The Hydraulics Press | The Hydraulics | Est. 1827 | Larkin District | Buffalo, New York

June 22: Developing the Larkin District to be topic

Mark your calendars! This coming June 22, the Canisius College Wehle School of Business and the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society present an evening program titled "Developing the Larkin District: Past, Present, and Into the Future." Yours truly is one of four panelists.

This free event is open to the public and will take place Wednesday, June 22, 2011, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Montante Cultural Center at Canisius College. A reception, also free and open to the public, will begin at 6 p.m.

The public is invited to this free program featuring expert speakers on Buffalo’s first manufacturing district, the innovative Larkin Company, world-renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Administration Building, and the future of this historic district in the twenty-first century.

It’s a story with geographic, community, commerce, labor and creative elements, almost a microcosm of Buffalo itself. The comparison continues, with challenges, failures, and amazing successes - and always, hopes, dreams and plans. The public is encouraged to enjoy this rare opportunity to hear experts speak on this topic so deeply connected to Buffalo’s historic story.

Presenters and their topics are as follows:

    * Chris Hawley, urban planner and writer, The Hydraulics Press: “What in the World is the Hydraulics? A Concise History of Buffalo’s First Manufacturing District”
    * Jack Quinan, PhD, distinguished service professor, University at Buffalo: “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Administration Building: The Missing Link”
    * Howard R. Stanger, PhD, professor, management and history, Canisius College: “Beyond Buffalo: The Larkin Company’s Success and Failure in National Context, 1875-1942”
    * Howard Zemsky, managing partner, Larkin Development Group: “Redeveloping the Larkin District: A Vision for the Future”

The program will be moderated by Cynthia Van Ness, director, research library, Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society.

WHAT: “Developing the Larkin District: Past, Present and Into the Future,” an evening presentation.
WHO: Co-sponsored by Canisius College, the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society, the Larkin Development Group, the Darwin Martin House Restoration Corp., and Western New York Heritage Magazine.
WHERE: Carol & Carl Montante Cultural Center, Canisius College, 2001 Main Street, Buffalo, NY
WHEN: Wednesday, June 22, 2011. 6 p.m. reception, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., program and q&a to follow.

For additional information, contact Howard Stanger, PhD, professor of management and history at Canisius College, 716-888-2649 or the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society, 716-873-9644.

Larkin Development Group unveils bike share program

Lark 'N Ride is on wheels! The Larkin Development Group unveiled Buffalo's first ever employer-based bicycle sharing program today. Six vintage Republic Bikes are now available for use during business hours at no charge to tenants of the developer's Larkin District properties.

The new bike sharing program provides a greener, healthier transportation alternative for Larkin District employees, who are likely to find the Lark 'N Ride a convenient way to make short trips without guzzling gas. Since the 2009 National Household Travel Survey reveals 28% of all trips in the United States are one mile or less, shifting some of these trips from car to bike is achievable. Lunches, business meetings, personal errands - why take the car when bikes are so fun?

A reduced carbon footprint, trimmed waistline, and thicker wallet are all benefits for participants in such bike sharing programs. The Larkin Development Group now joins an emerging vanguard of bike-friendly employers across North America, such as Humana, Arup, and the City of Montréal, that are offering up branded bike fleets for employee use. Got your helmet ready?

The next residential option in the Hydraulics?

The Larkin Development Group announced today the purchase and planned rehabilitation of the former Larkin Men's Club at 696 Seneca St. The former social club, and prior to 1915 the rectory of the German-language Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, is slated to become the neighborhood's next residential option as early as 2012.

The building most recently a rooming house and before that an iconic working man's tavern called Lee's Lounge & Bar has many stories to tell. The same structure housed German priests, lounging Larkin factory workers, Polish pub crawlers, and soon perhaps some urban pioneers looking to settle in this rustic, edgy neighborhood on the outskirts of downtown Buffalo.

"This represents another important step forward in the rehabilitation of the historic Larkin District," said Joe Petrella, a partner in the Larkin Development Group. "Our goal is to create a vibrant mixed-use district that has always been the trademark of this district dating back well over 150 years."

