Le Roy has a history of tearing down its historical
landmarks. Many cities, big and small,
had a brief period of time in the 60’s where “urban renewal” caused them to
tear down a great many irreplaceable buildings in the name of Progress, but Le
Roy has not been limited in scope to modern urban renewal. This is a practice that has been under way
pretty much since Le Roy was incorporated.
The first accredited Women’s College, Ingham University, was
located right along the banks of the Oatka Creek, starting in the 1850’s. It had a music conservatory, art program, and
an academic program as rigorous as any men’s college at the time. Today, no buildings remain, all of them torn
down around the turn of the century. The
stones from the conservatory were used to build the town library, but that was
decades later. The rest was used for
fill for the bridge. There’s a plaque,
but that’s it.
A striking round building housed the Unitarian Universalist
church at the corner of Main and Lake until 1854, when it was torn down and the
Masons built a temple there. It was in
turn torn down in 2008 for a Walgreens. A
fantastic mansion was torn down in a row of mansions for an Acme Supermarket,
now a Sav-A-Lot. (The mansion next door
is for sale, and I have to imagine the property value suffers due to the
supermarket. It is going for less than a
ranch house in the swankier Rochester suburbs.)
Factories that produced patent medicine, a real Dining-car
diner built in Silver Springs, various other historic dwellings, the first
church – all have been razed. The Jello
Factory has been spared the wrecking ball, but I think that was only due to
timing (Jello left town in 1964), and now with Jello being a point of pride of
the town it will never be torn down. It
is commercial space in an odd section of town, with a small plaque. The LeRoy House, containing the Jello Museum
and Historical Society, is the last building left of the LeRoy Institute, which
was also torn down and used for backfill.
The Walgreens incident was a particular sore point with the
town preservationists, mostly due to the land in question being private and in
a commercial corridor, so the tearing down of a 19th century Masonic
Hall and putting up a distinctly modern drug store needed no public comment
whatsoever. And it was with this
backdrop that the battle over the Wiss Hotel began.
The Wiss Hotel was not a beautiful building – a squat, three
story brick structure on the corner of Main and Lake, right across from the
Walgreens. It was empty and abandoned when
I moved here in 2010, home only to hundreds of cats that would stare out at you
if you walked down Main Street late at night.
A few of my neighbors have memories of the Wiss as a flophouse with a
bar in the first floor, the flophouse duties being taken over by the old hotel
by the train tracks at 66 Lake Ave. (An
address that shows up in the police report at least once a month – last time
for a guy who tried to hit a friend with a bottle of vodka while an underage
girl was simultaneously giving him head.)
The town quietly took possession of the Wiss during a
nationally-covered outbreak of Mass Hysteria/Tourette’s of a number of high
school girls, burying a story of the owners of the Wiss and connections to the
sale of land for the high school built only ten years ago instead of on land
freely available by previous educational deed.
Taxes hadn’t been paid for years, and the county passed on collecting
the property and let the town take it.
Noise was made about tearing down the structure and
replacing it with either a Dunkin Donuts or a Taco Bell, and with that, the
preservationists swung into action.
There was no specific love for the Wiss as a building, but the idea of
the town gateway from the Thruway being a Walgreens and a Taco Bell was too
much.
An LLC was formed, and an architect was hired to determine
the structural soundness of the Wiss Hotel.
He determined it to be salvageable, and the LLC spoke of plans to turn
the Wiss into luxury apartments and storefront space.
It wasn’t a love for the Wiss itself, but the viewing of it
as an anchor of the downtown row on the east run of Main Street. The edges have been chipped away for years on
the south side of the street, while the north side was a strong, old-fashioned
row making a quaint downtown district.
The district ends at the creek – an abandoned restaurant on the south
side, and the post office on the north side (built in 1936, after the village
had torn down a storefront block rumored to have been a hiding spot for
Fredrick Douglass as he fled north to freedom).
The concern was maintaining the character of downtown LeRoy.
Town meetings were contentious. The LLC wished to purchase the building, and
also put forward concerns about the asbestos content of the building and the
abatement as the building came down. The
LLC was willing to pay the town 10,000 dollars, while the tearing down would
cost 155K.
The town supervisors were dead set against it. There were serious leakage issues, they said,
and there had been for years. They
disputed the cursory structural assessment of the architect, saying a full
assessment was needed.
Full frustration and anger swung into action.
Articles about the town history pointed out that the Wiss was possibly
the oldest standing commercial structure in the village. Visions of the Wiss as a cornerstone of the
revitalization of LeRoy with luxury apartments (never mind the glut of rental
units on the market already), and support from the owner of the McDonalds
(which tore down the Dining Car on Main St) and the owner of the Creekside Inn
(still vacant years later with no sign of opening anytime soon).
My own opinion was toward preservation after I bought the
book on the History of LeRoy at Walgreens (all irony intended), and looked at
the range of buildings that used to stand in LeRoy. I didn’t know how a Taco Bell could possibly
exist on that corner, as part of it was listed as a DOT right-of-way if the
Wiss were ever torn down.
In the end, the board voted quickly to not sell to the LLC,
and to authorize the funds to tear down the building. The LLC was bitter, vowed to continue the
fight in the months that it took for the Wiss to be torn down.
Months, as it turned out, was weeks. A company was given the contract, it was
announced that the building would come down “hot” – no abatement. All materials would be trucked out, and the
lot leveled and seeded for grass.
It came down in the space of a week, and in defense of the
board, it was apparent in the tear-down that the structure was in terrible
shape. The third floor had simply been
put on the flat roof of the original building, causing runoff to rot the sides
of the structure, which was causing the cave-in from the back that was apparent
from the street. At a bare minimum, the
third floor would have needed to come down, and it was questionable if any of
the structure would have been salvageable.
Years ago, possibly, (maybe when it was owned by the family of one of
the board members), but now there was no saving it.
Rumors of a Dunkin Donuts or Taco Bell swirled, but the
mayor announced that the lot would remain vacant for at least six months while
the village decided what to do with the parcel.
“This will possibly be the first time anyone who has known me has heard
me say this, but money is not the most important thing in this matter.” One of the board members mentioned he liked
the new view of the town coming in from 490/Thruway, and that would definitely
be a major consideration.
The protective fences came down today, and I got the first
full effect of the new view coming in to the main intersection of Routes 5 and
19. The dominating structure now is the
Presbyterian church on the corner, a classic white clap-board spired
church. “A New-England Village Feel” is
what one of the selectmen said, and I have to agree with him. It does feel like entering a small town like
the ones I grew up with, and I rather like that.
Reflecting on the changes of the town, with a few notable
exceptions (would happily trade back the Sav-A-Lot for the mansion), a village
is in constant flux for populations and needs.
It stands right now as a pretty strong place, with cleanup needs of
multiple small towns facing declining fortunes.
And in this delicate balance, aesthetically, it works.
But if the village considers selling the parcel to Taco
Bell, I will be at the meetings. With
torch and pitchfork if necessary.
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