NTHP Conference, Day 1

I spent most of the last week at a conference for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It was in Buffalo for the first time ever, which was a huge deal for the city. It was a real honor to be picked, and motivated a lot of preservation, work, and focus on preservation throughout the whole region. About 2,500 people came, which was the biggest conference attendance in 10 years. Overall, the reception and response to Buffalo was overwhelmingly positive. People had great things to say about Buffalo, its architecture, and its people. The only bummer was the weather. It was cold and rainy almost the whol time. So it didn't do to much for Buffalo's bad weather reputation. But besides that, everything went great and it was so fun to be a part of it.

I got a scholarship to go through Preservation Buffalo Niagara, so I got to go for free. Which was awesome, because it normally costs $250 to go. It turns out that the town might have paid for me to go, anyway, but this way we didn't have to ask them to pay for one more, since they already paid for 3 Historic Preservation Commission members to go. We all had such a great time and I got to do so many things and see so much that I never would have the opportunity to do otherwise. I'll give a brief recap.

The first thing we did with the conference was to go to lunch. :) I met Peter outside his office, and he drove me down to the 20th Century Club on Delaware Avenue. It is located in a beautiful building and is one of the oldest female clubs in the country. Carol Grieco, who is a member there, invited us to go to lunch. So she gave us a brief tour and we had lunch in the loggia. It was so gorgeous and I felt so lucky to be there.

Those pictures are from online. I wish I had pictures of the interior, but I felt tacky whipping out my camera, and the club is so exclusive (and filled with old ladies :)) that they don't have a website.  Anyway, they just had a reception before we had lunch unveiling their new plaque and that they were placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was fun to be part of that day.

As part of my scholarship I had to attend a meeting in the library as part of the Preservation 101 for New Yorkers program. I was less than impressed overall. It didn't seem very well planned and no one had anything particularly interesting to say. The moderator basically just pulled random people out of the audience and had them speak off the cuff about what they were doing and their challenges. Anyway, not too helpful.

The next thing was the opening plenary program at Shea's theater. Shea's is one of the grandest remaining movie palaces in the country. It was almost torn down a few years ago, but preservationists fought it and restored it, and now it is gorgeous and has a very active theater. It was there that I saw Wicked and went into labor with Marshall. 

Here are some pictures from online of Shea's:

I wish I had better pictures to do it justice, but it's hard to get a good picture when the space is just so big. The Buffalo Philarmonic Choral Society sang, Mayor Buffalo Brown spoke, as did the Chairman of the Board of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the President of the NTHP. The keynote speaker was Howard Kunstler. He was interesting, but very opinionated, and I'm not sure I agree with all of his opinions. He advocates right-sizing cities, he hates suburbs and all of the stripmalls and highways that they bring, he thinks bankers and service industries have destroyed the crucial industrial and manufacturing economy base, and he thinks globalization is a passing thing and America will become much more insular. So, I don't agree with all of that and some of it is just plain crazy, but it was interesting.

Then we went to a reception at the Statler Hotel. There was a big buffet line with traditional Buffalo food, including chicken wings and beef on weck. It was actually the first time I'd eaten beef on weck, and I liked it more than I thought I would. The wings were delicious, of course, but I definitely preferred the mild. Ellen Kost from our group was sure they were from the Anchor Bar, and I bet she was right.

The Statler is another current and continuing preservation project. The first floor is mostly done, and some of the second floor, but there is an incredible amount of work to do. Even since we've lived in Buffalo, there has been talk of tearing it down. It was in international bankruptcy court as of last year, and a developer, Mark Croce, decided to take it on and restore it instead of letting it be destroyed. But he definitely has his work cut out for him - parts of the outside are still falling off. He's hoping the city will come up with some money to help with the envelope of the building, while he fixes the interior. We'll see.  But it was a beautiful building and has so much potential. Here are some pictures from that night.

There was a special reception for New York State attendees. Niagara University hospitality students put it on. This was the floral display. The bottom part was made of ice. It was impressive.

We went up there about half an hour early and they wouldn't let us have any treats :(. They were literally slapping people's hands away. But then they let us have some at the stroke of 9:30 and they were delicious.

Carol drove me back to my car, which was parked by the library, and I got home around 10:30.