Fire department turns hall site over to Masons

BANGOR – With its work at the scene of last week’s fire done, the Bangor Fire Department on Tuesday called its crews back to the station and turned the remains of the Masonic Hall building back to the Bangor Masonic Temple Association, Assistant Fire Chief Rick Cheverie said.

The 135-year-old building housed the Masonic Lodge, the Masonic Learning Center, Yankee Shoe Repair and Riverside Art Gallery. The building and its contents were destroyed in the fire, which was discovered Thursday night by a passer-by.

The building itself was valued at about $800,000.

Firefighters returned to their station around 8 a.m. Tuesday, Cheverie said. No flare-ups had been reported as of late afternoon.

Cheverie said he was told that the association’s insurance provider would take steps to secure the fire site. He said that the security measures would include installing a fence around the perimeter of the fire scene.

Despite the loss of the historic brick structure, Cheverie said the Masons and their tenants might be able to salvage some things from the building’s remains.

The Fowler family, who owned the Yankee Shoe Repair shop for more than three decades, hope to do more than salvage items from inside. Despite having no insurance to cover their loss, they are weighing the possibility of reopening the shop at a new location.

Ed Fowler said Tuesday that in the wake of the fire and aided by news accounts of their plight, people have been calling and approaching them, encouraging the family to start it up again.

Dr. Robert J. Weiss, a retired physician, is one of them. The 86-year-old former dean of the School of Public Health at Columbia University and founder of the psychology department at Dartmouth College, Weiss sees the shop as an important reminder of the past, a reflection of the traditional Maine work ethic and a vehicle for providing a strong sense of community.

Weiss said that once a cost for restarting the business has been determined, he’ll look into developing a fund that people can donate to and help make the reopening a possibility. It’s what communities do, not for financial gains but for more philanthropic gains, he said.

“If a community can’t come together when a tragedy like this strikes, it isn’t a community,” he said.