This Old Hotel

Why did it take a News Crew to finally get an AHJ’s attention about an old and potentially dangerous Hotel?



It has been sitting along Pa Route 66 with the Kiski River in view and nearby the Westmoreland &Armstrong county lines for over 100 years the old all wooden Belvedere Hotel long closed and slowly decaying, yet some one still lives there using a wood stove and a single light bulb which always seems to be lighted in the down stairs. It is a spooky looking old place Steven King would love but if it had not been for all the attention a WPXI Channel 11 TV News team it very well could have become a death trap.
News Crews Notified the AHJ and Pennsylvania Dept of Transportation known as Penn Dot to the fact part of an upper floor fascia and gutters was working loose and creating a hanging hazard over the road and upon further investigation by means of an old picture found several posts along the long front porch the hotel has were missing.

 This Hotel has been in this condition for many years and ignored by the local community despite the fact numerous individuals including my self pointed out hazards of this old place. But now miraculously I drove by the other day and there are brand new Poles in place of the old ones on the porch and all the hanging hazards have been removed. Amazing what a little embarrassment of local officials does here in Pa. But it never should have taken this long.
A similar situation occurred and was finally rectified near Oil City Pa along Pa. Route 8
Where it took local citizens to place large posters on an old decaying building asking how long till it would be corrected. (I am being nice compared to what was on some of the posters) Now I know budgets are stretched when it comes to getting a building torn down but in the case in Oil City this particular building has been sitting abandoned since at least the 60’s when I was a young child passing it when my father took the family for a long Sunday afternoon drive .It was even a hazard then yet I have seen cases of blatant harassment of property owners for no good reason other than a neighbor is a busy body.
It appears too many officials are busy barking up the wrong tree or just not caring until it is too late an incident happens and some one is injured or dies and then the litigation begins .Of course officials of small towns do not care because Tariff laws in Pa limit damage awards against community’s to $500,000.00 per incident which many just let the insurance company handle it. Until a Local or state District Attorney has the fortitude to start criminally going after officials in these cases you can continue to see the bodies stack up in Pa.

 

Update. The Hotel burned to the ground around 2015