WHAV Photograph.
Terra-cotta from the former F. W. Woolworth building at White’s Corner is expected to be reused along Haverhill’s downtown waterfront.
Prior to last week’s demolition, contractors carefully removed the 1949-era clay tiles, a signature feature of Woolworth’s department stores of the time. An official said the tiles and other salvaged items are safely in storage.
“The plan is to utilize them as part of the landscaping design of the new water front plaza we will be building at Harbor Place,” Ronald Trombley, manager of Greater Haverhill Foundation, told WHAV.
It won’t be the first time such downtown salvage has made its way into new designs. During the city’s ill-fated Merrimack Street Urban Renewal Project of the 1970s, terra-cotta was removed from the former Daggett Building, 91 Merrimack St., where Grad’s Specialty Store was located. Owner Vinson W. Grad, also a local attorney, died in 1993.
Terra-cotta from the Daggett Building near the top of the Herbert H. Goecke Jr. Memorial Parking Deck.
Terra-cotta from the building today is used in several areas of the Herbert H. Goecke Jr. Memorial Parking Deck. City Planner Richard B. Swain and William C. Pillsbury, now the city’s economic development and planning director, assigned themselves the task of salvaging the terra-cotta in 1976. The large and heavy clay tablets were stored in Swain’s attic at 40 Fourteenth Ave. for safekeeping.
“Those were very heavy and quite a bit of work to move around,” Pillsbury recently recalled. He said he is happy to have played roles—then and now—in salvaging pieces of the city’s rich history. The 1887 Daggett building, designed by brothers C. Willis Damon and Charles Page Damon, was considered architecturally significant.
Trombley said other salvage from Woolworth’s will also find new uses.
“We also salvaged the red glass ‘Woolworth’ signs that were in the transoms above the doors. Hope to see them reused perhaps in future restaurant interiors. We are also salvaging a 1,000 or so of the yellow brick from the Woolworth façade. These cleaned up brick are being made available to the Haverhill service clubs as collection items that they can use in their fund raising activities,” Trombley said.