Photos by Tom Rivers

BARRE – A caravan of vehicles helped move a 222,500-pound load from Graham Manufacturing in Batavia this morning to the Erie Canal in Albion.

The top photo shows utility workers raising wires high to give the load its needed clearance.

The slow-moving caravan of vehicles slowed down traffic as it made its way north on Route 98.

It then turned left and went west on Route 31A, before turning right and going north on Gaines Basin Road, until making a final right hand turn on Albion-Eagle Harbor Road.

The load is a 195,500-pound condenser made by Graham. The cradle for the condenser weighed an additional 27,000 pounds, for a 222,500-pound total.

A group of bucket trucks are ready to raise wires for the load as its moves north on Gaines basin Road near the intersection with Countyhouse Road.

This is at least the fourth condenser made by Graham that was taken to the Erie Canal for transport. Previous condensers headed east to its final destination at the Navy.

Previous trips went to Albany, then down the Hudson River to New York Harbor. From there the condensers went on an ocean-going-barge for the trip to the Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut.

Massive cranes are in place to move the condenser to a barge. The barge wasn’t there to take the condenser by early this afternoon.

The load is close to the Erie Canal, just west of the boat launch on Albion-Eagle Harbor Road.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – The historic Pratt Theater on the third floor of the Pratt building in downtown Albion hosting a concert with several bands on Sunday afternoon. This photo shows Karen Conn and her daughter Shannon Vanderlaan singing “Rhiannon.” They are part of the Pratt Pit Band that performed 10 songs on Sunday.

Conn is an Albion music teacher while Vanderlaan teaches music in the Rochester City School District.

The concert also included performances by Black Sheep, Eclipse, Frequency Theory and the Greater Royal Praise and Worship Team.

Don Mancuso, a legendary guitar player in the Rochester music scene, performed with the Pratt Pit Band and later with Black Sheep, which was without its star singer, Lou Gramm, because he is on tour.

Black Sheep with Gramm previously performed at the Pratt Theater in June 2024. On Sunday, Garrett Crumb, a lead singer with “Johnny Smoke,” filled in as lead singer for Black Sheep.

That band includes Michael Bonafede of Albion as drummer. Black Sheep last year was inducted into the Rochester Music Hall of Fame.

Michael Bonafede and his wife Judith Koehler worked about 20 years to restore the Pratt Theater to again host concerts and community events.

They recently sold their three downtown buildings, including the Pratt, to Taylor McCabe and Sara Barbur.

Bonafede will continue to promote concerts and events at the theater. The Pratt building was originally built in 1882.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Ian Mackay heads west in a mouth-controlled power wheelchair on Sunday at about 4:30 p.m. He is near the Main Street lift bridge in Albion, with the Lockstone building behind him.

He is joined on a bicycle by Dr. Josh Blausten, Mackay’s college chemistry professor from Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz, California. One of Mackay’s friends since college, Jimmy Quenelle, also has been on the 10-day journey from Albany to Buffalo.

Mackay is executive director of Ian’s Ride. He also works as an accessibility consultant to Apple. He is traveling about 350 miles along the Erie Canal towpath.

The group heads west along the canal towpath. Mackay can go 8 miles per hour in the motorized chair. His lithium batteries can go about 80 to 90 miles before needing to be charged.

Mackay was paralyzed from the neck down after a bike accident in 2008 when he collided with a tree and suffered a spinal cord injury. He has become a strong advocate for accessibility in the outdoors, and has done several long distance trail rides including in Washington State; from Washington DC to Columbus, Ohio; and the annual Sea to Sound ride for 74 miles over three days. That ride before Labor Day weekend had 150 participants including 50 people in wheelchairs.

Mackay also holds Guinness World Record for traveling the farthest in a motorized, mouth-controlled wheelchair in one day. From June 21-22 in 2022, he went 184.4 miles in 24 hours. He took 14 laps over a 13-mile paved loop at Sauvie Island near Portland, Oregon.

The record-breaking feat is featured in an upcoming documentary, “Good Moment.” It has its world premiere on Oct. 11 at the SOHO International Film Festival in New York City.

