The Gingerbread House that RPI destroyed recently was not your average building.

Besides its early history connected to the Warren family in Troy, it became the home of many Trojans after it was moved to College Avenue, including my family in the mid 70s.

Some of those occupants were movers and shakers. Before my residency, a group of artists and musicians lived there.

One of the inhabitants was my friend Jon Randel. Here are his thoughts:

“I have vivid memories of 95 College Avenue and was saddened to learn that it’s been demolished rather than restored. I lived there with my band Monolith in 1972. We loved “the gingerbread house,” and not only because we regularly played at nearby RPI. The house was special and inspiring, and its architecture was unlike any I’d known in Troy.

“We set up our equipment around the living room furniture, and on summer afternoons opened the leaded glass windows while we practiced, attracting neighborhood kids who hung around outside to listen. While living there, the band shifted its material from cover music to originals, and I started to become a serious musician and songwriter. Years later, I was involved in historic preservation in a suburb of New York City and, looking back at our former band house, appreciated its significance more than ever. “

Jon’s band Monolith was popular in the Capital District and was........

© The Saratogian