It’s a crying shame that we continue to lose our architectural heritage to demolition by neglect. This building, which went up in flames last night, should never have come to this. It’s certainly a sad day for the West Side, especially because calamity could have easily been prevented.
I spoke to realtor and West Side property owner Dave Weitzel who told me that numerous people had complained to the City about the property’s sad state of affairs, but nothing was ever done. Even more infuriating, Weitzel and a slew of others had tried to purchase the building from the owners – the Wardell family.
“There were untold number of complaints to the City,” said Weitzel. “This sort of thing just keeps happening. This same family owned another property a block away, which burned in 2021 (see below). This latest fire could have been due to a squatter burning a candle. I told everyone that it was only a matter of time before something like this would happen. The neighborhood has been complaining about this building for 20 years, and the City did nothing. It was easily preventable, if the City stepped in and acted accordingly. 100 17th Street is owned by the same family, and will probably be the next one to burn.”
What’s especially sad is that this historic building could have been a solid anchor on the block. We’ve seen instances of significant rehabs that have changed the course of a neighborhood. Now, unfortunately, that opportunity has been lost thanks to inaction.
I suppose that if you have to look on the bright side, at least neighbors won’t have to complain about the building anymore. That’s one way to solve a pesky problem.
The “other” bright side (more recent developments)) is that a couple of neighbors feel that there is a chance to salvage the building.
“PBN has been working with the prospective owner of the building at VT+Bremen, which had a fire last night. We would like to try to save the building (we think it can be) and are asking neighbors to send a letter of support to: bernice@pbnsaves.org.”
Hopefully there’s a chance that this structure will live to see another day – we will keep you posted.