Munjoy Observer / Portland Renewal Authority Newsletters (1962-1965)

In November 1962, the Munjoy Observer newsletter was launched by the Portland Renewal Authority to offer community news for the Munjoy South neighborhood as well as provide information about the progress of the Munjoy South Urban Renewal Project.

The Munjoy South Urban Renewal Project, officially launched on April 2, 1962, was Portland’s third urban renewal project (after Vine-Deer-Chatham and Bayside), and its largest to date. These projects were intended to address, in the language of the times, the deterioration and blight of parts of the city. The Munjoy South project encompassed 79 acres of land bounded by Congress, Mountfort, and Fore Streets and the Eastern Prom and involved a combination of clearance, rehabilitation, and improvement activities.

To learn more about the activities of the Portland Renewal Authority and Portland’s urban renewal initiatives, you can also read two of the agency’s annual reports here: Portland Renewal: A Decade of Planning and Progress 1951-1962 and Portland Renewal Authority Annual Report 1962.

The library's entire collection (incomplete) of the Munjoy Observer newsletter, published by the Portland Renewable Authority, is digitized here. The paper continued as the Munjoy Hill Observer and was published by The Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Organization. Hard copies of this paper from December 1980 through November 2015 (incomplete) are housed in the Portland Room.
The Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Organization's post-2015 Newsletters can be read at this link.