Blog: Dermot Cole
Samson's building bites the dust
Published Thursday, October 8, 2009
•At 10:11 a.m. today, the excavator ripped off the southeast corner of the old Samson Hardware building.
Within a half-hour, the front of the building was gone.
The excavator then climbed onto the debris and continued to deconstruct the place often described as a store where you could find anything.
The concrete block wall along the front and the sides of the building crumbled under the pressure of the excavator, exposing the innards of a Fairbanks landmark.
"The original building was of wood frame construction sheeted with corrugated iron, just like the other commercial buildings in the vicinity, and it stood, like them, on wooden piling," architect Janet Matheson wrote in a 1978 historic building survey.
"It also featured large storefront windows onto North Turner Street and smaller multi-paneled sash windows on the river side to the south. The building experienced considerable settlement over the years due to flood action and was eventually condemned by the city. A new masonry structure was therefore erected in 1970, following the configuration of the original building."
One of the last people inside the building discovered a pile of receipts from August 1939 written on the back of unused checks from the First National Bank of Fairbanks.
The records included a $27.66 sale to Frank Leach of the Circle Hot Springs Hotel, a $225.91 order for the Deadwood Mining Co., and a $1.10 purchase by the CCC.
I took some video of the takedown this morning:
•As expected, the EPA today declared Fairbanks a "nonattainment" area for dirt in the air. Fairbanks is one of 31 communities nationwide that received that designation today.
Juneau was removed from the nonattainment category. The EPA said the latest data shows improved air quality in the state capital.
The fine particles, known as PM 2.5, are about one-thirtieth the width of a human hair or smaller. They can lodge deep in the lungs and have been linked to numerous health problems.
Four areas in the Northwest were also listed for having dirty air— Franklin, Idaho; Klamath Falls, Ore.; Oakridge, Ore. and Tacoma. Wash.
Fairbanks and the other areas are supposed to develop plans by 2012 for cleaning up the air. For more, go to: http://www.epa.gov/pmdesignations/2006standards/regs.htm#4
This is an EPA fact sheet on the situation: http://www.epa.gov/pmdesignations/2006standards/documents/2009-10-08/factsheet.htm
This is the EPA press release: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/ee3e8db020a8b8ed85257649005b266c?OpenDocument
Gov. Sean Parnell named Rep. John Coghill today to the State Senate as a replacement for former Sen. Gene Therriault.
This makes my heart so sad! I wish Fairbanks was proactive in saving what's left of it's historical sites.
If this area has so many EPA violations and so unhealthy to live in why are the property assessments so high? Maybe we should all file a class action suit against the borough claiming they have inflated property values in an area where the EPA says it is so harmful to live in. Property in such a polluted area should not be worth very much. Afterall we have the Feds proving our case for us.
I totally agree "FreeDarfur", let me sell my lots and the house first, and then I'll help you with that battle...
As expected, the EPA today declared Fairbanks a "nonattainment" area for dirt in the air. Fairbanks is one of 31 communities nationwide that received that designation today.
Juneau was removed from the nonattainment category. The EPA said the latest data shows improved air quality in the state capital
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Maybe if the borough's idiot air quality "experts" would have installed more sensors that were located in areas that are more representative of the area being regulated instead of a single sensor downtown in the worst possible location....Fairbanks would have been removed from the list too.
These are the same folks that we are putting in charge in implementing a plan for the borough....should go well.
It's hard to control what dirt/dust blows in from the Gobi Desert or from the flats across the river. So let the EPA
tell us how to stop this action! I believe the EPA thinks of it's self a God, but that's the only one who controls the wind and all. Certainly not the EPA despite what they might think & say!
The EPA is more about control than cleaning the air. If we met every air quality standard they would make a new one for carbon dioxide or some other nonsense to justify their reason to exist.
it makes me sick. Whoever Vision Fairbanks is....well, they are morons.
It's called progress aframe. It's just a building, Samson's will live on. Name calling only makes you look bad.
FWIW aframe, Samson's is setting up shop again off Phillips Field Road, just past SBS. They're gettin' there, and we're all looking forward to it.
Thanks for taking video of this Dermot! I always like watching a demolition and I missed showing up for this one.
Corrupt politics!
I couldn't watch it. I just couldn't.
Fairbanks has become Anytown USA. If you took off any reference to the city from downtown and took 100 people there that had never been there, none would ever guess they were in the interior of the last frontier. They have destroyed everything that made this town unique. Theres absolutely nothing for the average family downtown other then a waiting parking ticket. What an absolute shame. You wanted to look just like everyone else and now you do. And tourists are not going to come here when their friends tell them what a waste of time it was. Change is the only constant and not always for the good......
Thank you, Mr. Cole, for posting the video. I was sad to see Samson Hardware close, and I'm worried that its new location near SBS will keep a tremendously useful local business from thriving. Fingers crossed.
Let me play devil's advocate for a minute and ask: How important was that building, really? Granted, the Samson building (or something very like it, before 1970) was in Fairbanks for a century. But, first, from 1970 on it was practically a *replica* of an original historical building, not the genuine article.
