Destruction scenes (15)

File — Box: 1, Folder: 7

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

From the Collection: The Fargo Fourth Street Urban Renewal Agency Photograph Collection consists of 250 images used in the planning and execution phases of the project. The photographs were accessioned as part of the Fourth Street Urban Renewal records. The records were processed as Manuscript Collection 22. The photographs document the area affected by the project in the downtown residential and business district encompassed by 4th Street east to the Red River, located between 1st and 4th Avenues North. The collection includes aerials of the project area taken before and after urban renewal, and a variety of individual buildings before demolition, and the buildings that were constructed as a result of the project. A large number of the photographs were taken by Fargo photographer Everett Brust. The first two files include aerial photographs of the area taken from a number of different angles, before and after urban renewal. Photographs of some of the prominent businesses and buildings removed during urban renewal included the Central Hotel, Nokken & Ryan Motors, Grand Hotel Apartments, C. H. Ruud Co., T. L. Berry Building, Flamer Hotel, Clicquot Bottling Co. There are also photographs of some of the buildings that were constructed as a result of Urban Renewal such as City Hall and the Civic Center, Town House Hotel, U. S. Army Recruiting & Induction Station, and Metropolitan Savings & Loan. There are also images of some of the churches located in the project zone, including Pontoppidan Lutheran Church, Bethel Evangelical Free Church, and First Church of the Nazarene. Prior to the Urban Renewal, a large part of the area was residential. A number of photographs show houses, apartment buildings and boarding houses, prior to and during demolition. There is also a set of photographs that show the squalid conditions inside some of some the residences. Several agency related photographs show planning models of the area, and dedication scenes for the Civic Center which include the Ten Commandments Monument. There are twenty-four color slides in file eighteen, featuring several aerial scenes, the Northwestern Bell Telephone Co. building, Chamber of Commerce building, Merchants National Bank and Trust building and parking ramp, Metropolitan Savings and Loan building, Gate City Savings and Loan building, NSP office building, Pontoppidan Lutheran Church, Town House Hotel, and the Civic Center and City Hall buildings.