot of cities have destroyed or never had,” he says, “and it’s really a gift to be able to have a close downtown that is still walkable and all these historic buildings that create this strong streetscape and bring the history out.”

And the lessons he learned in the other cities can help him enrich Red Wing even more. He saw how walkable Toledo was, and he knows that downtown Red Wing, with more amenities could be that way too.

Hilo showed such a love for its cultural heritage, while not ignoring its more recent past, and he knows that the arts, the people, and the natural environment of Red Wing can be emphasized just as much.

“There is such an active community spirit, people are proud to be here,” he says of Red Wing, “Not everyone is proud of where they’re from.” And he wants to do his part to keep it that way.

Art in the Alley Grand Opening June 2024