‘WORST SINCE THANKSGIVING HOME’
Investigators Probe
Gutted-Motel Scene
No Word Yet If Blaze Is Suspicious
By JIM KEVLIN • for www.AllOTSEGO.com
COOPERSTOWN – Investigators are on site at the vacant Cooperstown Motel at this hour, seeking to understand what cause a raging blaze to erupt at 2:45 a.m. today.
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“Hot spots” are still being doused, said village Fire Chief Jim Tallman, who had been at the scene throughout the night into this morning.
He called the blaze the worst local conflagration since the Thanksgiving Home fire – the benchmark of Cooperstown fires – burned to the ground in 2002.
Traffic was closed off this morning all around the structure – Beaver from Chestnut to Delaware; Walnut from Chestnut to the entrance to Price Chopper. Chestnut in front of the motel has reopened at this hour, but the half of the Price Chopper parking lot closest to the supermarket is still closed, criss-crossed with hoses from a hydrant at Walnut and Linden.
The building was gutted, both floors, from the two story office at the Beaver Street end all along the main run of the structure. The two stories at right angles to that main run appeared to suffer extreme water and smoke damage.
The building appeared to be beyond repair. As it happens, the building was expected to be razed anyhow in the next few months to accommodate a CVS drive-thru pharmacy planned there. (A hearing on the special permit CVS requires is planned this Friday at 6 p.m. in Village Hall.)
Chief Mike Covert was also at the scene this morning. He would not say if power to the building had been shut off, or if the fire is considered suspicious, but plans a press briefing later in the day. Also at the scene was Mike Ten Eyck, the district attorney’s investigator.
For now, the building is owned by the family of Al O’Brien, the decades-long owner of the motel who passed away last October. The contents were auctioned off July 8.