Joe Walko didn’t need a relic of how treacherous the crumbling Quin-T complex on Erie’s east side had become over the years.
But one day while visiting the property, Walko grabbed a memento anyway.
After work crews first started demolishing portions of the Quin-T site at East 16th and French streets in 2016, Walko, who at that time was the Erie Bureau of Fire’s chief, stopped by to pluck a red brick from the debris.
Most of the demolition was completed in 2021 after the Erie County Redevelopment Authority purchased the building with an eye toward revamping the property.
That keepsake sat for years inside Walko’s fifth-floor office at Erie City Hall, a symbol of the risks he and other city firefighters regularly faced at the vacant industrial site.
Between 2013 to 2016, according to the Erie Bureau of Fire, city firefighters responded to nearly 20 fires at the Quin-T property that were either accidentally or intentionally set. In some cases, firefighters fought the fires exclusively from the exterior because of safety concerns.