Yes, sir, that’s my baby.

I’ve always loved the Black Building. When I was young it helped make downtown Fargo seem so large and impressive and grown-up, a true city; as I got older, it seemed like an embassy for a much bigger town, where brutes like this stood on every corner. When it was the Sears store, I went there with my folks; when Sears fled to the mall and the interior was turned into shopping court, I went there to write. I sat by the fountain – a thing of surpassing ugliness, which remains to this day – and wrote and smoked and hoped people looked at me and thought “he must be from the big city.” For almost thirty years those lower floors were covered with godforsaken 70s renovations, but it’s been brought back to its old self again.

Details follow in the next few pages. More info about the building’s history here.