The Hastings Building

A close up of the 1925 aerial Delmar Photograph showing Railroad Ave (today Pennsylvania Ave)  and Grove Street.  The low wood frame building with the awning over the sidewalk at the bottom of the picture is the Hastings building, going east (up) you can see the two funeral home buildings, then crossing First street the tall two story building is the Delmar Delaware high school which today is where the postoffice is and the next building is a home that is still here.

above is a different shot of Delmar - way off to the left you can see part of the Hastings building (last building in row of building)

It is difficult to determine how old the building is - maybe built about 1892 after the 1892 fire.  It had a number of retail stores on the ground floor and apartments on the second floor.  It was originally owned by Levin Staton Hastings (1812-1884) who owned half of Delmar and Elijah Freeny owned the other half.  Mr Hastings ran his store in the building.  When he died in 1927 his property went to his two sons; Chauncey and Theodore.

Theodore continued to run the Hasting store in the building.  Chauncey, who worked for the railroad, sold a lot of his property in 1928.

Theodore Hastings died in 1950.  It is unclear if the property was sold after his death or if he sold it a couple years before his death.  The property was purchased  by Tony Nero.  He had the Hastings Building moved from the corner lot to the lot that was to the north of it's original placement.

The building was reworked into apartments about 1950 and called the Nero apartments.  It still exists today. 

The empty lot that remained was sold by Nero to to E N Holloway in 1953.  Eventually the funeral home acquired the property and it became a parking lot