There’s an excavator parked on top of Wayne Kentener’s old bedroom, most of his stuff lost among the rubble.
The bricks that housed him and hallways he walked through for 25 years came crashing to the ground as the Empire Hotel was demolished Saturday morning. And while some people called it an eyesore, he and many others called it home.
“It was a great place to live,” Kentener said squinting through the dust as he stared at a pile that was once his room, a big one on the third floor. “Lots of experiences there, lots of fun. It’s too bad it had to go and they couldn’t have fixed it.”
The place had a rough reputation over the years and while most of Kentener’s fondest memories of hotel aren’t fit for print he said with a grin, it was also a place where everyone knew everyone and looked after each other. From turkey dinners at Christmas to a sympathetic ear from the bar staff, he considered the people there family.
“If you were short of money they’d help you out, it was just like a family type thing a big giant family,” he said. “It’s kinda late now, it’s just gone. It’s rubble now.”
He met some of that family Saturday morning for coffee to hang out and reminisce about the place, remembering what it was and what it meant to them. But Kentener was the only one who could bear to come to 140 Simpson St. and watch it go.
“I wasn’t going to come back either but it’s the last time I’ll see it so I might as well take one more look before it’s gone completely,” he said.
Fire code violations shut the building down years ago, putting about 30 people out on the street Kentener said. And before they could go back and get their things, including computers, clothing and televisions, someone broke in through a hatch on the roof that leaked water into the building.
Some people stayed at shelters, Kentener crashed on couches when he could.
“Everyone just kind of scattered,” he said. “We had days to get out of there.”
“We just up and left everything.”
While his home and belongings may be gone, Kentener said he’ll have great memories about the Empire Hotel for the rest of his life.
According to the Thunder Bay Museum the Empire Hotel was built in 1904 and originally owned by MacKenzie and Meagher. An ad from the time boasted of a well-stocked bar, billiards and a large lobby with attractive furnishings. Rooms rates were between $2 and $3.50 per day.
The city issued an emergency order Thursday to demolish the abandoned hotel after part of it collapsed earlier this week.
