The House at 1034 Fourth Street

The scene on Friday night as the sun literally set on the rubble of 1034 Fourth Street

The view last November

One of the recurring themes on Loraine Ritchey's blog over the years has been the unsuccessful attempts by her and her neighbors to get the City of Lorain to do something about the nearby vacant, deteriorating house at 1034 Fourth Street.

With the house finally demolished last Friday, it was strange to see the difference in coverage by the two local newspapers.

The Chronicle Telegram led the way with a great article last Thursday by Evan Goodenow, which included the whole story of how Loraine had contacted each of the city administrations since 1976 trying to get something done. But The Morning Journal's front page story on Saturday by Richard Payerchin had no mention of Loraine at all.

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I was curious about the original owners of the house, so I checked the city directories at the library. Amazingly, the house had been in the same family for more than a hundred and ten years at least.

The 1903 city directory (the earliest available edition with residents listed) had Frank and Louisa Gow at 234 Duane Street. Mr. Gow was employed as an electrician at National Tube.

Duane Street later was renamed Fourth Street as part of Lorain's street renaming plan. Numerical addresses were also adjusted, so consequently 234 was renumbered as 1034.

Anyway, as much as I usually don't like to see old things torn down, it looked like this one had to go.