The Jewel

This post was written on May 28, 2016.

This week, one of Connellsville’s downtown landmarks, the WCVI building, was demolished. The city had been trying to take it down for years but had been stymied by budget and ownership issues, the exact nature of which is difficult to pin down. I started paying attention when the property was listed for sale on eBay with a starting bid of $2,000. There were no takers. Soon after that, the city barred pedestrians from the sidewalk in front of the building, which was actively--aggressively, dangerously--deteriorating. Brick and stone were in free-fall. The building’s days had been numbered for years. When the first pictures of the demo went up on Facebook this week, a few mourned, but most were realistic: the building was too far gone to go anywhere but down.

We were among the mourners.

Though I grew up there, Andrew and I don’t live in Connellsville now, and have no plans to live there in the future. Still, a lot of our dream-spinning revolves around buying and restoring some of the once-splendid properties that now blight the town--the decrepit brick mansions that still have turrets and stained-glass windows and wraparound porches, despite having been split into apartments decades ago. These places are a mess. Their history and architectural details--what remain of them--aren’t enough to justify the amount of work needed to restore them to their former glory. We visited a few of these properties with a realtor last year, and twice the door of a property fell off its hinges when the realtor went to unlock it. Restoration at this level is absolutely, unquestionably beyond our capabilities. I can spray-paint the heck out of just about anything, and Andrew wields a mean power sander. We’d be in business if we could work a miracle with some gold Rustoleum. But these places? Even a renovation-crashing team from HGTV might reel back in alarm.

Still, when the WCVI building went up for auction, the wheels started turning. Andrew and I often don’t see the decrepitude in gorgeous old properties. It’s what makes us terrible homebuyers. You see a moneypit, we see original hardwood and leaded glass. We see charm, history, brick, fancy moldings, and heavy front doors. We’re enamoured with the idea of restoration, and we love Connellsville and its storied past. That word right there--that’s it. The stories. These old buildings are hazards to human health and safety, but we see beyond all that, to the stories in their walls. 

Or what remains of the walls.

We talked for weeks about buying the WCVI building. We didn’t have a specific purpose in mind--it didn’t seem to need a purpose. It just had to go on existing. We admire some of the successful restorations that have slowly started improving Connellsville, and--again, despite living far away--feel pulled to be involved. What if we bought it and made it our project? We’d get the details right, save it from destruction, make it a gem of the downtown. What if we got a grant, learned to do the work ourselves, started our own real-estate empire that would bring in exactly no income but would yield so much personal satisfaction? The WCVI building had been empty for years, but it seemed full of promise. Vague, expensive, and, yes, moneypit promise. It seemed wrong to let it go, was the main thing. Seemed wrong to leave it for dead. Someone needed to swoop in, make the building structurally sound, restore its dignity. 

So much in Connellsville is changing for the better. Businesses are going in, and new apartments, even a hotel by the river. The bike trail is something to write home about. The town that Connellsville will be in five years, ten, is very different from the one I left at eighteen. But the old grandeur--the ghosts of its coal-baron past--is essential to its soul. The mansions along Pittsburgh Street, the stately landmarks like the Carnegie Library, the imposing churches clustered spire to spire--all of these are part of Connellsville’s unique topography, the kinds of places that rub up against the realities of unemployment, residential real estate blight, and drug abuse. These structures are reminders of Connellsville’s long-ago wealth and bluster. 

There were once more millionnaires per capita in Connellsville than anywhere else in the country. Now, twenty percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Still, Connellsville is changing, growing. Proud, lifelong residents are actively working to make it better. Millionnaires are probably never going to flock to Connellsville, but repeating history isn’t expected or required. What’s needed is a respect for the city’s history that begins with its spectacular buildings. Without these structures, Connellsville is just another nice enough small town, a bit shopworn but hopeful. This, for a town once called the “jewel of the Youghiogheny.” 

It’s too late for the WCVI building. We never actually took steps toward trying to purchase it, and, in the end, it came down as it probably had to. It was beyond hope, beyond repair. All the construction skill in the world couldn’t have saved it. And it’s sad, that a building once so beautiful could have reached that point, where even dreamers like us had to let it go.