The Larkin Development Group announced only two days ago it will start construction on a new, 56,000 sq. ft. office structure at Seneca and Hydraulic Sts. to house over 1,000 employees. The acquisition of yet another landmark neighborhood property for redevelopment says one thing for sure: There's going to be a lot of construction workers on site in the Hydraulics over the next couple years.

Be sure to check out the press advisory Larkin Development Group released this morning. Special thanks to fixBuffalo for the photographs of the Larkin Men's Club taken this afternoon.

Larkin District neighborhood workshop set for March 2

The City of Buffalo announced today it is organizing a series of neighborhood workshops to help assemble the first detailed, citywide land use plan since 1977, the year of the infamous "Blizzard of 77." The workshops will convene residents, employers, and employees from the respective neighborhoods across the city to chart a course for future development. The neighborhood workshop that includes the Larkin District and Hydraulics (as well as the Old First Ward, Valley, Clintonville, and Near East Side) is set for March 2, 6:30-9:00 pm, at the Montessori School, 342 Clinton St.

Tens of millions of dollars in mixed-use neighborhood investment is now underway in the Larkin District and the Hydraulics. Streetscapes are refurbished. Major tenants are jumping into the mix. The construction of new office space and loft apartments is set to get underway this year. The neighborhood is coming back, yet in 2011 this hip, edgy extension of downtown Buffalo is still operating under a land use plan from the days of the disco diva and an even older zoning code from 1951 that calls for coal pockets, tipples, and trestles.

The March 2 neighborhood workshop is probably the most important planning meeting for the neighborhood in over a generation. Why? Because the process to completely overhaul Buffalo's land use policies and zoning codes happens only once every few decades. This is your chance to tell the City of Buffalo about your vision for the future of the Larkin District. Want better public transit? Cool bars and restaurants? Beautiful public spaces? Traffic calming? More economic development? Whatever your priorities are, it's your chance to tell the City where things in the neighborhood need to be going. The ideas you bring to the table will directly inform a new plan for the neighborhood and from that, an entirely new, green zoning code will be created.

Bring your neighbors, coworkers, even drag the boss along. Don't miss this neighborhood workshop! Montessori School, 342 Clinton St., March 2, 6:30-9:00 pm. Be there, or B².

For more information, please visit the website of the Buffalo Green Code.

Larkin Development Group announces über cool office development

The Larkin Development Group announced today it is moving forward on its next big project. An $8.6 million mixed-use redevelopment of 111 Hydraulic St., a former brownfield, is set to kick off this May pending approvals by the Buffalo Planning Board.

An innovative 56,000 sq. ft. office space, taking cues from the industrial shed and administration buidling typologies of factory architect Albert Kahn, will be in place by 2012 at a site once occupied by one of Jacob F. Schoelkopf's sheepskin tanneries.

Capital Management Services, LP, will be the sole occupant of the planned office structure, which would be the first new building constructed in the Hydraulics since 1996, when custom packaging manufacturer Colad Group broke ground on a light manufacturing facility at 801 Exchange St.

Preparation of the 3-acre site for redevelopment has been quietly progressing since 2010. The brownfield reclamation project will bring as many as 1,000 employees to the site, framed by the recently refurbished public spaces of Seneca St. Capital Management Services, an early adopter of the revitalization of the neighborhood, was the first tenant to sign on at the Larkin Terminal Warehouse in 2002.

Larkin District Streetscape Project - DONE

Yet another milestone in the redevelopment of the Hydraulics and Larkin District - the completion of a sweeping, $2 million overhaul of the street infrastructure of the neighborhood - was marked today in a ceremonial ribbon cutting at the new Larkin Square. The Buffalo News captured the noon event in video:

Mayor Byron W. Brown, Howard Zemsky of the Larkin Development Group, and John Koelmel of First Niagara Financial Group were on hand with the big scissors to officially unveil the completed Larkin District Streetscape Project. A new public square, expanded sidewalks, bicycle lanes, bulb-outs, enhanced lighting, and extensive landscaping have given the rustic industrial district an entirely new look. The project is the foundation for ongoing revitalization projects in the neighborhood. As Koelmel puts it, "We've only really gotten to the starting line."

