Archi-Ted-Ture: Smyser-Royer Building

The old Smyser-Royer building is now York Academy

 

One of the best things about living in an old industrial city is the plethora of great old buildings. Some of those buildings are now sitting empty after years of neglect, but others are starting to be resurrected. While most of those buildings are being brought back to life as office spaces or apartments and condos today we're looking at a building who's second life has a higher calling.

For the last two years the building you see above has housed the York Academy Regional Charter School. The school is a cooperative effort between  the York City, Central York and York Suburban School Districts. The school is for kindergarten through 4th grade, and it is hopefully providing a brand new type of education to the kids who attend. The building, however is very old.

In it's previous life it was the Smyser-Royer foundry building and it churned out decorative cast iron building materials such as light fixtures that have graced buildings as near a York's own William Penn High School and as far away as the Roosevelt Dam outside of Phoenix. That dam is just one of the many excellent things named after President Teddy Roosevelt, in this teddy bear's humble opinion.

It only takes one look at how blighted the old foundry had become to know that the building could have very easily been pulled down. In a city with a thirst for developable property, that almost certainly would have happened years ago. But, luckily, here in York it was allowed to sit in reserve for years and be available to be turned into a school. It's the odd juxtaposition that exists in our city: If the economy had been better in the last few decades than many of these wonderful buildings would no longer be around to be turned into rejuvenated treasures.