Albion Mayor Tim McMurray greets Ian Mackay when he was in Albion on Sunday. Mackay said every part of the towpath has been accessible to him so far from Albany to Albion.

Mackay said he has enjoyed the journey along the canal towpath and seeing so many small towns and so much wildlife. He said the crusher-run towpath is prefereable to asphalt paths.

“It’s been incredibly beautiful,” Mackay said. “You’re seeing great blue herons. We even saw a muskrat run by.”

He has seen locks and lift bridges in action, and learned about the canal history’s. The Erie Canal celebrated its bicentennial last year.

“It’s neat seeing the whole experience of the Erie Canal,” Mackay said.

Mackay is from Washington state. During his ride on Sunday afternoon he checked score update for his favorite team the Seattle Seahawks, which lost a close one, 33-31, to the Washington Commanders. He also kept a close eye on the Buffalo Bills score. The Bills came back to win, 24-16, versus the Los Angeles Chargers.

Photos courtesy of Teena Woodward, Ian Mackay’s mother: The trio made it to Bates Road in Medina last evening. They plan to start later this morning around 10:30 for the final segment of Ian’s Ride along the canal to Buffalo.

Ian Mackay has long hair and his friends held it up to form a Y while in Clyde.

Justin Suarez of Aerosol Kingdom finishes third project in Albion

Photo courtesy of Justin Suarez

ALBION – Justin Suarez of Aerosol Kingdom finished his third large-scale mural in Albion today. The northside side of the Lockstone at 160 North Main St. now features a pollinators’ garden showing flowers, a bee, butterfly and a hummingbird.

Suarez used a state grant from the Cultivating Havens for the Arts through Regional Murals (CHARM) for the project.

Natasha Wasuck, co-owner of The Lockstone, said Suarez picked Albion for the project through the CHARM grant because he felt welcomed by the community with his previous projects here.

Suarez previously did a mural on the southside of the Lockstone in 2022, facing the Erie Canal. That one showed flowers.

In 2020, he painted a mural of the Santa School on the north side of 170 North Main St., the building for The Lake Country Pennysaver and Orleans Hub.

Photo by Tom Rivers: Justin Suarez of Rochester uses spray paint to create the large paintings. It took him about a week to paint the latest mural in Albion. The Lockstone is an event center that hosts many weddings.

The village zoning map shows the area in green between Washington and West State streets that is currently zoned for Mobile Home Park. It would need to be changed to R-C (Residential/Offices/Limited Business) to allow for a housing project across from the boiler house of the Albion Correctional Facility.

ALBION – The Orleans County Planning Board is recommending the Village of Albion approve a zoning change to allow for the housing project at west end of Washington Street and West State Street.

The zoning for the land in the late 1990s was changed to a “Mobile Home Park” classification to allow for manufactured homes, but that project by the late Richard DeCarlo Sr. didn’t happen. The site at the west end of West State Street and Washington streets has remained vacant since. The land is across from the boiler house of the Albion Correctional Facility.

The vacant land formerly was used a horse racing track and the fairgrounds in Albion. CDS Monarch is eyeing the site for a 70-unit housing project in Albion. It wants the zoning to be changed to R-C Residential/Offices/Limited Businesses, which allows a mix of residential, offices and limited business uses in transitional areas between residential and commercial areas.

Richard DeCarlo Jr., president of Albion Mobile Home Inc., is requesting the village to rezone this property at 470 Washington St.

CDS Monarch sees demand for housing in Albion and Orleans County. The company wants to develop 13.5 acres into housing with one building having 30 units, and then five other 8-plex apartment buildings, Planning Board member Chris Kinter said during the board’s meeting on Thursday. Kinter is the village’s code enforcement officer.

The site is on flat land and is shovel ready for development, Kinter said. There is also room on the site to do more development in the future if there is a demand, he said.

If the zoning change is approved by the village, CDS Monarch will then present a site plan for the project, where the public and village officials can share their viewpoints.

ARG Disposal & Transfer has its business from 366 Washington St. and has voiced concerns that the housing project may not be the best fit for that area which also includes the village’s DPW facility and the Albion Correctional Facility. Their attorney has suggested the zoning instead be changed to light industrial.

