To the left you see the hole left by the Fire; it really sucks the energy out of the north part of downtown. But the Fargo Theater does its part, particularly at night.

My earliest memory of the Fargo was in the sixties, when my parents took me to see “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.” Terror seized me, and I had to leave. (The spooky organ, the garden shears in the bloody painting – no thanks.) I remember sitting on a bench in the lobby off the balcony, and in my recollections it seemed as ornate as Versailles.

In the seventies I went by myself or with friends; I saw “Fantastic Voyage” and nearly all the Charlton Heston dystopian nightmares here. We got popcorn from a stand next to the theater - some clever man opened his own stand and made a tidy living selling the best hottest greasiest most buttery popcorn ON EARTH, and you could smuggle it in without trouble. By then the theater was on the decline - the seats were old and musty, the orchestra pit covered over, the walls bare. It had been eclipsed in luxury by the Lark, but it still had its own solemn presence; it was still The Fargo Theater.

It's restored now and used to show actual movies on a regular basis. Imagine that.