Beyond/In WNY: Reitzenstein sculpture energizes Seneca/Smith intersection

Beyond/In Western New York 2010 is here! Sure, the tight rope walker may have taken the spotlight in the regional art exhibition's kick-off yesterday; meanwhile, in the Hydraulics, an electrifying sculpture revealed by Reinhard Reitzenstein is turning heads at the intersection of Seneca and Smith streets.

Reitzenstein's 14'x40' steel sculpture inspired by the work of Nikola Tesla, titled "to have a grip on the earth so the whole of this globe can quiver," is an outgrowth of this year's event theme, "Alternating Currents," relating to Buffalo's history of invention in the harnessing of electricity. Tesla and Thomas Edison famously duked it out in the famous AC/DC battle at Niagara Falls that resulted in the 1896 Tesla victory that transmitted alternating current electricity to Buffalo, making it the "City of Light" where the downward rushing water of the Falls powered the world's first AC electric streetcars, street lamps, and grain elevators.

The exhibition website observes Reitzenstein's work has "eschewed the natural object in favor of making an industrial object more natural. The concise gesture of an electrical tower curving back into the earth immediately evokes the sense of an entity with an organic inner life, an icon of the civilized world apparently aspiring to reacquaint itself with the actual earth from which it originated."

"We have been inspired since the inception of this project by this district's history of innovation, industry, and imagination," notes Howard Zemsky, a principal in the Larkin Development Group, the owner of the parcel where the installation is parked, not far from the Seneca Street site where Jacob F. Schoellkopf, founder of the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Co., operated a sheepskin tannery shortly after the Civil War. "Art and in this case the public sculpture on display reflects these important ideas and ideals."

The regionwide exhibition is expected to attract 80,000 visitors during its run, which extends thru January 16, 2011. It includes over 100 artists and spans 25 venues throughout Western New York. The show includes 7 pieces of public sculpture. The Reitzenstein work will be permanent. ALP Steel, located at Exchange and Larkin streets, donated the steel for the sculpture and provided assistance with transportation and installation, making possible the neighborhood's participation in the exhibition.

Be sure to check out Reinhard Reitzenstein's audio statement on his work here.

Young + Wright cuts the ribbon!

The Schaefer is complete! Young + Wright Architectural officially opened its doors today at the Schaefer Building, the repurposed former grocery and bank building at Seneca and Emslie streets.

Young + Wright Architectural, until a couple weeks ago a tenant at the nearly fully booked Larkin Terminal Warehouse, officially "cut the ribbon" on its new headquarters at the Schaefer Building, giving the rapidly growing, sustainability-focused architecture firm a prominent curbside presence.

  

Mayor Byron W. Brown and Larkin Development Group principal Howard Zemsky were on hand to point out the role of the firm as an "urban pioneer" at the rustic manufacturing district. "They were early adopters," noted Zemsky of the partners at Young + Wright. "They believed in our project when not that many people believed in it."

Jerry Young and Shawn Wright, partners in the firm, got out the big scissors to ceremoniously dedicate the new headquarters, the first completed of a series of improvements that are quickly recasting the once forlorn neighborhood as one of the Rust Belt's dramatic turnaround stories.

The firm is now fully operational at the site, the Schaefer interior fully refurbished with modern amenities and a loft-like, open floor plan. The mixed-use project will, by early 2011, also include two "penthouse" apartments overlooking Larkin Square. Young + Wright is both the primary tenant and the project architect for the restored neighborhood landmark.

"Any investment that we have made or any support we have given," noted Mayor Brown, "when you see results like this, they are certainly well worth it."

  

Today's ribbon cutting was in the foreground of a flurry of construction projects, including the nearly complete Larkin District Streetscape Project (above)...

ongoing construction at the Larkin U Building and Larkin Filling Station (above)...

 

recently started brownfield reclamation and site preparation for a mixed-use development at 111 Hydraulic Street (above)...

and the ongoing renovation of the Kamman Building (above), which will soon be home to the Buffalo office of another architectural firm, Chaintreuil Jensen Stark Architects, LLP.

