Napa Redevelopment, 1974

One of our volunteers came across this intriguing brochure while organizing our ephemera files, and it was just too cool not to share. The brochure is from the volume 2, number 1, Fall 1974 edition of the New Era Reporter, a publication put out by the Napa Community Redevelopment Agency. It’s mostly about the dedication ceremony of the Dwight Murray Plaza and the Parkway Mall on First Street. That plaza is known locally as the former site of the old clock tower, a controversial landmark that is still causing a kerfuffle years after its removal. Sadly, the plaza never achieved the great heights its designers intended for it.

The most interesting bits out of the brochure, though, aren’t about the Plaza at all. In one snippet, we see the first phase of the widening of Soscol Avenue between Lincoln Avenue and Third Street. The construction project was part of the Napa River Linear Parkway, which is the second section that stood out for us. In the brochure is an artist rendering of the proposed Napa River Linear Parkway, one of an endless series of attempts at undertaking an urban renewal program in downtown Napa.

Recently, the Napa Register wrote about the City’s intentions to redesign and revitalize the plaza. In the meantime, let’s take a look back at what it once was.