Monongahela National Bank - Brownsville, PA

 

The Monongahela National Bank

The Monongahela National Bank is one of the many buildings along Market Street in Brownsville, PA that has a troubled future. Currently located beside the old Monongahela Hotel (or Towne House apartments), it’s one of many buildings on Market Street that could be facing demolition if no one comes in to save it. The current Market Street location is the last in a line of four locations for the Bank.

 

Monongahela Bank, as viewed from Union Station

 

The first bank was opened in 1812 on 221 Front Street in mixed commercial/residential zone. It’s first President, Jacob Bowman, lived only a short distance from the small brick building. The bank would stay in this original location for 61 years, moving to its new home at 320 Market Street in 1873. The bank moved again in 1902, to a two-story, Italian Renaissance style brick building located at 41 Market Street. The President at this point was Charles Snowdon. The building at this location still resembles the original – however, it is missing its first-floor façade. This façade was taken to be used for another Brownsville building – the Brownsville Public Library on Seneca Street.

 

The third location of the bank.

 

The Brownsville Public Library, with the Monongahela National
Bank first-floor facade

 In 1923, bank was ready to move again – this time to 46 Market Street – its last move before it would close. The owners of the Monongahela National Bank, still under Bank President Charles Snowdon, approached Samuel Leff, the current owner of the Monongahela Hotel (rebuilt in 1911) about selling to the bank. An agreement was reached, and the new bank and hotel were both finished in 1925. The bank had an upstairs annex to the hotel – twenty rooms for overflow guests – and was reached only through an enclosed tunnel/bridge that extended from the top of the hotel to the bank. When the Monongahela National Bank became insolvent and closed in April 1931, these rooms were closed off from the hotel to cut back costs on insurance.

Located in the right part of the bank's facade is the opening to an old soda shop. Currently the bank and soda shop are used for storage - like the buffet and other pieces of the former Uniontown Rax.

Outside of the current location

Outside of the current location

 

 

 

Depository

  



The open vault



The open vault

 

 

Stools in the soda shop

 

 

 

Monongahela Hotel (Towne House Apartments) - Brownsville, PA



 

The Monongahela Hotel (also known as the Towne House apartments) located in Brownsville, PA, stands vacant between the First (Monongahela) National Bank and the Second National Bank across from the Union Station. It is one of the many buildings along ‘the Neck’ that have become decaying shells of their former glory and are soon to be dismantled and razed.

The Towne House sign

History of the Monongahela Hotel

The Monongahela Hotel originally started out as the residential home of Samuel Krepps and built in 1832. It was located on the land that was eventually to be the site of the First National Bank. Krepps was offered a deal too good to decline and sold his house to a man named McCurdy, who turned the home into a hotel in 1844 to accommodate the flood of visitors to the bustling city of Brownsville. At first the business was prosperous – until the new railroad lines began to take travelers off the National Road. No longer able to keep the business afloat, McCurdy defaulted on his payments and the Monongahela house would eventually be owned by another six different men, the final owner being the son Samuel Krepps.

The Monongahela House was razed in 1911 and a new building was built. This new Monongahela house was in operation until 1923, when it was bought and became the Monongahela (First) National Bank in 1925, which then closed in 1931 and later reopened in 1947 as the First National Bank. In the second Monongahela House (now called the Monongahela Hotel) a men’s store occupied the right and a bar occupied the left, until it was eventually closed by the Prohibition. Hotel owner Samuel Leff was approached by the Monongahela National Bank in 1923 with a proposal to buy the building; because business was doing well and the new hotel was becoming too small to accommodate all of the business, Leff sold the Hotel and began building the final version of the hotel to the left of its previous location.

This new Monongahela hotel opened on March 15, 1925. The hotel featured more than double the amount of rooms that it previously had and even featured an annex, reachable only by an enclosed bridge, above the Monongahela National Bank to house excess guests. 

Enclosed Bridge

This new hotel had five ground floor entrances and was the home to other businesses. From the left they were: the Hotel’s entrance with an outside stairwell leading to a basement barbershop, the Hotel’s coffee shop, a tailor, a private bank, and a shoe shine/repair. The new hotel also had a fireproof garage located behind the main building.

Then, say about 1925

And now, 2012

An economic slump once again caused the hotel business to sour and in 1930, the hotel changed hands again. The garage would be leased to other businesses to bring in extra, much needed profit. In November of 1930, the hotel was declared bankrupt. It was sold to new owners in 1931 and use of the annex above the bank discontinued. The bank-side and hotel-side entrances were sealed and the tunnel was slated to be removed –however the bridge is still there today. The annex above the bank was eventually converted into apartments.

The Monongahela Hotel was eventually purchased by the chain, Earle Milner Hotels Corporation. It was later purchased by Frank Bock who converted the rooms into apartments and renamed the building the Towne House. 

Entrance to coffee shop

The lobby of the former Monongahela Hotel (and later Towne House
 apartments)

In the lobby

A closet in the hotel

Check in window

Coat area in lobby

Burroughs Sensimatic accounting machine and player piano parts

Part from the player piano

Left behind, behind the check in counter of the hotel

On the stairs to floor three...

Down the hallway...

A letter left behind

Sign in the lobby

Magazines and catalogs left in a room

 

An apartment room

Bedroom of apartment

Checkers, anyone?

Rooftop of the hotel, looking across Brownsville

Behind Hotel

Roof top access

Walkway to bank.  Top floors of bank served as additional rooms

Looking down the alley between the hotel and the bank

Rear view of the Monongahela Hotel on right and the
First National Bank on the left

Coffee shop window.  Reflection of the Flatiron building can be seen.  One of the few active buildings in town now.

On the side of the Second National bank

Union Station from last weeks blog, in back ground.

Ghost sign for the old Monongahela Hotel can be seen on the red bricks, up high