"The city is certainly excited about this project," said Mayor Brown of the Schaefer's reclamation. "There are more projects to come."

Special thanks to David Torke for his photo documentation of the event. Listen to Torke's podcast of today's ribbon cutting here.

Murals from St. Patrick's emerge

A series of murals salvaged from the shuttered St. Patrick's Church before its 1982 demolition have been discovered in a basement.

The life-sized murals, painted by Marco Silvestri & Son and installed in the church as late as 1953, consist of fourteen depictions of the life of St. Francis of Assisi. The discovery of the St. Patrick's remnants was first reported in Buffalo Rising and is featured today by Jay Tokasz of the Buffalo News. Check it out:

Church’s art recalls its glory days
By Jay Tokasz
NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Published:2010-08-29

St. Patrick Church, closed in 1981 and torn down a year later, has been largely forgotten in the landscape of Buffalo’s majestic old churches.

But a reminder of the church’s former glory surfaced recently in a Buffalo museum.

The Buffalo Religious Arts Center located a series of large wall murals that were taken down when the church closed. The 10-foot-tall by 12- foot-wide oil paintings, which depict the life of St. Francis of Assisi, were folded and stored in a basement for nearly 30 years. (Read the rest here.)

The murals are now located at the Buffalo Religious Arts Center, a gallery established in 2008 to house artifacts of Buffalo religious structures that no longer exist or have recently been abandoned.

First Niagara Financial Group: Top 25?

First Niagara Financial Group, headquartered in Buffalo's Larkin Terminal Warehouse, announced today the $1.5 billion acquisition of Connecticut's NewAlliance Bancshares Inc. The merger, reportedly the largest between U.S. lenders since 2008, will by the time of its consummation in early 2011 elevate First Niagara to among the top 25 banks in the country.

The bank, established in 1870 as the Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank and renamed the Lockport Savings Bank in 1967, has been a "serial acquirer" since 2000, growing from a regional concern to now one of the largest lending institutions in the United States. First Niagara announced its move to Buffalo's Larkin District from Lockport, New York, in 2009.

Check out today's news of the acquisition in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Business Week, Market Watch, Buffalo Business First, and the Buffalo News.

Sneak peek: Progress at the Schaefer Building

The restoration of the Schaefer Building, 740 Seneca Street, is racing toward completion. The project, headed up by Larkin Development Group, is set to be occupied by Young + Wright Architectural as early as September 1.

The structure now (or, suddenly) has a restored historic storefront, historically appropriate replacement windows, and a gutted and transformed interior nearly readied for occupancy. Clearly, no time is being wasted.

"We're on an aggressive schedule," says Joe Petrella, a partner in the Larkin Development Group. "Our objective is to have the Young + Wright space ready for occupancy within the next couple weeks."

The mixed-use project includes the two floors of office space for Young + Wright plus a pair of "penthouse" apartments overlooking Larkin Square from the third story. The two apartments are scheduled to be prepped for tenants by early 2011 and are not yet being actively marketed by the developers. But, nothing wrong with a sneak peek (above), right?

The Schaefer Building was built in 1900 and was designed by Joseph J. W. Bradney, the Buffalo architect best known for designing the Sidway Building, the Spaulding Building, the Robertson-Cataract Electric Co., and the John D. Larkin Jr. House. The date of its revival? No later than Labor Day.

Young + Wright Architectural is both the primary tenant and the project architect for the renovation of the Schaefer Building.

Howard Stanger: The decline of the Larkin Co.

Howard Rick Stanger, PhD, Professor of Organizational Studies at Canisius College, is likely the leading scholar on the history of the Larkin Co., the prodigious mail order business that rivaled Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Ward and operated out of the Hydraulics from 1876 to 1962, occupying at its peak over 65 acres of floor area in its Buffalo factories.

Stanger's latest paper on the Larkin Co., "Failing at retailing: the decline of the Larkin Company, 1918-1942," was recently published in the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing (Vol. 2 No. 1, 2010, pp. 9 - 40). Read it here. Stanger recently caught up with the Hydraulics Press to discuss his research, the origins of his interest in the Larkin Co., and his take on the revitalization of the Hydraulics.

