The Push for a New Lorain City Hall - Feb. 1969

Fifty years ago in February 1969, Lorain was trying to decide whether to build a new City Hall. And if so – where?

The aging yellow house that served as Lorain City Hall was literally falling apart.

So WUAB-TV Channel 43 – which was based in Lorain back then – took the lead in promoting the need for a new building. It sponsored a special Open House at City Hall in which citizens were invited to tour the structure and voice their opinions before the WUAB-TV cameras and microphones.

Above is the full-page ad announcing the event that ran in the Journal on Feb. 21, 1969, a few days before the Sunday event.

To no one’s surprise, citizens were appalled at the condition of the building. The article below, which ran in the paper on Feb. 24, 1969 pretty much confirmed what everyone knew: the building needed to be replaced.

The old City Hall would finally meet with the wrecking ball in March 1974, which I wrote about here.
You can read about the building’s early history here, and see what it was like in the mid-1950s here.