During 1979 and 1980 members from the Grand Rapids public Library's Audio-Visual Department, under the direction of Department Head Monique Timmer, set about to photographically document the urban renewal of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The images were photographed onto 4x5 negatives and labeled. The images depict the downtown area, buildings being demolished, street scenes and some of the new construction of the urban renewal period. The collection provides a unique view of the downtown commercial and retail building, as well as theaters that were demolished during the urban renewal era. Generally, the quality of the negatives is good, but in a few cases they are under exposed or with faulty exposures.

The negatives have been retained in their original numeric order.