Tim Elliott, a member of the County Planning Board from Ridgeway, during Thursday’s meeting also said he could foresee there will be conflict putting housing in an area with so many other uses.

Another Planning Board member, Dan Strong of Carlton, says the developer would upgrade the property, and bring needed housing and tax revenue for the community.

“The developer is taking the chance he can fill it,” Strong said.

Michael Bonafede, Judith Koehler praised for work reviving historic complex

Photos by Tom Rivers: The historic Pratt and Day buildings, plus a stone building in back, have many tenants in downtown Albion. When Michael Bonafede and Judith Koehler acquired the Day and Pratt buildings about 20 years ago, there was only one paying tenant at $50 a month. Now the Pratt Event Center, at 114-120 North Main St., has several tenants offering an array of services and merchandise.

ALBION – Twenty years ago the fate of the Pratt Opera House and the neighboring Day and Day Building looked grim. The old opera house had a stage thick with pigeon poop and bird carcasses. It hadn’t hosted an event in about 70 years.

The roof was shot and windows were missing. The entire complex was mostly vacant. There were only two tenants – David Gates, who ran a martial arts studio on the second floor, was a paying tenant at $50 a month, and McDonald’s paid $25 a month for storage space.

Michael Bonafede and Judith Koehler saw potential in the historic buildings, and they weren’t afraid of the hard work to get there. They were strongly urged by Albion’s mayor at the time, Ed Salvatore, to take on the challenge of reviving the site, with Salvatore seeing the opera house as a cultural destination and a drawing card for the downtown.

The couple has met their goal of bringing many tenants to the downtown and securing a certificate of occupancy for the theater. They have passed the reins to new owners, Taylor McCabe and Sara Barbur of Genesee County. McCabe is an electrical contractor with McCabe Enterprises in Pembroke while his partner, Barbur, works as a traveling registered nurse.

They have been friends with the Bonafede-Koehler family for many years. The new owners have deep respect for Bonafede and Koehler’s work with the historic structures in the downtown.

“It has been 20 years of toil to bring these buildings back,” McCabe said. “It went from near condemnation to a hub of the downtown. They basically saved the buildings.”

Sara Barbur and Taylor McCabe are shown with Michael Bonafede and Judith Koehler on the stage in the Pratt Theater, which opened as the Pratt Opera House in 1890. The stage was expanded in 1902, becoming the largest stage between Buffalo and Rochester for many years. The theater once sat 800 people and included a horseshoe-shaped balcony, orchestra pit and four surviving boxes. The theater has 300 seats today and will be hosting a concert on Sunday.

McCabe’s father, Barry McCabe, has been a long-time friend of Bonafede and Koehler. McCabe and Bonafede worked together fixing about 50 older homes in Rochester.

When Mike and Judy had a fire in their Albion home in 2010, Barry and his son Taylor were there in the middle of the night to repair the electric and get the power back on.

When Bonafede and Koehler bought the Pratt and Day & Day buildings, the electric in the building could have been considered a fire hazard. Barry McCabe put in new electric, doing it as a favor to his friends with his son Taylor helping over the years on some of the projects.

“We have crawled around so many cubbies of this building,” Taylor said.

Bonafede and Koehler say the buildings are in good hands with the new owners.

“They will do things different from us but their vision is aligned with ours,” Bonafede said.

Besides the Pratt and Day & Day sites, Barbur and McCabe acquired a historic stone building and a parking lot in back from Bonafede and Koehler. That stone building was owned by Mary Hollenbeck before Bonafede and Koehler bought it about a decade ago. It shares a common wall with the Pratt.

The “Stone Building” is behind the Pratt and Day & Day buildings, facing Liberty Street.

Argento’s Deli and Bakery, and the Furniture Room are among the tenants in the stone building that was originally built in 1840. It survived big fires close by in 1860 and 1880, Bonafede said.

The stone building also is used for storage. McCabe sees other potential in that building for loft apartments, or a green room because it is connected to the Pratt theater.

Although they are no longer the owners, Bonafede and Koehler were remain active helping to promote the sites, especially with concerts and entertainment in the theater. Bonafede was the drummer of the famed Black Sheep band, where Lou Gramm was lead singer before joining Foreigner. Gramm sang on the Pratt stage on June 23, 2024 in two reunion concerts with his Black Sheep band mates.

