Sold - Under $100K Sunday ~ c.1890 Handyman Special FSBO In Elmira NY $69K

1064 College Ave, Elmira, NY 14901 $69,000 Sold

Handyman Special

OHU50K NOTES

What a grand old house this was! The c.1890 handyman special needs some TLC, but has the potential to be a real beauty. It is just down the street from the historic Elmira College. OHU50K featured this home back in July 2020 when it was on MLS for $74,999. It is now a FSBO for $69,000.

This home features much of the original woodwork and charming details. Original copper ceiling tiles in the dining room, 5 fireplaces throughout, and many windows updated. Potential to turn into a multi-family home. Built in 1890, this historic property has tons of potential. School size boiler (2000) and new roof in 2007. Sold as is.

Some Ghostly Elmira History

Folklorist, Elizabeth Tucker, relates that an Elmira College dorm is haunted by a ghost named Mary who had a tragic accident in the building. Mary is said to appear in mirrors.

My family also has a thin (and ghostly) connection to Elmira. My husband’s great-great grandfather was a laborer on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. He was pushing a wheelbarrow on a rickety board at the end of a workday when he lost his balance and fell to his death on the pavement below. He left behind a wife and three children. The Bridge Commission felt sorry for the family and gave the widow $25 and the youngest son John, age 15, a job as a messenger.

John was a ne’er-do-well who absconded with the $25 for a weekend tryst with a girl in Coney Island, who later discovered she was pregnant.

Scene two: That same girl, a servant in an upper middle class home, was found some weeks later by her employer, slumped over the kitchen sink dead. The police found an empty bottle of Rough on Rats rat poison in the girl’s pocket and deemed the case a suicide.

Scene three: John, in a drunken state, entered a Brooklyn police precinct and confessed that he poisoned his girlfriend who is now haunting him incessantly. The captain sent John home, telling him if he still wants to confess the next day to come back sober. Unbelievably, he returns.

It is a very long story that made headlines in the New York Times for weeks in the 1880s. Long story short, John is convicted, and as a minor is sent to the Elmira Reformatory, where he writes letters to the governor complaining about the conditions.

I guess almost every family has a bad apple.

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