HP: Tell us about how your interest in all things Larkin got its start.

Stanger: I study employee and labor relations and when I came to Buffalo in 1994 I saw an exhibit at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society that featured the Larkin Company, a firm that I was unfamiliar with. The company records were deposited at the historical society so I began my work, first a study of its corporate culture in 2000, followed by an examination of its employee relations practices in 2005. In 2007 I published an article on Larkin's buying clubs, and followed up with a study of its decline in 2010. I am currently working on a study of industrial recreation and using Larkin as a case study.

HP: What do you hope people will get out of your scholarship?

Stanger: I found the Larkin Company an interesting firm to study various facets of business practices. Buffalonians have always encouraged me to study this company, mostly for nostalgic purposes, I think. If my work does this, great. Frankly, the company's significance is more national than local.

BP: What's your take on the development activity now underway at the Hydraulics and the Larkin District in partcular?

Stanger: I think it's a good thing, but the success of the district was historically specific. There was much manufacturing and support businesses and vibrant working class communities that combined to make it an important economic and social zone. Reusing the physical structures for new purposes is worthy. I wish the developers success for their 21st century version of the Hydraulics district. They are doing important and critical work for the city and are the best the city has to offer. They do feasible, exciting and excellent projects.

HP: Anything else you'd like to add?

Stanger: There is much more to the Larkin Company's story than Wright's office building, which was indeed special. Larkin was at the forefront in marketing innovations and part of the avant-garde in its employee relations practices. Its second and third generation family members dropped the ball (cautionary tale for family businesses), but overall the company had a nice run as a viable concern. It was one of the more important mid-size retailers in the United States at one time.

Launching in 2009, the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing is the only quarterly, peer-reviewed journal publishing high quality, original, academic research that focuses entirely on marketing history and the history of marketing thought. Prof. Stanger is happy to be reached at 716-888-2649 or stangerh@canisius.edu.

Larkin factory complex may get overhaul

The factory complex of the Larkin Co. will see a dramatic overhaul over the next five years if a plan being advanced by Seneca Exchange Larkin Partners, an investment group, is hatched. The group is set to purchase the massive, 1.2 million sq. ft. former Larkin works at 701 Seneca and the adjacent, 120,000 sq. ft. Larkin Power House at 635 Seneca for an ambitious mixed-use development.

The development partnership, including Gordon Reger of the Reger Investment Fund, Peter Krog of the Krog Corp., and investment banker James Cornell, would invest $50 million in the complex, part of what the Larkin Co. earlier in the last century claimed was the largest fireproof factory in the world.

The Larkin Power House would house up to 60 loft apartments and commercial space. The massive 701 Seneca, which is 60% leased, would reportedly receive a much-needed exterior rehabilitation and would be prepped for commercial tenants seeking large floor plates and a strategic location in the edgy, emerging Larkin District, one mile from downtown Buffalo.

Sources say the developers are in early conversations with preservation consultants to list the properties on the National and State Registers of Historic Places, making available essential tax credits for a National Parks Service-grade historic rehabilitation. If all goes to plan, renovation work on the two properties would reportedly begin this autumn.

The adaptive reuse of the Larkin Power House, at 635 Seneca, was recently approved by the ECIDA for an allocation through the Recovery Zone Facility Bonds (RZFB) program, which will authorize the  group to secure $5 million in tax-exempt financing from private investors. The RZFB program is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act), signed into law in 2009 by President Obama to stimulate economic growth and jump-start the availability of financing critical for economic recovery.

Consider the Larkin District stimulated!

FUN FACT: 701 Seneca has almost precisely the same square footage (1.2 million sq. ft.) as New York's Chrysler Building, which at 77 stories was the world's tallest building when completed in 1930, and is  still today New York's second tallest structure.

Be sure the check out Jim Fink's coverage of the project in this morning's Buffalo Business First:

$50M proposal for Larkin District - by James Fink

Friday, July 23, 2010 - Business First of Buffalo

Seneca Exchange Larkin Partners is preparing to invest as much as $50 million in a pair of century-old buildings in Buffalo’s Larkin District.

The developer wants to turn the 1.2 million-square-foot complex at 701 Seneca St. into a mixed-use building.