There will be another concert this Sunday starting at 4 p.m. with Black Sheep. Gramm won’t be available this time because he is on tour. Garrett Crumb, a lead singer with “Johnny Smoke,” will be singing with Black Sheep.

Other performers in the concert include The Pratt Pack Pit Band, Eclipse, Frequency Theory and The Royal Body Church Choir.

Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door, and are available at Argento’s Deli, Rise and Grind, The Downtown Browsery, Digital Ink Arts and Arnold’s Auto Parts, or online at www.prattmusic26eventbrite.com.

The tenants of the three sites now include the Downtown Browsery, Argento’s Deli & Bakery, The Furniture Room, Paranormal Response, Red Check Rustic, Albion Bible Baptist Church, Homestead Mending Company, Project U, Old Books at the New Bridge, a holistic health and healing business, studio space for D.J. Button, and a pottery business, the Maggie Potters.

“This is the most occupied space in downtown Albion,” Koehler said.

Sara Barbur and Taylor McCabe, new owners of three downtown buildings in Albion, see lots of potential in the district, and want to see the theater hosts many events for the community. They are shown in the historic Pratt Theater.

McCabe said owning the three historic sites is a good business opportunity, especially with the buildings now in good condition with many tenants. But he sees it as an outlet for community service. As McCabe Enterprises has got busier, McCabe said he has had less time for community initiatives.

He used to be president of the Lyndonville Tigers amateur football team, and McCabe often had the players out doing community cleanups, projects and fundraisers.

Barbur said owning the downtown buildings is “outside the daily grind” in her usual career. She embraces the challenge of bringing even more activity to the properties.

“Taylor is the dreamer, and I’m the more practical person,” Barbur said. “But this will be an adventure together.”

Lou Gramm gave a high-octane performance at the Pratt on June 23, 2024. He is shown singing one of seven Black Sheep songs with Michael Bonafede playing the drums and Alona Kuhns on bass. McCabe Enterprises, an electrical contractor, and Milton CAT brought in the equipment and installed an air conditioning system in the theater for the two shows.

When the Pratt was gearing up for the Black Sheep reunion concert on June 23, 2024, the area was gripped in a stifling heat wave with temps in the 90s. That was too hot for the third floor of the opera house. Bonafede was worried about the crowd and the performers in such a hot space.

He reached out to McCabe about bringing in air conditioning. McCabe was able to secure a generator from Milton CAT and bring in an enormous air conditioner and install the piping to keep the temps down to 72 degrees in an uninsulated theater. Bonafede could see McCabe’s commitment and ability to solve problems with that feat.

McCabe said working out the AC for the two concerts that day was exhilarating.

“I felt incredible,” he said, recalling those concerts in a cool theater. “We enjoyed being a part of that. It was a big milestone.”

Judith Koehler is shown given a tour of the GAR Room last year. This is a rare, historic Grand Army of the Republic meeting room at 116 North Main St. Civil War veterans from three local brigades gathered in this room from 1884 to 1930.

Bonafede and Koehler said some potential buyers have shown interest in the properties, but they didn’t feel like their vision matched Bonafede’s and Koehler’s. They are confident Barbur and McCabe are the right people to lead the properties.

“We see these buildings as a community,” Bonafede said about the three historic sites. “We want fair rents for the tenants and for them to be cooperative people, working together.”

McCabe and Barbur said their goal is to foster economic development for small businesses, while preserving the Pratt theater for performances and events, and also to continue to safeguard at the GAR Room on the third floor of the Day & Day Building.

“These are two sacred spaces with the Pratt and the GAR,” McCabe said. “They need to be cared for and preserved for the long-term.”

Michael Bonafede is shown in November 2022 with a mural in Beaver Alley with a Gold Medal Flour mural on the Pratt building. Bonafede had paint scraped off that summer from the brick wall when he saw remnants of the original Gold Medal Flour mural. He and his wife, Judith Koehler, decided to recreate the original mural from the early 1900s.

