The article presents a collection of 174 glass negatives kept by the Gdansk PAN Library, displaying photographic documentation of the removal of defensive ramparts in the north-east parts of Gdansk between 1908 and 1928. The text is an attempt at the recreation of the history of this unique collection – the circumstances of its origin and its fate both before and after the Second World War. Arranging the collection in chronological order, the author follows the footprints of an anonymous photographer, recreating the old picture of the ramparts, water courses and sluices in the eastern part of the city, and recording the changes which affected the space of the suburban district of Knipawa (Rudno) and the settlement Althof. On the basis of the photographs, she decodes the places from which the photographs were taken, which is often down to traces left by their unknown author; she also offers a thesis concerning the identity of the photographer.