Spark from grinder likely cause of blaze at Orleans Pallet

Photos by Tom Rivers – There is still a lot of smoke coming from the three-story Albion warehouse that was fully engulfed in flames soon after the fire broke out around 4 p.m. This photo was taken at 7:30 p.m. from Washington Street.

Firefighters continue to direct water on the smoldering rubble at Orleans Pallet at 227 West Ave. The Town of Batavia ladder truck, at right, is one of at least five ladder trucks that were brought in to help put out the fire.

ALBION – A massive fire that fully engulfed a three-story warehouse has likely been contained to that building, sparing neighboring structures, including Empire Coatings Inc.

“We’re out of the danger stage, and now we’re in the mop-up stage, which is going to take a long time,” Paul Wagner, the Orleans County emergency management coordinator, said at about 7:30 p.m.

By then the roof had collapsed at Orleans Pallet, a big structure along the railroad tracks at Hamilton Street and Route 31. After more than three hours of firefighting, the inside of the building was full of big piles of rubble that were still smoldering and giving off a lot of smoke.

“It’s going to be a real long night,” an Albion firefighter said.

The blaze started when workers were cutting pipe supports with a grinder, Wagner said. A spark ignited nearby debris at the south end of the building and the fire quickly spread.

“The workers grabbed a fire extinguisher but the fire was too far gone,” he said.

Police and firefighters are maintaining a perimeter about a half-mile from the fire at 227 West Ave.

This photo was taken from Hamilton Street near the railroad tracks.

ALBION – Demolition contractors are on site and working to knock down the warehouse that was engulfed in flames on Thursday.

The structure has been declared unsafe by Village Code Enforcement Officer Ron Vendetti. The Village Board called an emergency meeting at 9 a.m. today and supported the demolition of the Orleans Pallet structure at the corner of Hamilton Street and West Avenue.

Contractors, led by the Environmental Construction Group of Albion, are expected to work over the weekend to knock down the walls of the three-story warehouse.

Crews are starting in the northeast corner of the structure that seems the most compromised. They will push in the walls, trying to remove a public hazard.

Vendetti has shut down operations at part of Empire Coatings, a neighboring building, until the east wall is taken down. That wall, if left standing, could topple on a building owned by Empire Coatings.

Environmental Construction Group is being assisted with the project by Empire Wrecking of Rochester. Canaan Environmental of Spencerport is also on scene and will do air-monitoring tests during the knockdown.

Firefighters will also stay on scene and will spray water to reduce the spread on any air contaminants.

Crews will start the demolition with the back corner of the warehouse.

Photo by Tom Rivers – Firefighters linked hoses from several companies to direct water from the canal to the fire on Route 31 at Hamilton Street. This photo shows a fire hose on West Academy Street near the West Park Street intersection.

ALBION – I wondered what would happen if the village ran out of water trying to put out the massive fire today. I know we have a 3-million-gallon storage tank on routes 31A and 98 in Barre, and other smaller storage facilities.

But could that supply could get exhausted trying to put out the big fire? I asked one of the firefighters if that was a concern, running out of water, and he pointed to a long fire hose than ran to the Erie Canal. We don’t need to worry about running out of water.

Photos by Tom Rivers – Firefighters are using two ladder trucks to keep down embers and hot spots in the smoldering ruins of the Orleans Pallet at the corner of Hamilton Street and Route 31 in the village of Albion. These photos were taken at about noon.

ALBION – A massive Median sandstone warehouse, a landmark structure along Route 31 for more than a century, may not be standing by the end of the day.

Demolition contractors are mobilizing and expect to start knocking down the walls of the Orleans Pallet building this afternoon.

Contractors are expected to start on the east side of the building, next to Empire Coatings Inc. That business hasn’t been able to fully resume work operations today because of the unsteady sandstone wall next door.

Police Chief Roland Nenni said the village and contractors want the wall to be safely knocked in on the pile of debris as soon as possible so Empire can fully run its operations.

