Category: 1 Imlay Street
Today is the big day: the former Capitol Liquors will be demolished! Here are the wrecking devices in place, a front-loader with a claw and a dumpster. It is hard to believe that this is all it will take, but I’m assured that it will be.
I don’t know if we’ve talked about whether this building is, in fact, historic, and if so what kind of historic preservationists are we if we’re pleased to see this building go? Well, the building is kind of historic, but it is also testimony to how stupid decisions made by previous owners can make some buildings unsustainable.
Here’s what we know about 42 Hawthorn Street. It sits on land that was originally part of 1 Imlay Street. Some time after the original owner of 1 Imlay moved on, a subsequent owner had the brilliant idea to build a family-owned and operated store on the side yard. By this point, the house next door to 1 Imlay Street, which had been built by the original owner of 1 Imlay, had already been demolished.
The store’s builder left 1 Imlay to her son, and he had the even more brilliant idea (not) to subdivide the property so that the house and the store could be treated and sold separately. That pretty much spelled the doom for both properties, since separate owners working at cross-purposes were bound to let the buildings slide into disrepair. You saw previously how bad 1 Imlay had been – we couldn’t go into 42 Hawthorn, as it was deemed unsafe.
So, however many years later, we are pleased to see this building go – and its demolition restores 1 Imlay to its original use and footprint, as a single-family home with a beautiful side yard.
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