Residents in one Erie neighborhood were celebrating Thursday night as a long-time eye sore was finally torn down.
Neighbors say fire destroyed a home on a property on East 24th Street nearly three years ago, but the burned outer shell was never demolished until Thursday.
A longtime eyesore has been demolished in the 200 block of East 24th Street. With the help of the Erie Land Bank, the property was acquired and torn down. This after a fire in June of 2020 caused heavy damage to the home.
“The city worked with the owner to try to get it taken care of. Ultimately they walked away from the property, let it go to tax sale. It was one that was on our list of blighted properties, but it was a matter of waiting for the funding and the ability to get it,” said Aaron Snippert, executive director of the Erie Redevelopment Authority.
“This property and others, they’re dumping grounds for people; mattresses, tires and other trash people want to dispose of. And so neighbors are stuck looking at that on a daily basis,” Snippert said.
Several neighbors said that for nearly three years they’re wondered if action would ever be taken to clean up the site.
“We we’re waiting such a long time after that fire. We were just waiting, hoping that probably in a year or two they would come and tear that down. It’s been so long,” said Donna Thomas, neighbor.
Thomas said her mother and father has lived in their home for more than 50 years.
“It just makes the neighborhood look bad. This is a nice quiet neighborhood, and just to have that house there with all that trash on that lawn, it was terrible. So were so glad that the city did something about it and came and tore that house down,” Thomas went on to say.
