Smallest brick building in town razed

A long-vacant building that was once literally the corner store to many was demolished Wednesday along with the house behind it.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20131213/NEWS02/712139925

The building was located at the intersection of South and Mineral Streets. The Dubanevich family owned and operated the neighborhood market for three generations. The store lost much business with the shut down of the major industries on Clinton Street. Many of the shop workers would stop in at lunchtime or on their way home from work. The store was closed for good in late 2001. For longtime Springfield residents, it was the end of a tradition.

The owners lived in the house just behind the store which is also gone now.

A house at the corner of South Street Hill and Mineral Street, the Dubanevich residence and one-time market, was demolished this week in Springfield. Below, another side of the building is shown. Photo: PHOTOS BY LEN EMERY Published December 13, 2013 in the Rutland Herald Going, going, now gone Springfield residents share memories of Dubanevich’s Market By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer Dubanevich’s Market, long-closed but still vivid in a lot of people’s minds in Springfield, was torn down this week. The small neighborhood market at the prominent corner of South Street Hill and Mineral Street, near the Whitcomb senior housing building, was torn down during the course of three days and its demolition evoked a lot of memories for Springfield. The market was small – it was attached to the Dubanevich home and parking was almost nonexistent. You would park as close as you could get to the store, because there was no curb separating the store from the street. Anthony Dubanevich said Thursday he was not interested in talking about the demolition. He and his sister, Barbie Pine, grew up in the house, and their mother, Barbara Dubanevich, died in September. John Levanovich, 91, of School Street, lived nearby and remembered the three Dubanevich brothers, Adam, Walter and Victor, who ran the store. Their father had emigrated to Springfield from “either Poland or Russia, but come to think of it, I think their father came from Russia and their mother from Poland,” Levanovich said. Thousands of Eastern European immigrants came to Springfield to work in the mills and machine shops in Springfield in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But Levanovich said the elder Dubanevich always tended the store and left it to his children, who continued the business. The store closed about 12 to 15 years ago, said Bob Flint, executive director of the Springfield Regional Development Corp., who was previously head of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce. Flint said the store was definitely open in the late 1990s, but couldn’t recall exactly when the family closed the store. The Springfield Police Department’s Facebook page posted a short tribute to the store, which was a convenient store for workers in the downtown area – machine-shop workers, as well as the police department – before there were convenience stores. Dozens of people posted fond memories of going to “Dube’s,” as it was universally called, whether students on their way home, a place to stop for a quick snack and soda, or a place to buy the makings for supper. Another of Springfield’s independent neighborhood stores, Jasinski’s Park Street Market, closed last week, but a sign posted outside the store said the closing was temporary and the store would reopen. Efforts to reach store owner John Jasinski were unsuccessful Thursday. Janet Klimenok, 61, of Springfield, grew up within walking distance of the Dubanevich market, and said she was surprised when she drove by the busy intersection and saw the demolition equipment and big piles of debris. First, the two-and-a-half-story 19th-century grey clapboard house was torn down, and then the short, one-story brick store. “I was just as surprised as everybody else. It was a nice store, one to just pop in and out of,” said Klimenok, who particularly remembered the giant, foot-long Baby Ruth candy bars the Dubanevich brothers sold in their store. “It’s sad to see the old buildings you grew up with and had a lot of memories of, no longer there,” she said, expressing sympathy for the family and the hard decision they had to make to tear down their parents’ home and the attached brick market. “It was a landmark,” she said.