D & C highlights Medina Sandstone Hall of Fame

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 11 December 2013 at 12:00 am

Photo by Tom Rivers – The Democrat & Chronicle today highlights the Medina Sandstone Society and its efforts to create a Hall of Fame. The newspaper includes a photo of the former Medina Armory, which is now the Orleans County YMCA.

MEDINA – The Medina Sandstone Society will induct its first class of honorees in the Sandstone Hall of Fame on Thursday. Already, the venture is getting some publicity locally and beyond.

Today, the Democrat and Chronicle features the Hall of Fame initiative and includes a photo of the former Medina Armory and the Sandstone Society President Bob Waters.

“Medina sandstone had it all,” D & C columnist Jim Memmott writes today. “Impressively fireproof, famously durable, pleasing to the eye, it was a go-to building material in most of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th.”

Orleans Hub, the Medina Journal-Register and The Daily News of Batavia all have published several stories about the Hall of Fame.

The publicity for the community was one of the goals for the initiative. The Sandstone Society wants to annually highlight some of the great structures locally, in the region and elsewhere that used the Medina stone.

The society hopes newspapers from the communities with the honorees will publish articles when sites are inducted in the Hall of Fame.

Waters, in an interview with Jim Memmott, said there is strong interest in the community’s sandstone heritage.

“All of a sudden, Medina has got a flair for rediscovering its history,” Waters told Memmott. “And it’s not just me; it’s the young folks who are all gung-ho.”

Thursday’s Hall of Fame ceremony will be from 4 to 6 p.m. at City Hall. The event is invitation only.