A new YMCA, hospital and railroad station. These were noteworthy additions for Oneonta during the spring of 1900.
As The Oneonta Herald of March 22, reported, “After several years of effort, first in one way and afterward in other and more flexible directions, the Young Men’s Christian association of Oneonta is at last housed in a building of its own, centrally and conveniently located, well and substantially built and in every particular adapted to the purpose for which it is intended.
“Monday of this week the rooms in the Westcott block (once found on Main Street, now a parking lot) which for more than half a score of years have been occupied by the association, were closed to the public. Tuesday began the removal to the new building on Broad street. And the rest of the week will be devoted to setting things in order.”
Dedication services were held on March 27. The building was used as the Y until a new building replaced it on Ford Avenue in 1965. The old building was torn down during the city’s urban renewal efforts made in the 1960s and ‘70s. The total cost of the 1900 building was $18,719, paid mostly by subscriptions, with larger sums given by banker George I. Wilber and the Delaware & Hudson Railroad. Wilber also donated the lot on Broad Steet, worth $6,000.
Advancement was made toward better health care for Oneonta, as The Herald of April 5 reported, “We are glad this week to be able to announce that Colonel Reuben L. Fox has notified Oneonta friends of his desire to contribute the sum of ten thousand dollars for the purpose of erecting and suitably equipping a hospital in this village.
“It is understood that he has had the matter under consideration for some time, and a few days ago he communicated…saying that if the citizens of the town would furnish a lot, he would give the sum above named for the building. The offer was at once accepted, but it was not until this week that knowledge of the intended gift became public.
“This munificent benefaction of Colonel Fox is for the purpose of a memorial of his wife, the late Aurelia Osborn Fox, who was a native of this town. Mrs. Fox, who died last winter, always retained a warm interest in the town, and the memorial will therefore be peculiarly appropriate as perpetuating the memory of one throughout her life thought of Oneonta as ‘home.’
Sites under consideration at the time were on Myrtle Avenue, Chestnut Street near West, Main Street at the corner of Gardner Place, and the one eventually chosen, on Third Avenue.
Construction on this hospital began in October. It officially opened to patients on June 26, 1901.
Not far from here, The Herald reported on March 29, “The Ulster & Delaware railroad, so it is stated by Superintendent Coykendall and Roadmaster Decker, who was in Oneonta last week, has decided to locate its passenger and freight depot on Railroad avenue. The company, as it is known, has bought most of the land on the south side of that street and will locate its yard and roundhouse there and also such repair shops as may be necessary at the end of the line, and it is doubtless largely on this account that the station is to be built there also.
“Mr. Coykendall states that the big cuts near the town line will be finished by mid-April, and that a force will then be put at work in Oneonta village near Factory street (southwest of the Rose Avenue area). The trolley line, it is stated, will extend its fair ground spur down Hickory street and will be ready for passengers by the time the U. & D. is preparing to take them.” The fair ground was in the current Belmont Circle neighborhood.
By June it was reported that several houses in the area were moved to other locations, and an old ice house in the East End torn down. The first train arrived in Oneonta on July 16, 1900.
On Wednesday, budding local industries in our region in 1970.