In Ben Kasmark’s Dallas studio a part of Scranton’s history lies in pieces.
Kasmark is a stained glass artist. He’s working to restore windows from Scranton City Hall that are over 100 years old.
It's a meticulous process that started last year.
The municipal building — commonly called City Hall — is a 137-year-old Victorian Gothic structure made from Ohio sandstone. As many century-old structures do, it fell into disrepair as the decades wore on. Past administrations wanted to fix it up but didn’t have the money. The last major renovation took place in 1980.
Now the city, under Mayor Paige Cognetti’s administration, is finishing up a $4.8 million renovation project. It’s funded through state and federal grants, including a $1.5 million Pennsylvania’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) grant and from Scranton’s share of $68.7 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money.
"So much local talent and hard work have contributed to the restoration of City Hall," Cognetti said.
"Our team visited Kasmark Stained Glass in the Back Mountain last fall to see some of the painstaking process that's required to restore these more than 100-year-old windows, and it is truly an art," Cognetti added. "The stained glass throughout the building is a beautiful reminder of our past, our present, and our future."
'Once you take the puzzle apart ...'
City Hall was constructed in 1888 — 10 years after Lackawanna County was founded from part of Luzerne County and 22 years after Scranton was incorporated as a city.
Kasmark said he can tell an attempt was made at one point to restore the stained glass windows, including the main window overlooking the main stairs and those in council chambers.
The spaces for those windows facing Mulberry Street are boarded up while the windows are being restored in Luzerne County.
His restoration process starts by placing thick tracing paper over the designs on the windows. He glides blue sidewalk chalk over the original designs to create a roadmap.
"Once you take the puzzle apart, you have pieces so you know you need to have to get it to come back together in a way that it all lines up," he said.
The ornate artworks are reinforced with lead and bound together with cement. Kasmark soaks the windows to loosen that material and remove the glass.
"If you start to try to scrape it, you're gonna break glass. And that's the main thing you're trying to get away from is breakage. So that's why it takes so long to get them apart.”
The lead bars are more of a problem than the glass.
“That's basically what's failing on it … the metal fatigue over 100 years. Stained glass windows, if partially protected and kept in good condition, you could probably go 100 years between, you know, they'll last at least that long," he said.
Kasmark pointed to a window he was beginning to restore. The rippled glass that looks like wind over waves really isn’t made anymore, so he had to make some.
He has two kilns. Kasmark heated some of the glass to 1,500 degrees, then pushed a metal roller across the warm surface.
"It's a facsimile of rippled glass ... for a repair like this, it worked out really well," he said.
He opened a binder and flipped through catalogs from different glass companies. He orders sheets of glass in the color that best matches what needs to be replaced. Kasmark will sometimes paint glass to get it closest to the original color. Some of the glass also changed color from its exposure to the sun.
Then he starts piecing the art back together.
In his studio, Kasmark illuminated a restored window with an LED light board. The medallion in the middle says 'The City of Scranton' and incorporates motifs from the state flag like the ship, eagle and plow, which he had to paint back on. The glass is shimmering and vibrant.
He finished the windows on City Hall's tower — they were lit up for the first time in years during Scranton's St. Patrick's Day Parade — and Kasmark plans to re-install the Scranton City Council Chamber windows in June.
A family tradition
Kasmark’s grandfather started working in the glass industry in Kingston after World War II. In the 1950s he opened his own company called Kasmark and Marshall. Kasmark grew up working there and eventually branched off on his own.
He said the stained glass dates back to the ancient Egyptians.
Kasmark works around the country. Oftentimes a church will close and another organization will contact him to restore and repurpose the stained glass windows. Recently, a broker from Michigan contacted him about stained glass windows from St. Michael's School in Tunkhannock. Kasmark is restoring the windows before they are shipped to Australia.
He doesn’t just restore stained glass but also creates his own designs. He pointed to photos hanging in his studio. The windows are now in a church in Tennessee. He drew inspiration from stained glass motifs from the 1920s. St. Joseph, the church's namesake, stands near a stained-glass version of the actual church building.
"Once I started working full-time out on the road, I was in all different churches all over the place, different denominations, different kinds, and you see a lot of different techniques and different styles," he said.
