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The final days of the Wiss begins today

By Howard B. Owens

Crews have spent the morning getting the demolition site ready for removing the former Wiss Hotel building from the corner of Main and Lake streets in Le Roy.

The first backhoe whack at a wall will take place sometime after lunch hour.

A supervisor for Empire Dismantlement Corp. said demolition starts at the back of the building and works toward the front. First order of business is to make room for dump trucks to park on the building site.

By Saturday, crews should be ready to take down the front facade. When they get to that point, Main Street will need to be closed for a time.

The building is being taken down "hot," meaning that any existing asbestos in the building has not been removed prior to demolition.

We've also learned that the iron awning that was on the west side of the building has been removed. The owners of the Smokin' Eagle (formerly the Eagle Hotel, and soon to be the last standing old hotel in the Village) plan to use it on their back entrance. Demolition crews will recover the chains that held it to the Wiss when demolition gets to that point.

UPDATE 4:36 p.m.: Had to leave Le Roy a little earlier than anticipated because of the situation at the middle school, but did snap a couple shots following the start of actual demolition.

Daniel Jones

It doesn't take to a political science degree to figure out that spending taxpayer dollars to tear down a building, when someone offers to buy it, is just bad government.

Apr 18, 2013, 12:58am Permalink
Daniel Jones

Why do we need village government in New York in the first place? Isn't it just another unnecessary layer of services and tax burden on the people who live there? In my view, villages should be totally independent of towns or not exist at all. We have a tendency to hold onto silly and outrageously expensive nuances for the sake of nostalgia.

Apr 18, 2013, 1:05am Permalink
Dave Olsen

We need village governments Dan because people have the right to be as close as possible to their elected representatives. I agree that villages should be independant from towns. What we need to be doing is wresting control and shrinking the government layers above. counties, State and Federal government are the problem. Many of the issues that make villages and towns look silly can be traced to some state or federal meddling law. BTW, I also agree that spending 150k or whatever it is to demolish a building that someone had offered to buy and had a plan to restore doesn't make much sense.

Apr 18, 2013, 8:58am Permalink

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