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Take CFL bulbs to be recycled
The new CFL light bulbs will save you money on your energy bill. However, like all fluorescent bulbs, they contain a small amount of mercury.
Mercury is very toxic, so it is important that the bulbs don’t end up in landfills. Just drop them off at Lowe’s or Home Depot so they can be recycled.
CityVest efforts are recognized
When the Hotel Sterling was sold in 1982, nobody seemed to care about what happened. Later, the parking lot was sold by the new owner, creating an extra challenge. The buildings on the property went steadily downhill and sat for many years with no one, including local government bodies, doing anything about it.
In 2002, CityVest was the only entity that stepped forward to save the famous landmark. CityVest is a nonprofit organization formed to help develop and rehabilitate property in downtown Wilkes-Barre. It has been successful in its efforts. Its members are citizens who care about the city and filled the void when for many years no one was doing anything.
They have accomplished many goals at the Hotel Sterling property, including buying back the parking lot and cleaning the environmental waste from the buildings. CityVest would have been successful in developing the Sterling had the economy not gone south.
It is easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback, but we must give CityVest credit. Its members do not deserve to have their reputations tarnished when their sole purpose was to help improve Greater Wilkes-Barre and its residents.
Because of their work on the property, we believe it has a greater chance for ultimate success than if the buildings had continued to deteriorate.
Keep commitment to Sterling project
I was disappointed to read Kevin Blaum’s “In The Arena” column March 27. The controversy surrounding the Hotel Sterling is not about architecture, but it is all about maintaining the public trust.
The Hotel Sterling is not great architecture. It is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Hotel Sterling is merely a “contributing building” to the River Street Historic District. As a contributing building, it is representative of an era, in this case the decades before and after the turn of the 19th century into the 20th century – an important era in the history of Wilkes-Barre and the Wyoming Valley.
Times Leader columnist Tom Mooney got it right when he recently recounted the history of the Hotel Sterling. Its architect originally had designed an outdated red brick and stone trimmed “Second Empire Style” building, right out of the 1870s. But it was the 1890s. And to be up-to-date in the 1890s, one had to design a building more in keeping with the “White City Architecture” made popular by the Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893.
What Wilkes-Barre got was not a wonderful, progressive, forward-looking building, but a rather utilitarian limestone block. (When cleaned, the building will appear as it was when new, a buff/gray white). Lewis and Sgromo, in their 1983 book, described the Hotel Sterling as having an “awkwardly designed exterior, consisting of a thick (copper) cornice and a rough faced facade, (which) has become an integral part of Wilkes-Barre’s skyline.” In other words, “background architecture.”
But what makes this “background architecture” building so important? It is because it represents one of the most important periods in our region’s history. It was the dawn of the 20th century, that period of unfettered optimism that was to last until the Great Depression. It was a time when Wilkes-Barre and Luzerne County, due mainly to the coal industry, would see geometric growth. But it was growth that came with a very high environmental price, one we still live with today.
The preservation and renovation of the Hotel Sterling was never about great architecture. It isn’t Mount Vernon, Monticello or Fallingwater. It was about preservation of a remnant of a pivotal time in our history.
Now, as for the public trust portion of this controversy. I still believe today what I told The Times Leader for publication on Sept. 29, 2002: “I believe the people involved in CityVest have the long-term best interest of Wilkes-Barre in mind.” Indeed, with the initiation of my firm’s proposed “mothballing” project in early 2003, CityVest embarked on a process which, from an historic preservation point of view, was correct.
However, by September 2003, when CityVest began its relationship with Lincoln Property – when the “out-of-town experts” supplanted local professionals – the fate of the historic portions of the Hotel Sterling was sealed.
Lincoln Property led CityVest on the path of finding a potential developer via an architectural competition. This competition was a positive step, and I do not intend to criticize it. The competition was well run and resulted in three respected, nationally known architectural firms being “short-listed.”
These three firms were hired and paid a very modest sum to create designs for a restored and revitalized Hotel Sterling complex with modern additions. While I might not agree with the selection of the “winning” firm, it was a positive and unique selection process for architecture in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Unfortunately, Lincoln Property’s advice was one-tracked. The correct advice should have been to follow a dual track of the architectural competition and mothballing. If this advice had been followed, the remaining portion of the Hotel Sterling complex would not be in its state of disrepair.
The civic leaders who sit on CityVest’s board seemingly have broken their public trust by ignoring sound advice and following what appears to be bad advice. But they have an obligation to make their decision on the fate of the Hotel Sterling in the light of informed public debate.
Like many others in our community, I look forward to the report on the current condition of the hotel. Having not been inside in eight years, I cannot comment on its condition, but it is my opinion that its problems need not be fatal. Unlike humans, buildings on “life support” can be restored; it’s only a matter of budget and vision.
Stop the waste, curb the spending
The trials are over and now it’s time to see what our fabulous Luzerne County commissioners were doing while we were focused elsewhere.
We shelled out millions on a building that probably is worth thousands … and on and on. When are the leaders going to realize we don’t need all this waste of money.
Just like the nitwits in Washington: spend, spend, spend.
Look, the pockets of the people are empty; there is no more. Stop all of the programs that are a waste.
I wonder if they run their households the same way.
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