May 3, 2008 Fire Fonda NY
Fonda NY Hotel in flames

Perhaps it's ironic that Maze's Hotel in Fonda was destroyed by fire. The building, which had stood since horses kicked up West Main Street's dust and the New York Central's steam engines spewed cinders over downtown Fonda, rose after an 1878 fire cleared the frame buildings to the east, and an 1884 blaze, reportedly set at the behest of a newspaper editor seeking insurance money, destroyed the business district to the west.

Located at the junction of the Erie Canal and the Old Mohawk Turnpike, Fonda has always been a crossroads town. By the late nineteenth century, its New York Central station adjoined the Fonda, Johnstown, and Gloversville shortline railroad, whose interurban streetcars and trains eventually reached as far north as Northville and as far east as Schenectady. Travelers supported a surprising number of hotels. The largest of these, the canal-era Hotel Roy, was destroyed by a spectacular fire in 1909, but smaller establishments quickly replaced it.

In 1880, James Maze, a Pennsylvanian, and his wife Laura were living in Northville. Although James spent most of his later life as a teamster and logger in the remote hamlets of Hamilton County, Laura and their children moved to Fonda about 1890. There Laura eventually became a hotel cook and her son Frank a bartender.

Fonda NY Mazes Hotel before

The Mazes' eldest daughter Maud married Seeley Hodge, a Montgomery County political powerhouse who for a time owned Fonda's National Hotel. When twenty-seven year old Frank Maze registered for the draft in 1917, he gave his occupation as clerk in his brother-in-law's establishment .

By 1930, Frank Maze and his wife Coe had become proprietors of their own hotel, where they lived with chef Egbert Ketchum and staff members Eddie Collins and Henry Satterle. Business was good, and the hotel's ground floor restaurant became a meeting place for many local organizations. After World War II, the establishment passed into other hands, but operated as "Maze's" for decades. The name persisted to the end in weathered fragments of lettering above the second story windows.

In recent years, Maze's carried on as apartments with a Chinese restaurant on the ground floor. Although the building looked worn, its graceful arched cornice and saw tooth trim remained intact. Then, shortly before 10:00 PM on Saturday, May 3, 2008, residents smelled smoke. The manager of a nearby pizzeria called 911 almost immediately and fire companies from a half dozen towns responded, but Maze's roof and upper floors soon collapsed. Its gutted shell was deemed a hazard to traffic on Route 5 and pulled down the next day.

Fonda NY burnout hotel shell

Fonda NY Lokking through burnt hotel

Fonda NY rubble of Maze's Hotel

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