NTHP Conference, Day 3

Friday started early, especially after a late night at the museums. I took a tour of the Richardson Olmsted Complex and Buffalo's Central terminal, from 8 am - noon. 

The Richardson Complex was originally built as the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane. It was designed by H. H. Richardson based on plans by Kirkbride, who had very specific ideas for how insane asylums should be laid out - the number of buildings, height of ceilings, width of hallways, features of grounds, etc. Frederick Law Olmsted designed the grounds. The complex has been vacant for years, since the state built a new complex next door. But it is recognized as important for both its architectural and landscape design, and people are working on developing a way to improve and develop it. New York State gave them $76 million seed money, which they have been using to develop some plans and restore parts of the building. The main floor of the administration building has been restored, and there is talk about turning part of it into a boutique hotel, an architectural learning lab, studio space, etc. They basically haven't decided yet, but it has a lot of potential.

Here are pictures of the exterior:

And the interior of the restored Administration Building (Building #45):

This is a picture of the exterior cut out of wood. UB's architecture school tested out their new technology of computer-run cutting machinery by carving the Richardson building:

Some of the rooms were not redone, and the tour guide threatened us that we might fall through the floors if we didn't stay within certain areas. In those parts, we had to wear hard hats.

The next tour was of the Buffalo Central terminal. This place was huge, and was dedicated 4 months before the Great Depression hit, so it never really reached its full potential. It has been abandoned since 1983. The saddest part is that the last owner bought it for $100,000, sold its interior furnishings for $1 million, then took off and abandoned the building. It is definitely worse for wear. There is a dedicated group of people trying to save it. I definitely have my hats off to them. It's in a really rough area of the city, about 2 miles outside of downtown.

The group trying to restore it has basically no money, and relies heavily on volunteer work. They have been working for 14 years and it honestly doesn't look like much, but I guess there main job has just been to remove debris, since it was in such bad shap and had been trashed for so long. I really admire them for their dedication in saving this.

Here are some pictures:

This next picture is of the passenger terminal that has been cut away from the rest of the building. Trains are taller now than they used to be, and so they no longer fit under the walkway from the main terminal to the passenger terminal. Instead of lowering the tracks, they just removed the walkway.

It was a very interesting morning of tours.

I then met up with Paul Redding from the HPC, Gail, and one of Paul's friends for lunch at the Hyatt Atrium restaurant. 

Then I went to a session called, "Bellbottoms, Legwarmers and Parchute Pants: Current Trends in Historic Preservation Commissions." It was interesting overall, but I felt like they brought up more problems and issues than they helped resolved. For instance, they talked about Hurricane Irene and the unprecedented flooding it caused and the damage that was done to historic structures. Then they suggested that we come up with plans to make sure that doesn't happen in our communities.  OK, but how exactly do you plan for never-before-seen or -imagined flooding? I don't get it.

After that, I went to "Substitutes and Synthetic Materials: A Review Methodology for Historic Preservation Commissions." I was hoping they would give us a list of approved replacement materials, which they didn't, but overall I did think it was helpful to get us thinking about some of the issues and how to get around them and make preservation feasible. One of the duties of the Historic Preservation Commission is to approve changes to historic structures, so we need to be sure to be doing that appropriately.

I then went to a little reception for students of historic preservation, mainly just to get a little bit of food. That evening at 6:00 there was a lecture in the City Council chambers of City Hall about Buffalo architecture by Martin Wachadlo. It was a great lecture. He was knowledgeable and funny. He went briefly through the history of Buffalo and touched on its architectural highlights. Every time he mentioned a building that no longer existed, there were audible gasps and rumblings in the crowd. He got a standing ovation when it was over.

I went home and stopped at the school on the way. There was an ice cream social there and I was supposed to meet Peter there. But I couldn't even get in the parking lot because there were so many cars. I parked at an apartment complex next door and started walking, but Peter saw me and honked, so I went and talked to him and just went home. I'm so glad he saw me instead of having to wander around the school wondering where they were.