Community
A successful effort to save the Runyon house from wrecker
By Kathryn Mayes
Oct 8, 2002, 18:00:00

  It’s a small house on the corner of Fourth and Osage streets. Anyone driving by may think it’s insignificant.
  But to Jim Sherow and Bonnie Lynn Sherow it’s a historical artifact.
  Within the walls of this house the famous journalist Alfred Damon Runyon was born 122 years ago last Thursday. (Many sources cite his birthday as today because the announcement of his birth on Oct. 3, 1880 was made in the Oct. 8 edition of The Manhattan Enterprise — a weekly newspaper.)
  The room where he was born — formerly known as the parlor — now stands empty, tattered pink wall paper hanging from the walls.
  But that won’t be the case for long.

Clockwise from front center: Mildred Schroeder, Dale Anderson, Carolyn Anderson, Bonnie Lynn Sherow and Jim Sherow.

  The Sherows, in conjunction with former Manhattanite and New York artist Tal Streeter, recently bought the house with the intention of converting it into offices. The rooms, say the Sherows, are just too small to function as modern bedrooms.
  “It’ll look very much like it did in the 1880s,” Bonnie said. But it will also be wired for the modern office needs (Internet, etc.)
  “It’ll be up to date, but it will be very invisible,” Jim said.
  They also “believe that a commercial tenant will take better care of a historic property,” Bonnie said. The Sherows intend to apply for tax credits to pay for the house’s necessary renovations. As a condition of those credits, they must convert it into a certain kind of space. They also must retain ownership for at least five years.
  The Sherows heard about the house when it went on the market this summer.
  Once they got around to making an offer, a developer approached the owners with a price that beat the Sherows. They were told that the person who had made the offer intended to knock the house down and build a duplex.
  Then fate intervened.
  Streeter happened to be in town that weekend for a high school reunion and was literally sitting in the Sherows’ library when they got the call.
  He offered to help make up part of the difference. Separately the Sherows joined Millie Schroeder and Dale and Carolyn Anderson in a group called Manhattan Historic Properties, which is also helping to fund the purchase.
  “I couldn’t come back to Manhattan with any joy in my heart, knowing this had been torn down and replaced by a hamburger or pizza joint,” he said, referring to the house as the place where “Mr. Broadway” was born.
  Jim said the home is the only structure that connects Runyon to the nation.
  Runyon, who only later became known as Damon, was raised mostly by his father, A. L. Runyan, a “hot tempered publisher of small town newspapers.”
  Although he was born here, Runyon (who accepted a change in the spelling of his name after a typographical error) moved with his family to Pueblo, Colo. in 1887, for the sake of his mother Libbie’s health.
  He took work with the Pueblo Evening Press around the age of 15. He joined the Army in 1898 after lying about his age, and ended up at The Denver Post in 1905. A few years later he was working for newspapers in New York.
  By the 1920s, his stories of Broadway and sporting life became popular, eventually being turned into film and stage productions, including Guys and Dolls, Lady for a Day and Pocketful of Miracles.
  “How much bigger can you get?” Bonnie said.
  You can reach Kathryn Mayes by phone at 776-2300, ext. 246, or by e-mail at [email protected]

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