REBECCA ROGERS: The Realty Building is a major asset of Youngstown’s downtown

Dear editor,

I watched the conversation about the Realty Building yesterday with disbelief. A major asset of Youngstown’s downtown is its historic core of tall buildings, most designed by nationally famous men. Most are very, very, good looking. I would choose the Realty Building by Youngstown designers Edgar Stanley & Morris Sheibel and Central Tower by Sheibel alone as the two best looking.

The whole chorus of old, tall buildings are far more handsome than most buildings of any small city in the Midwest. And, these buildings are occupied. Further, the residents of the downtown buildings USE the services in the downtown.

I am pretty shocked that Tito asks that the problems of the Realty’s structure be “resolved” by July 5 when the City of Youngstown effectively closed the entire city for a year while the city tore up the streets from 2020 until last Fall (their project killed many downtown businesses).

Further, the Realty Building’s structural system, ca. 1930, was hugely overbuilt in a time when structural engineering for tall buildings was pretty much near its infancy. My local architect friends say that the quick judgment of the Cleveland firm was very wrong.

Because of the NATIONAL significance of the building, a PRESERVATION-friendly structural firm needs to address the re-opening of the building. Yes, the blast came from below, but that only asks that calculation of the integrity of the structural system have a better engineer do the assessment.

Rebecca Rogers

Hudson, Ohio

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