Sometimes life makes us search for excitement, but other times, it comes to us unbidden. I experienced the latter in Fargo this weekend. On Friday night (9/15), I got a text message from the Jasper Hotel where I am staying warning me not to be alarmed about the sound of an explosion in the morning. The next morning, promptly 7 a.m., I witnessed the disappearance of a high-rise building in downtown Fargo, which was imploded to make way for new construction in a “controlled demolition.”

As it happened, my room on the 12th floor was perfectly positioned to view this spectacle. I was up at 6:30 a.m., and, looking out of my window, took this photo of the building slated for disappearance.

Here it is again, slightly enlarged.

At 7 a.m. the building was gone in less than a minute. The following four photos were taken in rapid succession at 7:01 a.m., according to my iPhone.

And this is what things looked like about an hour later, once the dust had settled.

On Sunday (9/17), a beautiful, 70-degree day here, I walked 8-10 blocks to the site of the forgone building, and the photos below show all that’s left of it. According to news reports, the demolished building, known as the Lashkowitz High Rise, was erected in 1970 and was used for public housing until two years ago, when it was condemned. A new 110-unit affordable housing complex will be built on the site, which will be cleaned up by the Environmental Protection Agency with $2 million in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law enacted in 2021. The high rise was contaminated with “asbestos, heavy metals and other inorganic contaminants” at the time of the demolition, according to the EPA.

On Friday night, I had dinner at the Rosewild Restaurant at the hotel and met a couple who happened to be sitting at the next table. Jim and Carolyn, shown in the photo below, are from Los Angeles and had never been to Fargo before. They are here for a week, visiting relatives of Carolyn’s. Jim is an electrical contractor and Carolyn is a retired librarian who while growing up was a patron of the Los Angeles Central Library in downtown LA. It was fun talking with her about Susan Orlean’s The Library Book, a book we both enjoyed about the Central Library, which was seriously damaged by arson in 1986. Over the course of the weekend, I had several chance encounters with Jim and Carolyn, not only at the hotel, but at another restaurant across the street, and I appreciated having the opportunity to get to know them.

Saturday mornings at the Jasper Hotel there is live jazz in the lobby bar/restaurant featuring David Ferreira and Frank Weible, two experienced musicians who I understand have been regular performers together or in other ensembles on the Fargo music scene for many years. David also teaches jazz piano and vocal jazz ensembles at Concordia College and the Minnesota State University at Moorhead, MN. David and I chatted briefly on what it takes for musicians to maintain their “chops” as the years go by. Frank plays at least four instruments, including sax and the alto flute you can see in the photos below that I took as they were setting up and beginning to perform.

On Sunday evening, I was joined for dinner by Brian, son of Trudi’s niece Amy and her husband Dan. Brian is 23 and living in Fargo/Moorhead, where he works at a Granite City restaurant. It was fun having the chance to catch up with him.

Tomorrow, Mon. 9/18, I plan to complete one of the longest rides I’ve had so far, close to 80 miles, to reach the town of Kathryn, N.D. (pop. 64). More about that later.