by JEANETTE FLECK
WSU Intern
In continuation with our profile of Westfield’s historic buildings, we now look up Elm Street, towards a place we now know as the Rinnova Building, but which was known at the start of the twentieth century as the YMCA building. The building was constructed at numbers 105-109 Elm, specifically for use by the Y, and was designed by A. W. Holton, a Westfield resident. The organization stayed in a building across the street during construction, which finished in the year 1900, though the gymnasium wasn’t finished until three years later.
George H. Sharp and Son had a well-established musical instrument shop on Main Street before the new building’s construction, and from about 1902 until 1920, this shop had moved into the lower floor of the YMCA’s building, and it became just as much of a landmark. Through much of the building’s history, multiple businesses would occupy the building at one time.
When Sharp left, apparently to move down the street, a couple other small business ran through the same premises, but by 1928, the building was emptied of all but the YMCA. Perhaps this was because of the organization’s expansion, which occurred steadily until 1945, around which time the Y was required to purchase larger premises on Court Street, where their current building still stands and operates.
The building turned to commercial and housing purposes after the YMCA left – for about two years it housed an auto parts store, and it was just after 1945 that parts of the building were first rented as apartments, though presumably small ones. In 1950, the storefront was “modernized,” and the Union National Sales, Inc. clothing store moved in, solidly establishing the store’s purpose for the next forty years.
In 1956, the store changed into Fine’s Army & Navy Dept. Store, and thereafter remained under some version of this name (the Army & Navy part was dropped circa 1960). The one-time YMCA building became widely recognized as Fine’s instead. The apartments upstairs slowly emptied during the seventies, and by 1980, the building once again had only one purpose. By the nineties, the department store was gone.
Though there’s a definite record of minor renovations on the building in 1898, it’s hard to say exactly when the building got its next new purpose, but history repeated itself somewhat when Platterpus Records, a music store of a different flavor than G. H. Sharp’s, moved from its original location on East Main Street into what had previously been Fine’s Department Store. Sources fail to confirm exactly when the location became known as the Rinnova Building, or where the name came from, but this name change definitely occurred before Platterpus left Westfield for the Hampshire Mall in 2007.
The building did not remain empty for long; by 2008, Westfield State College (now University) had marked a claim to the building, and in September of that year, the college opened its new Downtown Art Gallery. In 2009, the gallery space was used to display the City of Westfield’s plans for the Elm Street Revitalization Project, renovations which in 2010 updated several buildings, including the Rinnova. The building currently holds nine residential apartments, as well as the WSU Art Gallery, which is running an exhibit titled “Impressions: Night and Day,” featuring works by Mary Teichman and Barbara Johnson. The reception for this exhibit was scheduled for this past week, and the display will end March 1. For upcoming exhibits, information can be found on Westfield State’s website.
