Piece of Circleville history lost in flames
CIRCLEVILLE - A 58-year-old family business in the heart of downtown Circleville was claimed in a late-night fire on Monday, leaving piles of brick and ashes on a big part of the city’s history.
Circle D, located at 144 E. Main St., has attracted generations of families since 1954 with its welcoming, fun atmosphere.
Terry Pescosolido, 34, has owned the center since September 2006. He bought it from his stepfather, Larry Dietrich, who had run the business for nearly 50 years.
Pescosolido said Tuesday evening he was still in shock over the loss of a place that has been a part of his life for so long.
“That’s all I’ve done,” he said. “I’ve been working there since I was 10 years old. I bowled in there starting at the age of 5 when my mom started working there. It’s always been a family business.”
He said he fell in love with the center which housed a bowling alley, skating rink and billiard and pool tables.
“Once my family joined in with the Dietrichs, I just fell in love with that place,” he said. “That’s all I wanted to do as a teenager growing up.”
As an adult, he said he spent 80 hours a week in the center.
“That’s the first thing I did in the morning was get up and get ready to go - worry about getting to the bowling alley,” he said. “You eat, sleep and bowl when you run a bowling center.”
The night of the fire, Pescosolido and Jeremy Tinney, the manager, were at the center along with a bowler and a custodian after the bowling league wrapped up for the night.
“We always just hang out and talk after the leagues,” Pescosolido said. “We were there probably 45 minutes before we smelled smoke.”
He said Tinney was the one who first noticed the smell.
“He asked if anyone smelled smoke, and I said ‘Yeah, I do,’” Pescosolido recalled. “I went running back there, and there was smoke rolling out of the store room door in the pool room. [Tinney] touched the handle and it was warm. He said ‘you might wanna duck,’ so we opened up the door and flames just shot out of that thing. It was an inferno in there.”
As they called 911, he said they checked to see what was burning and if they could extinguish it themselves, but the fire was too strong.
“The smoke was coming out of the air conditioner vents,” he said. “It was filling up with smoke pretty quick so we got out of there.”
Moments after they ran outside, firefighters were on-scene.
“They said when they went down there they couldn’t even see eight inches in front of their faces,” Pescosolido said. “They were just trying to feel their way back there to where we said it started.”
The fire quickly spread to other parts of the building, and the roof and walls started to collapse. Firefighters worked to save neighboring buildings from the same fate.
“We are very thankful,” Pescosolido said of the firefighters. “They did a great job of keeping everything under control, and keeping the neighboring businesses from getting damaged. It was amazing how great they were and how fast of a response they had coming there. I’m glad that none of them got hurt because it was really a big fire.”
He said he and his manager watched the fire destroy the building where they had spent so many days and nights.
“I just felt heartbroken,’ Pescosolido said. “It’s like watching a family member die. You just hope like heck they get it out and there is something they can save. There are so many things that we’re not going to get back - all the pictures and there is a bunch of things we had down there that were just very sentimental. Of course, it’s been in the family for 60 years so you collect a lot of stuff.”
The family has received an outpouring of support from the community since word of the fire got out Monday night.
Hundreds of people were at the scene overnight and several more came to see what remained Tuesday.
Circleville Mayor Don McIlroy was at the scene until 4 a.m. He said its a tragedy that another downtown business has burned.
“What we’re going to do right now is figure out what happened, work with the owners to make sure that they have everything they need, but more importantly what we want to do to make sure we have a place for teens to congregate,” he said.
McIlroy said Circle D was one of the few options young people have for entertainment in Circleville and a place like it is very much needed in the community.
“[It’s] certainly something that this administration is going to have to take a very, very hard look at because we don’t have the swimming pool now, the big pool, and now we don’t have another area that they are used to going,” he said. “We’re going to have to put our heads together very, very soon to assist these young people in someplace where they can come together.”
Pescosolido said he has been overwhelmed by all the support his family has received.
“Our family really appreciates it,” he said. “People were just stopping by to make sure we were OK and saying how much they just loved it.”
Pescosolido said he hopes to rebuild Circle D.
“I love it,” he said. “I love the people. It’s just like family in that small center. That’s why so many people have showed up. Everybody’s asking, of course. Everybody’s asking me about doing a ‘Save the D’ fund, but I’ve never been in a position like this, but [rebuilding] is something I want to do.”
The business itself has a longstanding history in the community, and the property has an even longer one.
From the first owner of the land, Peter Apple, to the last owner, Terry Pescosolido, 144 E. Main St. has quite the history.
The property was part of the original circle in the early 1800s with a section of moat passing through the lot. Peter Apple was the first purchaser of the land, and in the 1820s a white frame house was built on the property with a log cabin attached to the back where William and Zachariah Martin had a shoe shop, according to an article published in a May 1988 edition of the Circleville Herald.
James Bell acquired the land in 1836 and replaced the frame part of the house with a brick addition. It was one of the first brick homes in Circleville.
The triangular shaped property was eventually squared and became part of the Olds and Cradlebaugh subdivision in 1849.
John C. Jacob, Bell’s heir, owned the lot in 1860, and Lyman O. Scovil purchased the house and land in 1869. The residence was renovated numerous times and took on the name of the Scovil house.
It was purchased in 1907 by the Circleville Athletic Club and equipped for use as a clubhouse and gymnasium. The club had been organized in 1897 and developed into a social and athletic club over the years.
Before moving into the Scovil house, the club was set up in Peck’s Hall at 101 W. Main St., the current address of Aufait Touch Salon and Spa, and was equipped with a gym, a reading room, and a billiard and pool table room.
After purchasing the Scovil house, the club remodeled it, adding a large, brick extension to the back of the building around 1919, which housed a gym and bowling alley.
The property was acquired by the local Moose lodge in 1941 and sometime in the early 1940s, the old Scovil residence was torn down and replaced with the modern brick addition that still fronted the building this week.
The building became Kelley Hannan’s Roll and Bowl in 1947, and seven years later, it became Circle D Recreation when John M. Dietrich bought the business. The name was inspired by the city, of course, and the last name Dietrich, Pescosolido said.
It was remodeled that year and Dietrich’s son, Larry Dietrich, joined the business in 1957. He became the sole owner in 1979 and ran the business up until Pescosolido bought it from him in 2006.
No comments:
Post a Comment