Campaign for Greater Buffalo

Of interest to Buffalonians: Brookline, MA has "demolition delay" hearings for worthy structures that are subjects of demolition applications. That gives time to collect information seek protections, and seek alternatives. Buffalo needs this to avoid another Franks House debacle, in which The Campaign and the Preservation Board, plus the Common Council, worked with dispatch to protect a significant house but were thwarted by developer Nick Sinatra and Mayor Brown's administra...tion. The author did a fabulous job of reporting and writing about the significance of the house and why it is worthy of preservation, and it is not about the design of the house, but the tenancy of Richardson. It was from this house that Richardson designed so many of the buildings that came to define American Architecture, INCLUDING BUFFALO"S RICHARDSON-OLMSTED COMPLEX, and faithful copies of a house and train station (Orchard Park). A neighbor of Richardson was Frederick Law Olmsted, whose house is a National Historic Landmark. Richardson's home deserves to be as well. But mega-mansions are being built all around it. Right across the street is John Henry's gigantic house. He owns the Red Sox. He bought the house from Frank McCourt, who used to own the Dodgers. https://www.historicnewengland.org/h-h-richardson-home-th/

Hi friends, read all about The Campaign for Greater Buffalo's efforts to save the most important work of architecture in Black Rock, the former St. John's R.C. Church, a masterpiece by Oakley & Schallmo. You can download the latest issue of Greater Buffalo, too. While you are at it, you can donate to The Campaign's 2020 Buffalo Preservation Fund and help it continue its preservation activism! https://greaterbuffalo.blogs.com//out-of-the-way-but-not-o

https://architecturehereandthere.com//what-is-historic-p/ Buffalo has had to deal with any number of horrifying preservation agency approvals for anti-contextual architecture in historic districts. The excuse is that, interpreting Secretary of the Interior standards for a new building or addition to be "of its time" means to be as assertively dissonant as possible, lest any innocent think there was "falsification of the past" going on. Thus, in New York State, we are vict...ims of the "glass hyphen," (a jarring glass connector interposed between old building and new) or abominations like the additions to Burgard and City Honors high schools (pix attached). You can see a glass hyphen in the City Honors pic. It seems that Providence, RI, home to one of the oldest and strongest preservation cultures in the Northeast, is also victim to its preservation board approving a piece of discordant schlockitecture because it, well, doesn't give the impression that it was built of a piece with the original structure. Click on the link at top to read David Brussard's (former Prov. Journal critic) take on preservation malpractice in Providence. For thousands of years, humanity has added onto buildings and districts harmoniously. But to ask a preservation agency in New York State to go against a self-important architect who proclaims to not be "slavishly imitating the past" to justify a fashionable carbuncle? No, that would seem to be against Artistic Genius itself.

HISTORY IN MATCHBOOKS. Corporate symbols can sometimes have the same effect on memory of a place as the buildings themselves. These matchbooks from the 1970's recall the heyday of savings banks in Buffalo, when Erie County Savings Bank and Buffalo Savings Bank were at maturity and just beginning to feel a squeeze that they tried to grow out of, disastrously, during the Reagan-Bush years of the 1980's that culminated in the Savings-and-Loan crisis. By then the Big E had becom...e Empire of America and Buffalo Savings had become Goldome. Local identity was a liability. And the Statler. Bought by Hilton in the 1950's, in the mid-1970s it was still the main hotel of Buffalo, with its coffeeshopEllsworth'sopen 24 hours a day, and several dowagers living in the hotel (I know, I was a busboy in Ellsworth's). The Statler, a designated city landmark, is in the midst of a long-overdue ground-floor commercial renovation. Buffalo Savings has long been owned and well-maintained by M&T. The Big E cruelly demolished George B. Post's masterful bank for a bland brown modernobox that has itself been hacked in and out, mostly to create an identity separate from the Main Place Mall, of which it was the central vertical mass. Post's bank was the subject of countless postcard views of the cityuntil City Hall was built, it was the primary architectural representation of the citywhile, to our knowledge, the 1970s replacement was never the central object in a postcard.

We've been able to stop demo, other illegal activity at St. John's. Here is latest: https://greaterbuffalo.blogs.com//demo-work-halted-at-st-j

Iconic tower illegally destroyed at landmark St. John the Baptist in Black Rock. Campaign for Greater Buffalo acts to stop demo. https://greaterbuffalo.blogs.com//campaign-moves-to-stop-i

Get all the details on the Campaign's concept of a 100mph+ "Road Train" linking the downtowns of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, and more!

