Lorain landmark demolished after Broadway fire

A Broadway landmark was reduced to a pile of bricks and steel beams by a wrecking crew Aug. 15.

An excavator equipped with a metal claw began knocking down the building at 700 Broadway, which became a structural hazard once fire gutted it Aug. 6.

The intersection of Broadway and West Seventh Street was blocked to car traffic and walkers, but several dozen people stood on both streets to watch the action on the building, which also was known as the Thistle Block or the Thistle Building. The excavator claw ripped into the building starting just after 1:30 p.m.

>>PHOTOS: Demo begins on 700 Broadway

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“It’s devastating,” said Marco Calo, 35, a resident who lost many personal belongings in the fire.

Calo said his losses included copies of his resume and paperwork for scheduled job interviews, leaving him without directions for finding work.

Using his cell phone, Calo streamed the demolition live via Facebook, communicating with family and friends.

“Have faith, everything happens for a reason,” he read aloud. “Yeah, it’s true.”

Calo lived at the building for two years, but was at his girlfriend’s residence when the fire broke out. Now he is staying with her in Elyria.

The building exterior looked good, but the inside needed a lot of work, Calo said.

>>VIDEO: 700 Broadway blaze Aug. 6

It was meant to be a sober living environment, but never fully developed that residence, he said.

Calo added he found the apartment listing online and moved in, but he was not dealing with drug or alcohol issues.

“I can’t believe this: They’re in my room now,” he said as the metal claw chewed through the bricks. “Now they’re in my room. Awww, man.”

The demolition was one of many logged in photographs by Roger Brownson, a retired Lorain High School guidance counselor who now runs the “Lorain, Ohio, by Photos” page on Facebook.

Brownson said he has documented numerous buildings coming down in the city, including the former Lorain and Admiral King high schools and elementary schools.

He said he visited the building, when it was Harry’s Men’s Wear, but was not inside in recent years.

Watching the demolition was the conclusion of a brief involvement of Pat Salkiewicz, a Lorain native who was one of the people who called the Lorain Fire Department to report the building was ablaze.

After spending time at Jackalope Lakeside, Salkiewicz and his wife were traveling down Broadway early Aug. 6 when they saw the building on fire.

The couple saw a female resident at the window, so they talked to her to keep her from going deeper into the building, he said.

As they awaited firefighters, Salkiewicz said he considered driving his Toyota SUV up to the building to create a platform for the woman to jump onto. That action was not needed, he said.

Firefighters arrived in minutes, but the flames spread just as quickly, said Salkiewicz, who had multiple pictures and videos of the event on his cell phone.

It was amazing to watch firefighters spray hundreds of gallons of water on the building, with seemingly little effect at first as the blaze grew, he said.

“Three, four, five minutes, it was all just, whoosh,” he said, throwing his hands up as he described the flames. “It’s minutes, how fast it went.”

The building and land were valued at $169,210, according to auditor’s records, but there was no construction date listed for the building.

Citing city directories from years past, Lorain historian Dan Brady found there was a Thistle Building at 676 Broadway as early as 1907, with a real estate company at 700 Broadway then.

That changed after the Great Tornado of 1924, Brady wrote, and by 1926, the 700 Broadway building was known as the Thistle Block.

Over the years, numerous businesses were located in the building, according to Brady’s findings published in his online blog, “Brady’s Lorain County Nostalgia.”

The Lorain Historical Society had some photographs of storefronts that occupied the building, but no records that indicated exactly when it was constructed, said Kaitlyn Goss Donaldson, collections supervisor.

“It’s a surprising mystery,” Donaldson said.

Work is expected to continue Aug. 16, although Broadway and West Seventh could reopen to car and foot traffic on that day.

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