It’s been a while. My apologies for taking a bit of a break from writing. It seems that life in the working world interferes with life in the writer’s world. One thing leads to another, and what started out as one thing becomes, instead, another.
As this column quickly approaches its thirteenth anniversary, that trend of watching things evolve led me to the focus of the next few columns. What we know now as one thing, had quite a different beginning and evolution.
So, as this country approaches its 250th anniversary on July 4, I want to look at a few places that are familiar – yet, maybe not so familiar to the readers. Why not start with the place I called my work home for 41 years – the Broome County Public Library. The current library building opened at 185 Court Street in Binghamton in November 2000, in a building of about 72,000 square feet in space. But the history of that site and that building tells a much more interesting story.
The site of the library began as the site of two houses on Court Street and several homes on Pine Street. Those on Court Street were impressive homes. Next to the Sherman Phelps mansion that was designed by prominent architect Isaac Perry, Perry designed an impressive, similar home for William McKinney in 1870. McKinney was a wholesale grocer with a facility adjacent to the railroad tracks.
The other home originally was built by local attorney Ausburn Birdsall. He was a district attorney and a member of the House of Representatives from 1847 to 1849. He sold the home in the 1890s to Charles Knapp.
Knapp and his brother operated the bank in the Village of Deposit. There were some unscrupulous financial dealings and the bank failed suddenly, leaving many of the depositors with no recourse. Knapp was later convicted of several charges. The home was sold and became a USO facility during the 1930s.
It was in that decade that the parcels holding these two large and impressive homes faced the end of their existence. In 1937, the Giant supermarket purchased the homes with the plans to build a new and larger supermarket from their original store directly across Court Street. A 1937 Binghamton Press article mentions the loss of the McKinney home being demolished for a parking lot.
The Birdsall home would be used for the expansion of the grocery store. It too fell by the wayside. By the 1990s, even the supermarket underwent an extensive remodeling with more commercial space added to the lot and filled with the like of Commercial Art Supply and other stores in addition to the grocery store.
But like all things that people think are forever, it once again revolved. A decision was made to close the supermarket by the late 1990s. At the same time, the Broome County Public Library and the Broome County government officials were looking at a site for the possible construction of a new public library to replace the then-current library at 78 Exchange Street.
After years of work, two sites became the focus of the search. The 185 Court Street site was one, while the other was the conversion of MetroCourt into a library complex. Eventually, the 185 Court Street site was chosen.
One reason for that selection was that the concrete pad and structural steel used in the supermarket portion of the building could be reused at a savings of about $2 million. Eventually the new library building rose at a cost of $7.5 million, with the funds coming from a tobacco settlement received by Broome County. The $3 million interior work came from private funds raised by the Broome Library Foundation.
On that Monday in November, the new Broome County Public Library building opened to great fanfare. The new building was three times the size of the previous Carnegie library building and offered more computers, meeting rooms, and parking that were not available at the old library. Yet, few people were aware of the history of the homes on Court Street, and those that were demolished on Pine Street for the Reading Garden.
A shame, really, given the beauty and history of what once was and was now lost.
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Gerald Smith is executive director of the Tioga County Historical Society and a former Broome County historian. Email him at historysmiths@stny.rr.com.
This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: Broome County library was built on site of once-magnificent homes, grocery store | Spanning Time
Reporting by Gerald Smith, Special to the Press & Sun Bulletin / Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin
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