Crews tear down longtime Taylor hardware store

Frank Lesnefsky, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
·1 min read

Apr. 27—Demolition crews spent Monday tearing down a 19th century building that previously housed a longtime hardware store on North Main Street.

Leader Variety, locally known as Weissberger's after its owner, the late Seymour Weissberger, closed its doors three or four years ago, and the structure was in a fragile state, Borough Manager Dan Zeleniak said. Built in the late 1800s, the three-story building at 129-131 N. Main St. was once apartments for miners who worked at the Moffat Coal Co., he said.

Throughout the 20th century, it was a hardware and variety store that sold "anything that a home would need," especially in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, Zeleniak said. Weissberger's sold everything from model cars to nails and stove pipes, he said.

Zeleniak expected much of the demolition to wrap up Monday.

— Frank Wilkes Lesnefsky