Once upon a time Seneca Falls forgot its past, disregarding its own heritage except for what was written in books, essays and newspaper articles. Buildings were lost: some great and noble, others modest and humble. Most were demolished in the name of progress; some were lost to fire, while some were simply lost through neglect over time.
Then in the 1970s the Village lost a few more landmarks that made people wake u
p to the potential loss of the Village’s very identity. The old Latham House on the corner of Center and West Bayard Streets was removed for construction of a new consolidated Fire Department; the Town Clock Building (the Hoskins Block) on the corner of Fall and Cayuga Streets came down; the Armitage on lower Fall Street, site of many weddings and anniversary banquets, was destroyed to make room for 
a new professional building housing doctors' offices; City Mills on Water Street was leveled creating Peoples Park; and the old Masonic Temple was part of the block removed to help straighten out the Fall/Cayuga Streets intersection.These losses, as well as others, eventually prompted the Village, supported by ad hoc citizen groups, business people, and state and federal initiatives, to adopt legislation creating the locally designated historic district in 1980. New York State lent its support to Seneca Falls’ preservation efforts through its Heritage Area program, then known as the Urban Cultural Park system. The National Park Service’s enabling legislation that created Women’s Rights National Historical Park included language that called for the state and local governments to ensure the preservation of the Park’s historical context.
Despite some “bumps in the road” Seneca Falls became a community that eventually served as a model for other small municipalities seeking ways to protect their architectural heritage. Communities, institutions and individuals across the country have requested our local law and Guidelines and Standards for the Protection & Enhancement of the Seneca Falls Historic District.
Lately, however, it seems a second coming of the 1970s is fast approaching. Somehow nearly every announcement of potential local development is accompanied by a description of old buildings that will “have to” be demolished to ensure success. Sometimes there aren’t even any logical reasons offered for the demolition plans; the historic structures are just old and apparently in the way of something. Talk of demolition has gotten a little too comfortable for local officials willing to compromise the Village’s identity for ambiguous plans and unsubstantiated needs. For the first time in memory a sitting Mayor has gone before the local preservation commission advocating for demolitions, stating that the structures under review were not really that important, even if it were discovered that Elizabeth Cady Stanton had slept in one of them.
The Village even included demolition of an historic Stanton-era building in a recent grant application. The Village’s unsuccessful 2007 Restore NY application through the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) requested funds for demolition of the former Boarding House at the corner of Bridge and Canal Streets, a structure from our early industrial era that became part of our local Irish and Italian immigrant story, in the Village's oldest commercial district. Of course, first the building was claimed to be “not historic” at all, despite evidence to the contrary, and it was condemned as unsafe for occupation. The building is clearly in bad shape, but so is the Knitting Mill across the street. Neither is beyond salvation. Why single out the Boarding House when it, too, can be rehabilitated and adaptively reused? What would its demolition accomplish other than freeing up enough space to park an additional three or so cars and exposing the backs of buildings on West Bayard Street that would not normally be visible to anyone coming over the Bridge Street bridge into the Sackett Business District?
The same Restore NY grant application also called for rehabilitation and reuse of the former Trinity Church at the Westcott Rule Company property, most recently used as the local “Haunted House” at Halloween. Oddly enough, according to the property owners, at approximately the same time the grant application was submitted they say they secured a determination from the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) that demolition of the former church would have no impact on significant cultural resources. Interesting that SHPO seems to be under the impression that their determination of “no impact” was issued not for demolition, but for regular maintenance and environmental actions, in anticipation of an historic rehabilitation of the property.
SHPO was required to review the proposed project. At the church, this included hazardous material abatement; a new roof; new windows and doors; removal of an exterior stairway; and to scrape and paint the exterior. This was to be done in hopes of ultimately reusing the building as an Elder Community Center. Nowhere was demolition of the church mentioned.
Lest we place all of the blame on local officials and developers, it should be noted that NY State shares in the current atmosphere where irreplaceable buildings are treated as expendable. When the former Lehigh Valley freight depot on the Mill property was knocked down without SHPO approval after being virtually demolished by neglect by Seneca Knit Development Corporation (SKDC), SHPO required a Memorandum of Agreement be signed by several involved state and federal agencies, the Village and SKDC. The Memorandum actually required, among other things, the Mill be protected against the elements and the Boarding House be “mothballed” for future restoration. The SHPO never followed up on these requirements, allowing both buildings to continue deteriorating to the point where SKDC and the Village are using that deterioration as reason for the pending demolition of the Boarding House.
Of course, like many municipalities, Seneca Falls has a property maintenance law on the books. The idea behind it is to protect property values, public safety, and protect against irresponsible property owners. The Village can force SKDC to bring the building up to code or have the work done and have the bill sent to the owners, thus avoiding demolition. This law is seldom used, and its enforcement seems to get applied to some properties and not others.
Adaptive reuse, the principle of finding new uses for old buildings and re-establishing them as productive community assets, was once an exciting trend in Seneca Falls. The First, Third and Fourth Ward School buildings, once the subjects of demolition talk now provide much needed housing. The former P&C supermarket on Clinton Street, long vacant, is now a Seneca-Cayuga ARC facility. Neighbors of the downtown building now housing Henry B’s Restaurant once believed that structure couldn’t be saved. Who could now imagine downtown without Henry B’s? The former NY Central freight station now houses professional offices, and its cross street neighbor, the passenger depot, was rehabilitated as Village Hall. The former Village Hall, so full of code violations that the standard joke was that no one but the federal government could fix it, was donated to, you guessed it, the federal government and now is headquarters and Visitor Center for Women’s Rights National Historical Park.
The demolition of historic buildings, unless absolutely necessary, is wrong. Demolitions are permanent. Condemnation of a structure does not necessarily require demolition - rehabilitation is often a viable option. Once the historic structure is gone, it’s gone forever. The physical evidence of a piece of history is erased.
Seneca Falls, once progressive in the context of historic preservation and heritage tourism, now displays growing evidence of regressing to a short-sighted approach to the future. We don’t have to destroy the Village in order to save it. One of the reasons developers have shown interest and have invested in Seneca Falls is the very appearance of our charming, historic community.
Let’s not revert to whittling away at our heritage, building by building, as if this place does not matter.
