As a graduate student, I returned to Binghamton for the fifth time this August. Upon my arrival, I was greeted by the familiar downtown sights I’ve come to know so well. Only one thing was missing — the Kenmore.
Built in the late 1880s, the Kenmore was an apartment complex that stood on 263 Washington St. for nearly 140 years. To put that into perspective, it predated both world wars, the airplane, the teddy bear and the tea bag.
I can’t say exactly when the property became abandoned or fell into disrepair, but Philmar Holdings of New Paltz purchased it in 2009, with plans to invest $2.5 million to renovate the building and create 26 apartments. The state even offered the project a $500,000 grant. Unfortunately, those renovations never began, and in 2025, two of the owners were found guilty of 50 code violations related to the property.
Ultimately, the Kenmore met the sad fate that most old buildings do and was torn down in April. Mayor Jared Kraham explained that an emergency demolition was necessary because of “the condition of the building” and the “public safety threat” it posed.
The rational part of me fully understands this decision — civilian safety should always be a city’s top priority. At the same time, however, it’s profoundly sad to see something that withstood two centuries become nothing more than a pile of rubble. We need to save our historic buildings before they are left to rot past the point of return.
Kraham called the Kenmore “one of Binghamton’s biggest eyesores,” and I couldn’t disagree more. I never walked past it and felt repulsed by its presence. If anything, I liked that a piece of history was tucked into the middle of a modern town. I found myself wondering what stories were hidden inside its walls, not what a developer could turn the land into.
The appeal of old buildings comes down to the fact that history and culture go hand in hand. The buildings we preserve are not just structures — they are reminders of the people who lived in them, the businesses that once occupied them and the communities that grew around them.
You can think of buildings like the Kenmore as a tether between the past and the present. When we lose those physical reminders, we risk losing the memories attached to them, too. And without those memories and that shared history, cities become boring and soulless.
Preserving the heart and personality of a city is especially important in a town saturated with college students. Sometimes, as students from outside the area, it’s difficult to imagine that this city existed before us. We arrive knowing that, in four years, we’ll leave, which makes it easy to see Binghamton as somewhere we are simply passing through rather than a place with its own history and identity. When we see a city as temporary, it becomes easier to overlook what came before us and what will remain after we are gone. On the other hand, how are we expected to appreciate a place’s history when its historic buildings and landmarks are continually destroyed to make room for modern projects?
Historical preservation doesn’t trap cities in the past — it simply allows them to exist alongside the new. Ask yourself this: Would you rather look at a unique architectural feat of the 19th century or yet another drab strip mall? An authentically old building fosters a sense of identity and visual harmony that modern architecture can’t recreate, and seeing an old building next to a new one reminds us how far we’ve come.
However, the Kenmore is only one example of a historical building being lost to time, and Binghamton is far from the only place slowly losing connection to its history. This has been happening in my own local community, and I guarantee that if you’re from an older city, it’s happening in yours too.
Where I’m from in the Upper West Side of New York City, there have recently been discussions about demolishing the West Park Presbyterian Church — a beautiful Romanesque Revival structure built in 1889. Around the same age as the Kenmore, this landmark is at risk of being lost forever because upkeep costs are high and developers would rather build a high-rise luxury apartment in its place. The Upper West Side has its problems, but a lack of luxury high-rises is not one of them.
The West Park Presbyterian Church is more than a place of worship — it is a physical representation of art and activism. In 1978, West Park openly welcomed LGBTQ+ members; from 1980 to 1985, it housed The Shakespeare Center and the Riverside Shakespeare Company and in the late ’80s and early ’90s, its kitchen provided daily meals to those suffering from the AIDS crisis. To me, preserving that kind of history is far more important than making room for the next unaffordable housing project or chain coffee shop. In the same way, I have to wonder what Binghamton would look like if the Kenmore had been restored instead of replaced by a parking lot.
I recognize that the Kenmore was beyond saving in 2026, but perhaps this wouldn’t have been the case 30 or 40 years ago. If earlier efforts had been made to preserve the building before it fell into such a state of ruin, Binghamton would have retained some of its original charm and kept that tether of shared cultural history.
Historical buildings are part of what makes our hometowns feel like home. They are the keepers of local culture, and we must stop treating them like burdens.
Jordan Ori, Pipe Dream’s Opinions Editor, is a 4+1 MA student majoring in English.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the Staff Editorial.