“They will take down enough of it to make it safe,” Nenni said at noon.

Environmental Construction Group in Albion is lead contractor for the demolition. A contractor from Rochester is helping with the project and is expected on site at about 1 p.m.

Orleans Pallet used site to rebuild wooden crates, pallets

ALBION – A massive blaze that engulfed an old warehouse full of wooden crates and pallets has firefighters worried about buildings next door, including Empire Coatings.

Orleans Pallet worked out of the site at the corner of Hamilton Street and Route 31. The building is a towering warehouse made of Medina sandstone in 1901. It was originally the Albion Cold Storage Company.

The building seemed sturdy two hours after the fire ripped through the site. But firefighters said Empire Coatings was very close by next door in a building with chemicals and volatile compounds. If the warehouse toppled to the side and landed on Empire Coatings, firefighters worried it would ignite a chemical explosion.

Empire Coatings owns the white building directly next to the warehouse on fire.

Haz-Mat teams were on scene. Residents and onlookers, including reporters, were all directed to create at least a half-mile perimeter away from the fire in case of a chemical explosion.

The fire broke out at about 4 p.m. A huge plume of dark smoke could be seen as far away as Batavia and Spencerport. There were at least five ladder trucks on the scene at one point, although several were unmanned because of the intense heat from the blaze. A hose was mounted to the top of the ladders to try to douse and slow the fire.

Albion Police Chief Roland Nenni told Albion residents to keep their windows and doors closed, and he shut down the streets near the fire.

ALBION – Gun owners wondering how New York’s new gun control laws will effect them are welcome to attend a Monday public forum about the issue.

State Assemblyman Steve Hawley and his staff organized the event at the Albion Middle School from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Hawley will discuss the new law that was passed in January by the State Legislature and Gov. Cuomo.

Hawley opposed the law, and every Orleans County elected board at the village, town and county level has formally gone on the record against the new legislation.

Hawley will be joined at the forum by Orleans County District Attorney Joe Cardone, Orleans County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Tom Drennan, and Steve Alstead from SCOPE, the Shooter’s Committee on Political Education.

Photos by Tom Rivers – Vinny Navarra is pictured inside Main Street Liquor and Wine Discount Store with his daughter Maria Dysard, the business’s manager. The liquor store opened on Monday at 20 North Main St. in Albion.

ALBION – Vinny Navarra and his family have opened a wine and liquor store at 20 North Main St., in a building where Navarra also runs a gym and has space for more tenants.

Main Street Liquor and Wine Discount Store opened on Monday. Navarra’s daughter Maria Dysard is the store manager.

“I like to support the community,” Navarra said at the site today. “We like the people in the village and the county. That’s why we opened the businesses.”

The new store is stocked with local wines – Leonard Oakes Estate Winery in Medina and Schwenk Wine Cellars in Kent – as well as other wines from New York and the United States. Other liquor products are also available.

Navarra has wanted to open a liquor store in the building for many years, including back when he ran Navarra’s Family Restaurant at the site. Back then he didn’t have the space. When he closed the restaurant, the space was quickly used up by Moss Codilis and Claims Recovery Financial Services. They then outgrew the space. CRFS is planning to move 750 employees into the former Chase site in Albion.

Navarra has been upgrading the building, installing an elevator to make 6,000 square feet of space attractive for a business in the upstairs.

Vinny Navarra brought his father’s old wine press into the liquor store. Giuseppe Navarra moved his family from Italy to Albion in 1966.

He and his family opened the Albion Fitness Center two years ago in the building. His daughter also has a business, Second Chances, in one of the suites. She restores primitive furniture and repaints it in that business. Some of her work is on display in the liqur store.

Now Dysard is also managing the liquor store that is open every day except Sunday.

“I didn’t want to see this sit empty,” Navarra said about the space. “And I always wanted to own a liquor store.”

