Behind the new windows

If you have been downtown in the past week you almost certainly noticed that there are changes being made to the old Oddfellows Building. On Thursday I got a chance to see what was going on behind the windows.

 The Oddfellows Building has three floors. The stairway from the second to the third floor has a landing and decorative finials; similar finials seem once to have graced the top of the stairs from the street to the second floor.

 At the top of the stairs is a hallway. On the northwest side workers are readying a large apartment. It will have a bathroom and utility space (washer and dryer plus storage) through the left doorway below and a kitchen through the right doorway. At present plans are to leave the large room that makes up most of the floor space undivided.

 Here is a different view of the large room, showing the windows that are at the back of the building. This apartment will not have much of a view.

 Coming out of the back apartment one again enters the hallway. The stairs are on the left and a hallway to one of the new front apartments is through the arch. If you look carefully you might see some of the old coat hooks. The front part of the building was once a meeting hall and people would hang their coats in this hallway. (A fire escape will be installed on a window at the end of this hallway.)

 The large room at the front of the building has been cut into two apartments that are mirror images of each other. An enclosure has been made for the bathroom and utility room, and the top of this enclosure will be a loft reached by the new stairs. When completed, there will be railings on the loft and stairs. Through the door you can see into the back apartment where the carpenters were eating lunch.

 The center bay windows will not be divided between apartments. Rather they will be shared. The little alcove will have entrances from both apartments.

 The view from these windows is spectacular and a little unnerving for anyone with a touch of acrophobia.

Passing through the alcove, one can enter the second apartment. Below you can see the view looking toward the street.

Though things are still in a very unfinished state, it is easy to see that these will be wonderful apartments for those who want a view and a big open space and who do not mind two flights of stairs.

The owner is trying to restore the front of the building to its original appearance but only has old and indistinct pictures from which to work. If anyone has any color pictures of what the building looked like before the siding was put on, he would like to see them, though he suspects the siding may have been installed in the 1950s when most photography was black and white.

Odds and Ends, September 16, 2014

On Sunday the Friends of the Library sponsored a free music program at the Rensselaer Library. What was supposed to be the Hip Harp Trio became the Hip Harp Duo because one of the members of the trio could not make it.

 The two played a wide variety of music. The harpist teaches music at one of the Indianapolis high schools, and when she was younger spent a year as a musician on a cruise ship, an experience she seemed not to ever want to repeat. There was a respectable turnout for the performance of between 40 and 50 people.

Before I left town a few days ago, someone asked me what the big roll of tubing near the intersection of College and Grace was for. I still do not know.

 At SJC a new entrance to Raleigh Hall is almost finished.

 The city is still working on storm sewer connections on the intersection of Scott and Vine. At the substation on North Melville, workers from NIPSCO were connecting wires. The very long utility pole that I noticed more than a week ago really is quite a bit taller than its neighbors.

 We are headed for fall--or maybe we are already in fall. Some of the corn is almost mature.

I noticed a large preying mantis in my garden. He was wondering what I was doing when I pushed my camera in his face.

It is still over a month until Halloween, but on the east side of Rensselaer one house has decorations out.

Odds and Ends for Labor Day 2014

The mosquitoes in my back yard are horrible--they swarm me when I go outside. Are they as bad everywhere in Rensselaer, or is my backyard unusually bad?

There are lots of little things happening. The scaffolding on the bell tower at SJC is gone. Fair Oaks Farms is working on a water feature, has started erecting steel for the Pork Education Center, and is finishing up their bakery and market. South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority will be working with Newton County to help them promote tourism. MacAllister Equipment has not yet started moving dirt. I saw corn being harvested on Bunkum Road--I think it was seed corn because the field is owned by one of the seed corn companies. Despite the heat, we know that summer is fading away because twilight arrives a lot earlier now than it did a month ago.

There are some changes downtown. The small building between H&R Block and the beauty salon is being refurbished. I saw the people who were working on it and asked what they were doing. It will be a beauty salon that is presently in the office building south of the old Hoover House. That building is for sale by the owner. Since the only beauty salon on the sign board is Short Cuts by Kim, I assume that is the business that is moving.

 Down the block, the carpeting and flooring are finished in the new Rensselaer branch of Demotte Carpet.

 Further down Washington, the office of First Source Asset Advisors is now empty. Ms Beier has moved to 5/3 Bank. The information on the reception desk hints that 1st Source may be trying to find a replacement. When I deposited a check last week at 5/3, I noted a big beam down the center of the office. I asked and was told it was not remodeling but repair--they have had some roof problems.

At the intersection of Grace and College, the Fase-Kaluf building looks much better with its new exterior.

Across the street GRG Auto Repair has been repainted.

GRG Auto Repair is in an building originally built as a gas station. The Marathon Station by the railroad had a customer appreciation day a week ago and lowered gas prices about 15 cents. They were very busy, pumping almost 3000 gallons of gas in three hours.

The Taco Bell by the Interstate now looks like a Taco Bell. The building looks finished but the parking lot needs an inch or two of asphalt. Its opening will be a bit later than the planned August opening, but it should be very soon.

The RCHS Building Trades class has been finishing the house on Vine Street that was not finished last semester.

And on Scott Street south of Harrison, work has started for this year's Building Trade House. The School Corporation owns two adjacent lots there.

Do you read the City of Rensselaer Municipal Power News? The last issue, Vo 20 Issue 2, had a summary of new and proposed regulations from the EPA. After describing the proposed standards for new power plants, the column concluded, " Since carbon capture and sequestration has not been adequately demonstrated on a commercial scale, implementing the technology is cost prohibitive, effectively eliminating a utility's ability to construct future coal-fired generating units." My guess is that the EPA sees that as a feature, not a bug.

New things

The Taco Bell restaurant under construction by I-65 now looks like a Taco Bell. The store is much further along than it was when I last visited about a month ago.

 This blog has posted several times about a proposed MacAllister Building just east of the airport. It has been mentioned a few times in county meetings, and the project has had some delays because of FAA regulations. The company had a display at the County Fair with a drawing of the proposed building.

 I learned that all the MacAllister locations are owned by the MacAllister Corporations--there are no locally-owned dealerships of franchises. The owner, named MacAllister, lives in the Indianapolis area.

I drove past the site of a new dairy supply at the intersection of SR 14 and SR 49 on Wednesday and construction has not begun, though there are lots of flags in the field. I was on my way to pick blueberries, which have had a very good crop this year. While there, I saw a long, empty coal train on the way west and a crop duster plane. If you have been paying attention to the airport, you know that the crop dusters are in for their annual visit.

The staff at the pool was as surprised as I was to see a new diving board installed today.

Construction update Taco Bell

The walls are up at what will be a Taco Bell restaurant near the Interstate.