WSTB

The city's powerful Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) laid out its case for the building's destruction in a September 1961 Minneapolis Star op/ed piece, written by general counsel Ben Palmer. The bottom line: It was old, it was ugly, it was in the way, and it had to go. End of argument. Although they put up a good fight, the building's owners and many admirers didn't stand a chance.

What's odd is how the HRA's public- sector leadership seemed obsessed with the economic viability of a privately owned venture. Given the opportunity, the HRA argued, the Met's tenants would flee from its dowdiness, even though the building was 98 percent occupied in 1958 and generated $300,000 a year in revenues for its owners. Still, the long process of condemnation started in May 1959.

The HRA and its director, Robert Jorvig, enlisted the formidable influence of the city's fire marshal, who initially declared the building a firetrap. Shortly before demolition, he revised his opinion, endorsing the building's preservation and considerably cutting his cost estimate of a fire-safety retrofit. But by then it was too late.