Navarra bought the building in 1990 back when it was a vacant and rundown movie theater. He tried to renovate the building, but he said it was too far gone. He took it down and put up a modern building in 1992. He ran a restaurant in the space for about 18 years.

Navarra said the businesses have all been family projects. The new liquor store includes a wine press that was owned by his father, Giuseppe Navarra, who moved the family from Italy to Albion in 1966.

Navarra has opened the third new liquor store in Orleans County in the past four months. Julie Zimmerman opened Sixes and Sevens Spirits in June in Lyndonville.

Last month, Howard and Clara Lake opened Lakes Wines-N-Spirits on Park Avenue in Medina.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – The Orleans Transit Service and the Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority have installed a new bus shelter on Route 98 near the Route 31 intersection.

The new shelter is next to Rite Aid. It is the second one installed by OTS. The first one was added in the summer next to the County Administration on Route 31.

County and OTS officials are planning an Oct. 21 dedication for the new shelter.

“It’s a nice thing for the people who ride the bus,” said County Legislator Henry Smith, who represents the county on the RGRTA board of commissioners.

Photo by Tom Rivers – Ninandré Bogue is pictured in front of a 20-foot-long mural he created in honor of the quarrymen who worked in the Medina sandstone quarries.

ALBION – A mural honoring the workers from local Medina sandstone quarries went up in downtown Albion this morning.

The 20-foot-long painting is located in Waterman Park next to Conrad Cropsey’s building.

“There is an emotional connection with these guys,” said artist Ninandré Bogue of Lyndonville, who created the mural. “There are roots in this community where people are still connected with these workers.”

While Bogue installed the mural with help from the Albion DPW this morning, one quarryman descendant, Vinny Navarra, stopped by and gave the painting his endorsement.

The installation created a buzz on Main Street with some merchants walking over to check it out.

“It gives some eye candy to a place that is a little stale,” said Mike Barnard, owner of Albion TV and Computer. “It certainly can’t hurt.”

Barnard said he knows there are many old quarries around Albion, but he didn’t know the history, the thousands of immigrants who came to the Orleans County to work with the stone. The biggest groups of immigrant stonecutters and quarry workers came from Italy, Poland, Ireland and Britain.

“I knew we had some sandstone history, but I honestly didn’t know much about it,” Barnard said.

These workers use pry bars in a quarry scene created by Nin Bogue.

Bogue looked at photos of the workers and quarries from more than a century ago to try to get ideas for the mural. Most of those photos showed workers in a posed position, resting big sledgehammers on boulders.

He used a book in Italian, that showed workers in quarries in Italy, to see how many of the jobs were done. Bogue said the jobs were dangerous, and they required strength and skill. He noticed many of the workers in the historic photos appeared to be teen-agers, or even younger.

One worker holds a spike while the other hits it with a hammer. Bogue said the workers split the stone by creating a line of holes about a foot apart and 12 inches deep. Holding the spike was a dangerous job, costing many workers their fingers.

The Albion Rotary Club pushed for the mural and lined up the funding with money from the local club, the Rotary District and the Orleans County Tourism Department.

The Albion Department of Public Works provided in-kind services. The DPW built the support structure to attach the mural.

The village and Rotary Club considered attaching the painting to Cropsey’s building, but that wouldn’t have been a good fit with some loose mortar and vinyl siding. Other sites were considered, but the village and Rotary Club preferred Waterman Park.

That spot about a half block south of the Erie Canal is eyed for a quarryman memorial, including a bronze statue of one of the immigrant workers. That project is in the early stages and will likely take at least a $100,000 fund-raising effort from the community to become a reality.

Most of the old photos of the quarry workers show them posed with big sledgehammers by sandstone boulders.

Rotary wanted to highlight the community’s quarrying roots with the mural, while utilizing art for a community beautification project. I’m a member of the Rotary Club and have been working on this project.

I’m hopeful we can lay the groundwork for the statue and start the fund-raising campaign for that early next year. If we can get a good start on the fund-raising, I think we’d have a good chance for a matching state grant.

