The roof is how much?

RECENTLY WE HAD a roofer come look at the elevator shaft roof on top of our historic Second String Music building. There's a piece of tin coming loose and the neighbors across the street in the WCU Building tell us it's flapping around and in danger of perhaps tearing loose. We've known about it for a while and we finally figured it was time to figure it out before a huge piece of metal goes flying around downtown Quincy.

We love our old building. The elevator itself, which hasn't worked for many years, turns 100 years old this August. We have spent a considerable amount of money just keeping it up and doing stuff on the first and second floors. Floors three, four and five are money pits and would cost a mint for us to fix up, though we can dare to dream.

Anyway, the roofer looked at it. The shaft is maybe 10 feet by 10 feet, and about 15 feet tall. We didn't think it would be too much to fix. We were wrong.

The estimate came in at about $3,500. Geesh. I think we will just have to find another way. We simply do not have that kind of money, especially after spending 10 times that much two years ago to completely reroof the north side, second-floor roof. We have other pressing issues, including windows that break out during 70 mph wind here at 5th and Maine. We maintain three heating and air conditioning units and a multitude of other small issues. Our tenants are our priority and we are grateful to have such good ones.

Then again, we knew the building had issues when we got in here. We'll deal with it, as we have the seven years we've been downtown.

Ah, the joy of owning an old building...