Busy Corner building razed

Store stood for 99 years at triangular city intersection

By ROGER AMSDEN, for THE LACONIA DAILY SUN

LACONIA — The Busy Corner Store, which had stood at the junction of Union Avenue and Church Street since 1917 and was once site of a popular luncheonette catering to the employees of the Scott & Williams Knitting Machine Company for decades, was torn down Wednesday by an excavator from Piscopo Construction.

All that remains of the local landmark are a curved step at the entryway and a lamppost at the corner which the city's Heritage Commission stipulated be preserved when it approved the application to demolish the structure earlier this year. Plans call for a memorial to the Busy Corner store to be mounted atop the step.

In September, the City Council agreed to purchase the triangular, postage stamp-size lot for $1 and to accept a donation of $20,000 from CVS Pharmacy, the owner of the property, to design and landscape the parcel.

The building has been vacant since it was heavily damaged in a fire in January of 2014 when it was being operated as a barbershop by John Downs. Over the years it had been a drugstore, a small convenience store and luncheonette and the back portion of the building was once occupied by a real estate office run by former Laconia Mayor and U.S. Congressman J. Oliva Huot. That area later housed a law office and a U.S. Marines recruiting station.

Bill and Molly Holman operated the store for many years up through the 1990s.

Marc Vander Heiden, a Piscopo Construction employee who was helping out at the demolition scene, said that he had fond memories of the store from growing up in the area in the 1970s.

"When my father took me and my brother to get our hair cut, he'd reward us for being good by bringing us to Busy Corner for a root beer float. And they had penny candy, which we loved to get," said Vander Heiden.

Originally, CVS planned to develop the small parcel it and submitted a sketch showing a paved doughnut with a planted center in the middle of the triangle bounded on three sides by perennial grasses and shrubs.

However, City Manager Scott Myers said that the city will likely develop a fresh design, which will not contain elements that would obscure the view of the CVS pharmacy itself. At the same time, Myers said that the city has granted the request of CVS to move its sign from the entrance to the pharmacy on Union Avenue to the edge of its parking lot nearer Busy Corner.

The Busy Corner store at the junction of Union Avenue and Church Street was torn down Wednesday after having stood in the same location since 1917. It was recently purchased by the city of Laconia for $1 from CVS and the small lot on which the store stood will be landscaped and will have a marker memorializing the store. (Roger Amsden/for The Laconia Daily Sun)