CUBA FRIENDS OF ARCHITECTURE
P. O. Box 274, Cuba, New York 14727
Newsletter Published Six Times a Year
July-August 2011 Editor: Carol Donovan
Palmer Opera House Update
Things are moving along. Folks who stopped in during Dairy Week were able to see what has been accomplished in the opera house so far. Contractors met to discuss the next steps and to gatherexpenditures to be submitted for the final draft of the Restore NY Grant.
Marshall Allen, with help from Mike McCaffery, Dave Halstead and Jeremy and Les Kameck has been busy putting in the wiring. One bay is done.
Barry Cummins tells us that they will be finishing the roof on the back addition and then will begin dry walling the opera house. Also on on his to do list is framing around the stairs and building an office. Barry says there should be work on the front windows soon.
Still need to go out for bids on heating and air conditioning. The original bid by the contractor we accepted turned out to be too low. He could not do the work for less than $30,000 more.
Joanne Farrell has come on board as our Design Tech. Joanne will present ideas for color schemes for the group to look over.
When asked what exactly will be finished with the money we have, my spirits were raised to hear that the eastern most bay will be finished with the oak stairway, bathrooms will be completed, the second floor playhouse will be dry walled with enclosed graffiti sites. The stage will be rebuilt. We still need to restore the decorative Victorian proscenium that will again surround the stage.
The elevator will have to wait.
Goings On In Cuba
By now you have heard the sad news about the destruction by fire of the historic St.JamesHotel. Some of us feel thefaçade could have been saved but because of the hazardous conditions of the gutted building, it was immediately demolished.
Would love to get your stories about the old St. James. I remember a Moonglow Party there after one of the hospital talent shows.
Around 1999 when Diane Resch owned the St. James, an old safe was moved and an 1865 Newspaper was found with the Headlines and story of the death of Abraham Lincoln. Don’t know what they did with it.
But Cuba is just abuzzin’ with good news.
There was also a fire in the Cubana Apartments on Hill Street but it appears work has begun to restore that building.
Carol Shaffer has begun her mural on the back of the Road
Runner Auto Supply Store. Fun to watch the progress. How about a picture of the St. James on the exposed brick wall of Doc’s Classic Cuts, after the St. James site is cleared?
Two new bridges have been put in place on the Green Way Trail. One crosses the rail road on Prospect Street and the other is about ½ mile up the trail from Bull Street.
The gazebo in GeneseePark will be replaced and the current gazebo will be dismantled and moved to a site on the Genesee Trail.
The old Bakery Bar on the corner of West Main and Orchard will be sold at a tax auction in August. Let’s hope something good comes of that.
New trees have been planted along South Street.
Architecture in Cuba
When I moved to Cuba the Police Station and “lock up” (jail) was situated at 30 East Main Street. Before that the building was a barber shop.
In 1986 Linda Beaver and Joanne Bunk purchased the building to set up a laboratory for microbiological analysis. They ran the B & B Laboratory untilJoanne passed away in 1975. Linda sold the lab to Life Science Lab in Syracuse but continues to run the business.
The structure was built around 1850. The wide banded cornice identifies it as a Greek Revival.
And Victor French, the actor, was not born in Cuba, to begin with.
Our Victor French, young Victor’s grandfather, came to Cubain 1892. He had a variety store in the Story Block building in 1900. He had four children. Trenwith (Ted), the second born travelled west and was a stuntman in the movies. His son, Victor,born in Santa Barbara and named after his grandfather also started out as a stuntman but his fame grew as an actor in westerns including Gunsmoke and Bonanza. He is well known as Mr. Edwards in Little House on the Prairie.
In 1987 Victor was seen in Cuba when he was doing a little genealogy research.
TheVictorianhouse his ancestors lived in is long gone. Now on the family home site, at 59 East Main St.there sits a modern or international style residence. The international style was so named because it seemed to have no identification to any specific region. For that and its lack of ornamentation it was criticized.
Local Lawyer James Ackerman brought his bride, Rosario,whom he met in the Philippines during his service in World War II, to Cuba. He purchased the French property, razed the old Victorian house and built this dwelling in a style that reminded Rosario of her home. After the Battle of Manila and the end of WWII in 1945, the city of Manilawas rebuilt with many structures in this simple modern style.
Now I ask you…..
French home?
Or Ackerman home?
Making It Happen
Art Students from CRCS donated 10 paintings done on antique windows to the CFA for auction during Dairy Week. The CFA sold five of the paintings for about $200. Thinking about having students paint scenes on chairs or flower pots next year.
Pie Social went well until the Dairy Week rain arrived. Will do that again next year.
Bass Tournament scheduled for July 16th has added two more sponsors to their list, Whitetail Sports World and GanderMountain. There are over $3,000 in prizes and give-a-ways for this tournament, including first prize totaling over $500 in fishing supplies and cash.
If you have never seen a fishing tournament, this professionally run event will be a treat. Come see how it is done. Moonwinks will be providing breakfast and the CFA will be selling hot dogs. Weigh in starts at 3:00.
And More
Marianne Micros is looking for information on Delia French who lived here a short time in 1852. According to Marianne, Delia wanted to prove that Shakespeare did not write his own plays. “Delia wrote in a letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson that it was very ‘dull’ in Cuba”. She was a short story writer and besides Emerson, she was a friend of Nathaniel Hawthorn.
Her sister, Julia lived here and married J.L. Woodruff. We do have a Woodruff Street, if that means anything.
A census check listed a blacksmith, German Woodruff in 1892 with wife Gertrude but that is the extent of my findings.
Excelsior Pulley Company. John Setchel writes that it was located in a brick building, at 17 Water Street, where Witherell’s Chevy Dealership was or where the current Outlet Store is.
The pulley company worked out of two brick buildings, one three stories high. The company went bankrupt about 1932 and eventually the three story building was torn down. Freeborn Equipment and Acme Electric used the remaining building at one time or another. The American Can Company ran their business there before the pulley company moved in.
I do not have a date on when the company started but it was running in 1916 when it was reported in the Buffalo Express that “The 40 men employed in the Excelsior Pulley company here (Cuba) were made idle for about two weeks due to the wrecking of the T40-horsepower gas engine yesterday. The damage to the engine exceeds $1,000.”
Wooden pulleys, made in that plant, can be seen at the Cuba Historical Society museum. The museum is open Fridays from 2-4.
The CFA will be sponsoring a fund raiser for Joe Grimaldi, owner of the St. James at the time of the fire. Joe did not have insurance and still has the expense of removing the debris from the demolished building. Call if you would like to help out.
Larry Dye donated to the CFA some pages from his mother’s scrapbook that included some programs forshows in the Keller Opera House. In 1917 everyone was asking, “Have You Seen Mabel?” with Dorothy Utter as Mabel. Miss Utter was also a Florodora Sextette in that year’s Minstrel Show.
Cuba Friends ofArchitecture is truly thankful for all contributions and welcomes stories about the PalmerBuilding and downtown Cuba.