The developer wants to renovate a neighboring four-story, 120,000-square-foot building into a loft-style, residential complex. The work will be done in phases, likely over a five-year period, officials said.

Caught on film: the revitalization of the Larkin District

The ongoing redevelopment of the Larkin District and the Hydraulics was the subject of a Buffalo News feature video (6/9/2010) by columnist Donn Esmonde featuring Larkin Development Group principal Howard Zemsky. In case you missed it, the interview is now available on YouTube:

The Hydraulics is certainly in the midst of a dramatic overhaul, with several historic building rehabs and a streetscape refurbishment underway concurrently. It is exciting indeed! Stay tuned to the Hydraulics Press as these projects progress!

Check out Donn Esmonde's latest Buffalo News column on the Larkin District progress:

Donn Esmonde: Larkin redo breaks all the Buffalo rules
By Donn Esmonde
Updated: June 11, 2010, 5:11 PM

Things usually go slowly around here. From the now-old idea for a new Peace Bridge to decades of talk about expanding Route 219, big ideas—whether or not they are bright ideas—travel in baby steps.

What is happening in a half-forgotten neighborhood along Seneca Street breaks all the Buffalo rules. Watching this thing morph over the last few months is like witnessing time-lapse photography. Sunrise to sunset in 30 seconds. Faster than a texting teenager.

Uncle Sam's limousine a Larkin Street landmark

A character-besotted 1950 Chrysler Crown Imperial is parked out front of Uncle Sam's Army Navy Outfitters at 290 Larkin Street. The limousine is earning its place as a conspicuous contributor to the Larkin District scene.

The curiosity, picked up in 2009 by Uncle Sam's proprietor Robert Geist for an easy $1500 at a William Street scrap yard, is now a branding vehicle (and occasional staff hangout) for the Army/Navy surplus store, easily North America's largest.

The limousine has attracted the attention of onlookers, photographers, and apparently bloggers since its installation as what may now be the car of the industrial district, competing perhaps only with the London taxi cab that serves tenants of the Larkin Terminal Warehouse, one block away.

It's not simply any limousine. This very car was used to chauffeur top brass at the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station in the days of Truman and Eisenhower. The same model Chrysler Crown Imperial was ordered by General Douglas MacArthur in 1950 to serve as his personal staff car at Tokyo's Dai Ichi Insurance Building during reconstruction efforts in post-war Japan. Dugout Doug's car is now on display in the gift shop of the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, VA.

  

The Uncle Sam's car, no longer occupied by generals but by props used in the 1989 sports drama Field of Dreams, is slated to be restored by Geist, who plans to check out the refurbished MacArthur limo in Norfolk for guidance.

"The limousine has a really interesting story," says Geist, who recalls he lucked out in purchasing the limousine after another gentleman in 2007 ordered, paid for, but never picked up the vehicle, which had been sold on Ebay. "I want to bring it back to its original glory."

  
 

Uncle Sam's reopened officially last Thursday after closing for renovations. The store now has some killer sales and is gearing up for its signature event of the year, the Mash Bash, which takes place tomorrow night at the regional headquarters of the American Red Cross.

When the engine's up and running on the Chrysler Crown Imperial, expect to see the limo in some Buffalo parades. For now, check it out - and get some great deals - at Uncle Sam's!

Be sure to check out the original post about Uncle Sam's here at the Hydraulics Press as well as visit the über cool Army Navy Deals Blog.

Shipping container architecture in Larkinland?

A decommissioned shipping container was dropped off in the Hydraulics earlier this week for Larkin Development Group. The architectural oddity, now parked in the rear of the Larkin U Building, will soon be prepped for adaptive reuse as [fill in the blank].

The 10'x8' shipping container (check out the model here) was delivered at the break of dawn Thursday morning by "Shorty," one of the trusty truck drivers of A-Verdi Storage Containers of Savannah, New York.

 

A possible end use for the shipping container is only starting to be determined by Larkin Development Group, which describes this latest project as being in the very early, experimental stages.