Charles Howard remains revered figure for Santas portrayers

Photos by Tom Rivers: This group recently visited Albion to help plan for the three-day celebration in August when several hundred Santas and other enthusiasts of the Charles W-Howard Santa School will be in town to celebrate the 90thanniversary of the Santa School. From left include DeAnn and Phil Wenz, the Santa Claus for Santa’s Village Theme Park in Dundee, Illinois for 35 years; Jane Holland, granddaughter of Charles Howard; and Chris Parada, a Santa portrayer at the Christmas Cottage in Lockport and general manager of the palace Theater in Lockport. Parada also has owns the New York Santa Claus Suits & Equipment Co., which makes Santa suits in the same style designed by Charles Howard.

ALBION – The Albion community may be doing some double-takes in August when 300 to 400 people, many resembling Santa Claus, are expected to be in town as part of a 90^th anniversary celebration for the Charles W. Howard Santa School.

Howard ran the school from 1937 with his last class in 1965. He passed away on May 1, 1966. The school continues in his name, now run by Tom and Holly Valent in Midland, Mich.

The chief organizers of the celebration were in Albion recently to identify sites and create itinerary for the visitors.

This photo shows Charles W. Howard with a Santa at Christmas Park in Albion. Howard operated the Park and a school for Santa Claus in Albion until his death on May 1, 1966.

The three-day celebration will be from Aug. 6-8. Most of the event will be based at the Palace Theater in Lockport, which has 1,100 seats and close access to hotels and lodging. The Palace is also run by Chris Parada, a graduate of the Charles W. Howard Santa School. Parada portrays Santa each Christmas season at Lockport, greeting about 10,000 children annually since 2010.

Parada is teaming up with Phil Wenz, who worked more than 35 years as a professional Santa, more than 200 days a year, at the Santa’s Village Theme Park in Dundee, Illinois. Wenz continues his passion as a historian for the Santa community, and holds a special reverence for Charles Howard and his impact on shaping how Santas should look and act.

Wenz commended the Albion community for embracing the life and lore of Howard, especially since a Santa convention in Albion in 2015. About 200 people attended that event.

Since then, there have been two large-scale murals celebrating Santa and Charles Howard, as well as a bronze statue of Howard as Santa. The State Department of Transportation also put up signs on Route 31 dedicating the section of 31 in Albion as the “Charles W. Howard Memorial Highway.”

Those are all must-see spots for the visitors, Wenz said. He also said Howard’s gravesite at Mount Albion Cemetery and the world’s largest apple pie tin at the 4-H Fairgrounds should be on the list. Howard led the effort to bake the world’s largest apple pie in 1929. That record would be broken, before being set again at the fair in 1977 with a 21,210-pound pie. That enormous pie tin is on display at the fairgrounds.

“This won’t just be Santa oriented,” Parada said about the August event. “It will be a celebration of the community and this area.”

Parada and Wenz will be debuting a theatrical performance that helps tell the story of Charles Howard and his impact, and how he went from being an apple farmer to the Macy’s Santa Claus. He was in the Thanksgiving Day parade from 1948 to 1965, appearing on national television.

Parada said he has already heard from people from Israel, Australia, Canada and many states who want to be part of the celebration and learn more about Howard’s life in Albion.

“This is like the Holy Grail to so many guys,” Parada said about Howard’s hometown. “We’re dealing with people from all over the United States.”

The gathering won’t be a Santa convention like Albion hosted in 2010 and 2015. There won’t be any courses taught on how to portray Santa.

Wenz and Parada said the event will focus on the 90 years of the Santa School, with an opportunity to learn more about Charles Howard and the Albion community.

They urge Albion and Orleans County to try to tie into the event with other promotions and activities to welcome the visitors.

The two also want to help with fundraisers for a museum and welcome center in the works for the Santa School. The Albion Betterment Committee is working on that project at 128 North Main St.

Parada praised the Betterment Committee for taking the lead on the museum and many other projects highlighting Charles Howard and the Santa School.

“It’s about believing in your community and your family,” Parada said. “That’s what Charles Howard was all about.”

Animal control officer says squirrels aren’t furiously stacking pine cones like a year ago

Harry Papponetti

ALBION – It was about a year ago when Harry Papponetti, Albion’s animal control officer for more than 30 years, made a grim prediction: the area would be facing a brutal winter.

