Over time a leaking roof, a couple of fires and just “Father Time” began to wear down the building. In 1927 a fire heavily damaged the building and then in the 1950s a fire burned down two floors of the southern portion of the building at 24 Main St.
By the 1960s, the Arcade Building was truly showing signs of its age and was in serious decline There were only a few businesses still located there. Included in this group was Arcade Shoe Store, a dry cleaner, Triscari Tailor Shop, and the USAF Recruiter. And the roof began to leak.
In 1991, Timothy M. Fierle submitted as a portion of his master’s degree in architecture to the State College at Buffalo his thesis on the Arcade Building. That summer a group of forty local families purchased the building for $12,500 from David Rein with a goal to clean up and restore the building. The Waste Management Inc. donated two thirty cubic –yard dumpsters to the effort. As they went to work, some items were salvaged from the process to be added to other donations with a plan to hold a fund-raising sale. The Arts Council for Chautauqua was the owner on paper at this time.
This building with its incredible woodwork, cast iron columns and railings, a central atrium and an enormous skylight was a unique part of Jamestown’s architecture for decades. The group working on the cleanup and restoration were determined to bring it back to its former glory. They were able to put a new roof on as the old one had been leaking for years and severely damaged much of the interior and then the building sat again without progress.
In 2005 Phillip Delany, a photographer and artist, moved to Jamestown from Atlanta and decided to do a photo shoot of the Arcade. He was quite taken by the beauty that he saw, commenting on the peeling paint and the patina on the oak staircase that he saw. Working with local videographer, Tim Fagan, for nearly seven hours setting up shots and rearranging some of the “junk” that they found, he commented “Isn’t that beautiful?” Is this really art?” Fagan’s response was “This is the Art of Decay.”
On December 21, 2005, Donna Morse purchased the building from the Arts Council for $25,000. She viewed the building as the location where her dreams could come true. Ms. Morse was a retired educator and had always dreamed of opening an educational center. This would not just be a place to help students to attend routine classes. Her vison was of a a center where art programs would be offered, conversational Spanish taught and preparation for GED classes be provided on a flexible schedule among other classes. She brought her background in education to create this very ambitious plan for the Arcade. She planned to refurbish the ground level store fronts to provide financing for the project. Unfortunately, Ms. Morse’s plan did not come to fruition and again the building was left to deteriorate.
As recently as 2017 a news article appeared in the Post Journal that quotes a study made possible with funding of the Gebbie Foundation that stated that it would cost more than $16 million to bring the Arcade back to life. It was said that the three choices for the building were rehabilitation, stabilization, and demolition The general consensus was that the work required to rehabilitation would leave little to nothing of the original building. With the cost and the condition of the building, demolition seemed to be the only realistic choice. So ends the story of this marvelous architectural part of Jamestown.
