By David Lindeman
Contributing columnist
Danger is my middle name.
Well, actually, my middle name is Roy, after my dad. But last week my middle name might as well have been danger because I plucked up my courage and did something that for the last year has been highly dangerous and almost impossible.
I walked down West Main Street.
Yes, I walked down the 100 block of West Main Street, right in front of the old Independent Order of Odd Fellows Building, and I lived to tell about it! I even stopped and looked in the window before thinking I might be pressing my luck and hurrying on to the corner.
In case you haven’t been paying attention, the street and sidewalk in front of the IOOF building has been closed for 10 months. The building was damaged by a tornado in 2020 and 10 months ago the road was closed so no wayward pieces of brick would drop on anyone’s head down below. It was only recently that the Troy Historic Preservation Alliance succeeded in its efforts to repair the building and get the street reopened, which led to me showing my bravery by going where no man has gone before — well, at least for 10 months and not including all the people who have been doing the renovation work.
The back part of the building was built in 1841 and was the county courthouse for more than four decades. A decade or so after the new courthouse opened, the Odd Fellows bought the old courthouse.
This is one of the best parts of the story, because almost no one I talk to has even a clue about the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. It’s a fraternal group that has a long history, is still active in 26 countries today and lists active chapters in Tipp City and Covington. In the 1890s it was the largest fraternal group in the world. It originated in England, but its name remains a bit of a mystery. It could have been because it was made up of men who had “odd trades” or maybe it was just plain odd for people to bind together for the good of others in the days leading up to the industrial revolution.
Anyway, the Odd Fellows in Troy certainly had an odd sense of architecture. They chopped off the perfectly good-looking front part of the courthouse and replaced it with a big, brick façade, tying that into the old courthouse in back. Over the years, the building has housed an early Troy newspaper (The Miami Union), the post office and various restaurants and bars.
When I was growing up, the Flash Restaurant and the Pastry Kitchen were located there. I never ate at the Flash — when I was in junior high, I looked in the door and decided maybe it was better just to be hungry. A lot of people from the courthouse ate lunch there over the years, though, and a lot of deals were struck over beef hot shots and whatever else they were serving up.
The Pastry Kitchen, on the other hand, was my kind of place. I still remember the retired guys who would meet there most mornings and solve all the problems of the world over a cream-filled Bismark and cup of coffee.
Once those places left, though, things went downhill. There were a variety of bars, Cajun and Chinese restaurants, a pizza place, and other businesses that just didn’t catch on. Then the tornado hit and good old Troy turned up on-line and in newspapers across the country while the owner, the county, the city, and the historic group fought over the building’s future.
I thought everyone put a creative spin on the whole mess when they held a big ribbon-cutting to celebrate the reopening of a street that, if there had been more cooperation and less politics involved from the beginning, never would have had to be closed. But that’s OK. The fighting is over (we hope). The preservation people deserve a lot of credit and our thanks for their perseverance and for saving the building. I guess it just goes to show you can fight city hall.
The old building is looking pretty good from the front and I assume the back will eventually look much better, too. The front of the top floor has a great view (well, at least it will once the windows are installed) and would make for some great office space. The old courthouse and IOOF meeting room in back really is an amazing area. I don’t think there’s consensus on what to do with it yet — it would be a fantastic meeting place, maybe for a comeback of the IOOF! After all, their name is already on the front of the building. Probably not. But with the top floors of downtown buildings being repurposed these days, that area could be one of the coolest spots in town.
As for the bottom floor — well, a Pastry Kitchen comeback would be pretty neat, but if not it’s a great business location right across the street from the safety building.
Now that the thrill of navigating the street has worn off, I’ll have to think of something else to do and we’ll all have to come up with something else to talk about. Maybe I’ll start hanging out down by the old train station. Who knows what kind of trouble we could get into there?
David Lindeman is a Troy resident and former editor at the Troy Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected].
