[Press Release] : City invites public to rededicate historic buildings

[pr-l at news.gocolumbiamo.com]

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Contact: Tony St. Romaine, Assistant City Manager - (573) 874-7214

City invites public to rededicate historic buildings

COLUMBIA, MO (November 22, 2006) -- In its centennial year, the newly restored Gentry Building will share the stage with the neighboring Howard Municipal Building at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, Dec. 1. Both buildings house city government services, and the city of Columbia invites the public to a rededication and open house.

The ceremony is set for 5:30 p.m. in a staging area between the two buildings in the 600 block of East Broadway. The event will include live music, brief remarks, the ribbon-cutting, guided tours of both buildings and refreshments. 

Assistant City Manager Tony St. Romaine, who guided renovations in both structures, is excited to show off the investments in these public places. 

“The structures represent important milestones in Columbia’s history,” he said. The Gentry Building was a post office when it was built in 1906. Then it was a library, and there are people who remember passing books, hand-to-hand, all the way down to Garth when Daniel Boone Regional Library opened there in the 1960’s. What a sight that must have been!”

The Gentry Building opened at the start of a new century, not too long after a horizon-expanding World’s Fair was held in St. Louis, Mo. St. Romaine said that the mood must have been more sober when the Howard Municipal Building opened in 1932, during the Great Depression. 

“Even then,” he said, “City officials built with a sense of history and permanence. The murals in the municipal courtroom are a mark of beauty, and the Howard Building just has great bones.”

During the opening ceremony, the Honorable Gene Hamilton, presiding judge of the 13th Judicial Circuit, will formally dedicate the courtroom and rename it in honor of George F. Nickolaus. From 1959 until his death in 2003, Nickolaus served as Columbia’s city attorney, city counselor, acting city manager, mayor and associate municipal judge.

St. Romaine said that the rededication intentionally coincides with the holiday period and activities planned in downtown Columbia that evening. 

“Downtown merchants will sponsor ‘Living Windows” that night, and it would be great for families to start with the open house, catch the window displays that start at 6 p.m. and then catch dinner or some of the performances and events in the area.”

Both buildings will be decorated for the holidays. 

“During this season, people want their homes to be warm and welcoming,” St. Romaine said. “We hope that citizens get the same feeling when they enter their restored public places.”

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