Second, a hundred years is nothing in the life of a city. If you take the long view, calling a hundred-year-old building "historic" because it's been here as long as our young town is as silly as calling a two-story raised ranch house in University West "historic" because it's been there since the neighborhood's inception. Our long history has barely begun.
Third (and I'm sorry if I hurt any feelings here), that building was ugly. Set aside the fact that Samson sold incredible hardware that's hard to find anywhere else -- imagine it was "Cletus's Liquor 'n' Porn Emporium", if it helps -- and just look at the building. It was an ugly brick rectangle whose only redeeming aesthetic features were cosmetic: a paint job and a giant clock. Was it good for Fairbanks? Undoubtedly! But it was because of the unusual merchandise and the splendid people inside, not the beautiful, enticing, "historic" building.
Please don't take this to mean I hate historical buildings or that I was glad to see Samson go. Neither is the case. I'm just saying, it wasn't beautiful, and it wasn't even that historical. To say (as some do) that downtown is dead because it's lost the raucous, pioneering flavor that it had back in [name your era], and abandoning all investment in it, is about as sensible as an eight-year-old deciding that life isn't worth living any longer because he flubbed his lines in the school play.
Yes, let's be sad that Samson has suffered a major "hiccup" in its life. Yes, let's be vigilant about the needless destruction of cultural and architectural treasures. But let's also move on. Let's ask, "What kind of city do we want in five hundred years?" -- then let's start building it.
Thank you Dermit for the video! I am glad I took pictures of the complete area when we did the Sept 2005 "Ernie Flag Dance" when we talked to you in the NM parking lot.
Ernie Dofoot Cocoa, Fl _ Keep the ink flowing!
well, with the IM program being terminated, the increased carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons may remove some of the particulates ... isn't that how it works?
Wow, Power! I'm impressed. One whole comment, on Dermot's blog, no less, without calling Dermot an obama-loving whitakercommunist!
Sad to see Samson's go. Glad to see them reopen, but we, as a community, need to stop tearing down our history.
If only liberals would stop burning fossile fuels and wood.
Now we get a full view of that "historic" Big-I bar. What a piece of - I guess we also get a full view of whatever that corrugated metal building is as well that was hidden by Sampsons. What an improvement!
I as well as alot of folks will miss the old samsons hardware,mad they got pushed off their home,the folks knew their business and then some,they took the time to talk and kid around,nothing like it in all of fairbanks or anywhere.
nothing to fancy,just a good ol hardware store with a hardware smell,man i wish they fought them boneheads,took them to court and won,don't mess with the hardware folks,bad enough they call alaskaland something else,still hoping for the better,that a woman or man can stop this foolishness of changing alaska to the lower 48,we are alaskans,get ready for the next stupid idea they come up with next,lord help us.
I shed a tear when I was going by. I can't beleave it's really gone.
The double wash tub that served as my bath for several years, the pressure cooked seal and weight, the string for my leather sewing needle.... just the enjoyment of looking at all the wonders of stuff you couldn't find anywhere else. I know they are opening a new store, but it won't be the same as before. Big sigh....
Sampson is about to re open.
Their new location is on Phillips Field Rd. East of Spinard Builders.
They have a sign up on their brown colored buildings.
I called their old phone number which is still working.
The person who answered said they will be opening soon 3 weeks maybe(???).
Nice location Easy access on/off the freeway.
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aframe
10/8/2009, 3:53 p.m.
it makes me sick. Whoever Vision Fairbanks is....well, they are morons.
Comment.. fyi..
According to Google [Luke Hopkins Fairbanks], Luke Hopkins is a supporter of "Vision Fairbanks" and used his assemblyman job to promote it cause to fatten pocket book of some downtown land lords using burro laws and taxpayer money.
The only "Vision" was that of $$$ bills dancing in their heads.
Nothing but a con job.
aframe and 1AkFox,
Vision Fairbanks had nothing to do with the demolition of Samson's. The Illinois Street Project is a state DOT project that's been under consideration for decades. It was just a matter of time before they got around to it. Here's the link: http://www.dot.state.ak.us/stwdplng/proj...
The only connection Vision Fairbanks had with this is that the very good planners hired to draft the very good plan were thorough enough to learn about the Illinois St. Project AHEAD OF TIME and smart enough to INCORPORATE IT IN THEIR PLAN. I think the traffic circle idea was part of their plan, suggested by local (Alaskan) traffic engineers, but it seems to have been shot down anyway by the FMATS Policy Committee.
Air quality test data is from 2005-2007. Outdoor wood/coal boilers didn"t have an influx in sales until 2008, but yet they are taking the heat. Not to mention 1/30 the size of a human hair is what is causing all the health concerns................. What about particles less then 2.5 ppm, what about .08 ppm? That size of particles must be dropping people like flies.........
Hey19, it's PM2.5, as in, Particulate Matter 2.5 microns or less in size. It is NOT parts per million!!!
PM2.5, then, includes PM0.8 or other smaller particles.
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