Papponetti noticed squirrels were furiously stacking pine cones a year ago. The animals seemed to know something, he told the Village Board.

The board members smiled and chuckled at Papponetti, not quite taking him seriously back then.

But Papponetti proved right. The area fell into winter’s grip in early November and it didn’t let go for several months, as the area was bombarded with snow and then fell into a deep freeze in January and February.

During Wednesday’s Village Board meeting, with Papponetti now holding a reputation as a wise prognosticator, he was asked what he expects is in store this winter. Papponetti said he has been observing squirrels and they seem much more care-free this year. They aren’t so determined with their pine cone stacking and collecting of nuts.

Papponetti predicts a milder winter this go-round.

Photos by Tom Rivers: Students in Kamie Feder’s art class at the Albion Middle School have sketched out this mural design for the bathrooms at Veterans Park at the corner of Linwood Avenue and Brown Street. The mural will be 9 feet high and 36 feet long.

ALBION – The bathrooms at Veterans Park will soon have a patriotic painting on the outside. Students in Kamie Feder’s eighth-grade art classes plan to be on site working on the mural next Monday through Wednesday.

The Albion Village Board approved the project on Wednesday. Kamie Feder attended the meeting with two of her students, Eli Patten and Blair Daggett.

The mural shows a bald eagle, a silhouette of a soldier saluting, red poppy flowers, the American flag, and the message “Lest We Forget.”

Blair Daggett, an Albion eighth-grader, shows people at the Albion Village Board meeting a rendering of the mural planned for Veterans Park.

In recent years, Feder and her students worked on a flower-themed mural at the former bathrooms at Bullard Park and also revamped a canal-themed mural on the Albion fire hall.

“That turned out beautiful,” Mayor Tim McMurray said about the murals with all the colorful flowers. “I have no doubt this will turn out the same.”

The forecast shows warm and sunny days next week. Feder expects to be on site with students from Monday through Wednesday, from 8 a.m. to about 1:45 p.m. each day.

Photo by Tom Rivers: The Central Hall building at 34 East Park St. will soon be listed for sale by Woodroe Realty at a price is to be determined. The building is now vacant after the county historian’s office was moved to a spot next to Subway.

ALBION – The county will soon be putting a historic building in Courthouse Square up for sale. The County Legislature on Tuesday authorized Woodroe Realty to the list Central Hall for sale.

Woodroe was among six real estate businesses to submit proposals to the county for selling the building. Woodroe is accepting the smallest seller’s concession fee at 2 percent of the sales price.

The Legislature on Dec. 3, 2025 announced the county historian’s office and the Department of History’s artifacts would be moving to 2,000 square feet of space on the side of a plaza next to Subway.

The county’s Buildings and Grounds staff through the Department of Public Works has completed the move and renovations to the spot next to Subway.

Now that Central hall has been entirely vacated, the County legislature has declared the building as surplus and authorized it to be put up for sale.

The building used to include the County Treasurer’s Office but the treasurer moved to the former Bank of America site at 156 South Main St. in 2024. That is next to Subway.

The historian was working out of the top floor of Central Hall. County officials said the change to the site by Subway is a cost-cutting move that could save $90,000 to $110,000 a year in maintenance and other expenses once the building is sold.

The change also will make the historian’s office more accessible to the public, county officials said. The space is on the first floor and people won’t need to climb stairs to access the building.

Central Hall, a solid red-brick building, was a school from 1882 to 1934, and then was used as the post for the American Legion until the site was bought by the county in 1980.

The county has owned Central Hall the past 46 years. It was used by the treasurer until September 2024 and also previously was the offices for the Probation Department.

The county doesn’t have to pay a lease for the space for the historian’s office. The county approved the five-year agreement where it pays for the cost of utilities and to renovate the site.

The county also will plow the parking lot in the winter. The county already was plowing out the treasurer’s office and some of the spots in the lot that are used for the treasurer’s office.

The Legislature approved the lease with Nomax Albion, LLC, which is owned by Noah Michaels. He reached out to the county about leasing the space in exchange for plowing the parking lot for the plaza.