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Wilkes-Barre native Bill Hoffman used years of experience as musician, teacher and student to cultivate sound

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Woman shot outside Plains Township store

In June 2013, I made the decision to invest in downtown Wilkes-Barre and purchase an architecturally significant home to restore and live in a historical neighborhood.Our downtown neighborhood is unique due to the beautiful Old World architecture that graces some part of every street within this one-square-mile area. Our neighborhood is also home to two colleges and several nonprofits as well as an area that is seeing a rise in new business mixed with the old establishments that continue to draw new residents to our neighborhood.However, with all of this growth and gentrification we are also seeing a continuation of the destruction of the heart of the neighborhood itself: the beautiful architecture that is the highlight of the downtown. It seems that many of these established institutions that invest in the downtown are also destroying it.As recently as July, Wilkes University razed Fenner Hall, a well-known Second Empire-style home that graced South Franklin Street, to open up a few more feet for its gateway project. Wilkes, however, isn&#8217;t the only nonprofit institution demolishing our city&#8217;s great history. Future plans for fall 2015 were announced recently by Children&#8217;s Service Center, a social services center for young people located in the 300 block of South Franklin Street. These plans include the demolition of at least three Victorian-era homes next to or near the central campus of the organization.Each time one of these properties is demolished, it affects not only Wilkes-Barre property owners and residents, but each and every taxpayer in Luzerne County. With these demolitions comes the loss of tax revenue, as cleared land has very little value compared with a property with structures. Many of the homes in my neighborhood, including my own, were once blighted and abandoned structures, which now have been cleaned, restored and sold. They continue to generate income for our tax bodies and to be the ultimate structure of our historical neighborhood.Since redevelopment started in Wilkes-Barre in the early 1960s and was propelled extensively following the 1972 Agnes Flood, downtown Wilkes-Barre has lost more than half of the historical buildings for which the city was known. The most recent losses of additional homes and the famous Hotel Sterling continue to bring deterioration to a city trying to revitalize itself.In the rebuilding of the city, we must learn to preserve what we can for not only the men and women who currently work in Wilkes-Barre, but for the future generations who will call this historical city &#8211; with its dozens of exquisite architectures &#8211; home.William V. Lewis IIIMemberWilkes-Barre Downtown Residents Association

Letter to the Editor: Stop destroying Wilkes-Barre’s architecture in the name of ‘progress’