We could make a compelling case that the statue and a quarrymen heritage site would be a tourism draw, would be an attraction for canal users and would give the downtown business district a boost. We’ll keep chipping away at that project.

Right now, we should celebrate the mural, which utilizes the talents of a local artist while honoring the people who were instrumental in building Albion and the other villages and hamlets in Orleans County.

We’re planning a ribbon-cutting for the mural on Saturday at 10 a.m. That will also serve as a kick off for a shopping tour with many Albion businesses from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. That event includes a raffle and prizes.

Bogue puts the finishing touches on the mural, securing it to its Main Street location this morning.

Photo by Tom Rivers

ALBION – A 20-foot-long mural celebrating the immigrant quarry workers from more than a century ago is being installed this morning at Waterman Park in downtown Albion. (The photo only shows half of the mural.)

Artist Ninandré Bogue of Lyndonville created the mural, which was painted on two 10-foot-long panels. Bogue, left, is pictured with Jay Pahura from the Albion Department of Public Works.

The Albion Rotary Club took the lead on the project that includes funding from the local club, a matching grant from the Rotary District, and additional support from the Orleans County Tourism Department. The Albion DPW provided in-kind services by building the mount that will hold up the mural.

Orleans Hub will have more on the mural later today.

Photo by Tom Rivers – Megan Makarchuk, left, is a volunteer with the new Friendly Phones Program headed by Jim Morasco, right, of Catholic Charities.

ALBION – Twice a week at 8 p.m., Megan Makarchuk calls a senior citizen in Albion. Makarchuk asks the woman how her day went, how her family is doing, and looks for other highlights in her day.

The senior citizen then wants updates in Makarchuk’s life. The two have become friends.

“I look forward to calling her,” said Makarchuk, who works as a counselor at the Genesee-Orleans Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse. “She’s wonderful.”

Makarchuk is one of 12 volunteers in the “Friendly Phones Program” run by Catholic Charities. Volunteers agree to give seniors a phone call once or twice a week.

Twenty-five seniors have signed up, seeking a phone call from volunteers. The program needs more people willing to spend a few minutes on the phone.

Jim Morasco is manager of the program for Catholic Charities. Friendly Phones is targeted for Orleans County residents, 60 and older who live alone and want to keep an independent lifestyle. A phone call can help those residents stay connected to the community and decrease feelings of loneliness.

Many local seniors are widowed and their children may live outside the area, Morasco said.

“The number one thing is people say they are lonely,” he said.

Catholic Charities screens the volunteers, and also tries to match their interests with the seniors. Some of the callers have started home visits with the seniors.

Makarchuk is the youngest of the volunteers. Morasco said volunteers are welcome ages 18 and older.

Volunteers interested in the program should call Catholic Charities in Albion at (585) 589-7477.

ALBION – The village and the Orleans Economic Development Agency will seek a $750,000 state grant and low-interest loan package to aid the expansion by Claims Recovery Financial Services.

The village of Medina and the EDA pursued the funding last February, when CRFS announced it was expanding into the Olde Pickle Factory in Medina. The state in April approved Medina’s application for a Community Development Block Grant through the state’s Housing Trust Fund Corporation.

However, the money hasn’t been received by CRFS. And now the company is expanding again. It will move its Medina operation and its workforce in Albion to the former JPMorgan Chase site.

The company and EDA want to transfer the grant and loan to Albion. The village will have a pubic hearing on the revised application at 7 p.m. on Oct. 23. The hearing will be at the Village Hall, 35-37 East Bank St.

Mayor Dean Theodorakos said the application will be the same as in February, when the company sought a $367,500 grant and a $367,500 deferred loan. The other $15,000 goes to Harry Sicherman, a grant writer and consultant from Buffalo. He will prepare the application and will administer the funding.

CRFS employs nearly 600 people in Orleans County and is working to add 150 jobs as part of the expansion in the former Chase site. Theodorakos said more details about the application will be available at the public hearing.