Another old rowhome gets gutted.. this one is half a block west of New Scotland
After fire, historians fight for time
Assemblyman seeks to delay demolition after 19th-century Albany home gutted
By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST, Staff writer
First published: Wednesday, December 12, 2007
ALBANY -- A fire that injured one man and gutted a 19th-century Madison Avenue row house early Tuesday has turned into a showdown between public safety officials and preservationists, who hope to spare the building from demolition.
A decision on whether to raze 598 Madison Ave. has been postponed at least until noon today after its owner, Joe Galu, asked the city for time to hire his own engineer.
The stay also came at the request of Albany historian and Assemblyman Jack McEneny, for whom Galu serves as chief of staff.
One resident, Sean Dumanowich, was pulled from his burning first-floor apartment by firefighters and taken to Albany Medical Center Hospital suffering from severe smoke inhalation.
Dumanowich, 34, was later flown by helicopter to University Hospital at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, where he was listed in serious condition late Tuesday.
Fire officials ordered firefighters out of the brick building around 9 a.m. Tuesday after the ceiling partially collapsed, making it too dangerous to continue the search for another man they believed might be inside.
The man, 41-year-old Edward Davis, was later determined never to have been inside. But officials said the building, which dates to the 1870s, was damaged beyond repair and had to be demolished.
Galu said his building across from Washington Park has nine apartments, two of which were vacant. At least nine people were aided by the American Red Cross of Northeastern New York.
Tension between public safety officials and historic preservationists is not new, especially in aging upstate cities where buildings often suffer from the brick and mortar equivalent of osteoporosis.
The quickness with which some buildings are condemned because of dangerous conditions can rankle those who seek to maintain a city's ties to its past and its cultural fabric.
In November 2004, Albany's Historic Resources Commission halted an attempt by the former Wellington Hotel's British owners to demolish the crumbling landmark on State Street a block below the Capitol.
In May 2006, Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjian was criticized and labeled "Harry the Wrecker" after city crews took down a marquee on the historic Cinema Art theater on River Street, which had more recently become a porn emporium.
Later that year, preservationists in Albany rushed to save what they could of several historic buildings ravaged by arson on Madison Place in the Mansion Neighborhood.
In September the city tore down six century-old buildings on Alexander Street after declaring them an imminent danger to the public. That action helped highlight the growing problem of vacant and abandoned buildings in the city.
The embers were still smoking Tuesday when representatives from Historic Albany Foundation were on the scene trying to buy time as fire officials expected the building to be razed within hours.
"Washington Park has not one vacant lot or one boarded up building on any of its four sides," said McEneny, adding that while every building has a unique history of its own, its significance also lies in its context.
The fire-damaged building sits directly across Madison Avenue from the lake house in Washington Park, a centerpiece of the downtown neighborhoods that was built, in part, from designs by landscape artist Frederick Law Olmstead.
"There's a tremendous emotional investment in Washington Park. To have a missing tooth there would just be a shame," McEneny said. "It's like the first broken window in an empty house. It has enormous implications."
Late Tuesday, it was discovered that the building was also the residence of former Times Union publisher and founder John Henry Farrell, who died there of heart disease on Feb. 2, 1901, at the age of 61.
"I heard the number of the house, 598, and when I saw it I went 'old dear,' " said Capital Region resident Sharon Flood, who did a genealogical study of the Farrell family for the 2003 relocation of a bell that the family had given to the Academy of the Holy Names.
Farrell, whose eldest daughter was the academy's first student, was a major financial supporter of the school.
Susan Holland, executive director of the Historic Albany Foundation, said the building was constructed in 1873 and that two informal engineering opinions they solicited Tuesday said it was not an immediate danger.
"We, of course, don't want anybody to get hurt. But we wanted the owner to have some chance to respond," Holland said, comparing the city's determination to a cancer diagnosis. "It's like having a second opinion."
Holland said the building is part of Washington Park Historic District and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Among the people McEneny tried to enlist to save the building was Police Chief James Tuffey, who grew up on Dana Avenue in the Park South neighborhood, in the burned building's "back yard." McEneny said he also tried to contact Mayor Jerry Jennings, Deputy Mayor Philip Calderone, Fire Chief Robert Forezzi and Jennings' top aide, Robert Van Amburgh.
Earlier in the day, Forezzi described the building as "teetering," saying numerous interior supports had been destroyed and that the third floor had collapsed onto the second floor.
Fire officials had not determined the cause of the 3:40 a.m. blaze by Tuesday evening, partly because it was unsafe to go inside.
Galu, who has owned the property for eight years, said one tenant reported smelling an odor similar to that of crack-cocaine being smoked prior to the blaze.
In October, police responded to a call for an "odor of meth" -- presumably the drug methamphetamine -- but no report was filed, indicating the call may have been unsubstantiated or unfounded, said Detective James Miller, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety.
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories...ate=12/12/2007
Prev
Linear Mode