In case you missed it on WBFO, Campaign Executive Director Tim Tielman was interviewed on design studios that The Campaign is sponsoring at Cornell and UB, this semester and next, for an Upstate "Road Train" to help revitalize Upstate downtowns with fast, frequent, dependable public intercity transit. https://news.wbfo.org//effort-examines-new-approach-connec

This man deserves a key to the City of Buffalo! We must rally to his cause of expunging "Boneless Chicken Wings" from the American lexicon. While we are at it, I propose the Erie County Bureau of Weights and Measures define serving sizes. A Bucket is 50 wings. That has remained immutable since Origin Days, because that is how many it took to fill up the paper pail that the fried chicken industrial complex had on hand when the chicken wing came along. But what about the less...er orders? It used to be a Single was 12, a Double was 24, and a Triple was 36. This tracked nicely (given a two-wing value bonus for ordering a Bucket) with quarter-, half-, and three-quarter-Bucket portions. We have been victimized by an insidious reduction in portion size. Now, some places offer Singles that are only 7 wings! Consumers must have a common wing currency, based on the inviable Bucket! County Executive Poloncarz and County Legislators, stand for the people! https://www.washingtonpost.com//nebraska-man-says-bonele/

This man deserves a key to our city! We must rally to his cause of expunging "Boneless Chicken Wings" from the American lexicon. While we are at it, I propose the Erie County Bureau of Weights and Measures define serving sizes. A Bucket is 50 wings. That has remained immutable since Origin Days, because that is how many it took to fill up the paper pail that the fried chicken industrial complex had on hand when the chicken wing came along (who remembers the $5 bucket?). But ...what about the lesser orders? It used to be a Single was 12, a Double was 24, and a Triple was 36. This tracked nicely (given a two-wing value bonus for ordering a Bucket) with quarter-, half, and three-quarter-Bucket portions. There has been an insidious reduction in portion size. Now, some places offer Singles that are only 7 wings! Consumers must have a common wing currency, based on the inviable Bucket! County Executive Poloncarz and County Legislators, stand for the people! https://www.washingtonpost.com//nebraska-man-says-bonele/

Time to contact Governor Cuomo! The DOT just can't quit its 1950's highway habitit has rejected all proposals generated by the Governor's "Aim for the Sky" completion in favor of one it made itself for a new 2-mile elevated highway and massive expenditures on the Thruway and new bridges. Read all about it at our blog, and download a factsheet: https://greaterbuffalo.blogs.com

Buffalo needs a 20mph speed limit on all local streets, like Washington, DC just implemented, plus a serious bike path system to protect vulnerable bicyclists and encourage all the health, environmental, and civic benefits of riding. BuffaloNew Amsterdamcan learn a lot from Old Amsterdam. Its population fell by over 100,000 in the 1970's and early 1980's before it embarked on a pro-bicycle quality-of-life policy. Now it has gained back all those people and more. Historic preservation integrated with sustainable mobility has remade modern Amsterdam.

...and the BOOBY PRIZE FOR THE UGLIEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD goes to..BUFFALO CITY COURT! The School of Life has a video that seeks to explain why Modernism has failed us, and illustrates the very concept of ugly with City Court. The site has 6 million subscribers. No surprise. Last year, prepping for a lecture at UB, we Googled (or maybe Duck-Duck-Go'ed) "ugly building," and there it was. That could be how School of Life found the building, and, I'll tell you, it had some st...iff competition. Not only is it ugly (hazardous material and finish, sinister scale, lack of fenestration, no earthly reference for the human senses to process etc), it is profoundly anti-social and therefor unfit for any civic context, let alone a courthouse. An entire block of finely scaled, multi-functional buildings was demolished for it. The courthouse and its attendant parking garage are blights on Buffalo. They have harmed the city for 50 years. Let's start thinking how we can mitigate that harm.

Although we are on hiatus this season, the Campaign for Greater Buffalo is already planning our tours for next year. When architects, urban planners, reporters, travel writers and visitors come to Buffalo they choose the Open Air Autobus for the most thorough, informative and entertaining tours

Three years ago, The Campaign for Greater Buffalo was on hand, after three years of research, organizing, and a law suit compelling the Buffalo Common Council to act to designate the North Park Library a city landmark, when it was announced that the building would be transferred to the Federation of Italian-American Societies of WNY. The Campaign had to overcome foot-dragging by the district Councilmember and the Brown Administration to do it. Campaign chairman Paul McDonnell wrote the landmark application.

You can follow the locals of the Genesee County hamlet of Indian Falls as they jump off a cliff. Without risking life and limb. And doing so from a conveniently situated roadhouse, beer in hand. A WNY summer ritual everyone should experience.

MORE EVIDENCE that Paleo-Urbanism wasn't the problem in Buffalo. It is the solution!