 

The recycling of used shipping containers as buildings or building components is on the rise as architects and planners seek affordable, sustainable alternatives to resource-intensive conventional construction. Shipping containers - highly versatile, durable structures - have recently been re-purposed as pavilions, farmer's market stalls, sales offices, art studios, beer stands, espresso bars, and mobile stores and restaurants.

While Larkin Development Group stresses a reuse concept is far from being finalized, the container project is likely to add some personality to emerging development efforts in the neighborhood. Stay tuned to the Hydraulics Press for updates as the project progresses.

Larkin U restoration moves forward, reveals surprises

The restoration of the historic Larkin U Building is quietly moving forward. The building, constructed in 1893 at 237 Van Rensselaer for industrial scrap recycler D. Ullman Sons, has been a construction scene in recent months as Larkin Development Group preps the structure for a yet-to-be determined use.

The Larkin U has had many iterations since the year of its construction. It was a factory building for the Larkin Co., the home of luxury stationary manufacturer and beanbag ashtray inventor McDonald Products, a factory for local automotive parts manufacturer Par Foam Products, and soon [fill in the blank].

   
   

Contractors hired by Larkin Development Group have been hard at work reverting the structure to its reusable shell. They were on the scene yesterday continuing to remove years of red paint from the exterior of the structure, revealing the rich earthy tones of the brick beneath. Following the paint removal, comprehensive masonry repair will be performed.

  

"Larkin U will be getting a new roof during this construction season and new, appropriate replacement windows," says Howard Zemsky, a prinicipal in Larkin Development Group. "The interior has been cleared of all antiquated mechanical and electrical systems. We will also put in the guts of new mechanical and electrical systems and get it ready for tenant build-out so we are ready once the tenant and use is fully determined."

   

The exterior facade restoration has recently unveiled a few surprises. Blasts from the past are now evident with an original, circa 1893 advertising sign for D. Ullman Sons revealed on the south side of the structure. The signature "duck" insignia of McDonald Products, which occupied the structure from 1946 to 1980, is also faintly visible. Larkin Development Group will save and restore both of these "ghost" remnants.

 

The classic loft interiors with cast-iron columns, arched windows, and tall ceilings give some indication of the kind of space Larkin Development Group will provide to prospective tenants. While other cities build new "loft-style" buildings from scratch, Buffalo's Larkin District offers the real McKoy. Authenticity has true value, doesn't it?

Special thanks to David Torke for collaborating on the photo-documentation of this project.

Road work ahead: Larkin District Streetscape Project now underway

The Larkin District Streetscape Project started construction today. As concrete cutters sliced a path through Van Rensselaer Street, setting the stage for expansion of sidewalks on the east side of the street, a sweeping $2 million makeover of the Larkin District and the Hydraulics got its start.

 

The project will forge a stronger pedestrian connection between the Larkin Terminal Warehouse and its 2,000 employees and Larkin Square, the intended focus area for redevelopment of the historic commercial heart of the Hydraulics at Seneca and Swan streets. The construction of Larkin Square, a key part of the project, will resurrect a concept introduced by the Larkin Co. in 1929 to honor its late founder John D. Larkin. The square was never built due to political objections, but it will be well underway this summer, 81 years after it was first proposed.

Sidewalks on Seneca and Swan streets will also be refurbished, bicycle lanes will be painted, and a new "bulb-out" will be added at the northeast corner of Emslie and Seneca streets fronting the Schaefer Building.

The project is the first comprehensive streetscape refurbishment to have been undertaken in the Hydraulics since 1927, when Seneca Street was widened and sidewalks were narrowed to improve the speed of traffic. The same year in 1927 that the public spaces of the Hydraulics got their last face lift, Charles Lindbergh made his first solo trans-Atlantic flight from Paris to New York, the Peace Bridge was opened between Fort Erie and Buffalo, the Ford Motor Company introduced the Model A, and Fritz Lang debuted Metropolis, the first science fiction film ever produced, to audiences in Berlin.

The Larkin District Streetscape Project is being funded in part by a $1.5 million donation from First Niagara Financial Group and a $150,000 contribution by the State of New York. Mayor Byron Brown announced the plans in December 2009. Stay tuned to the Hydraulics Press for regular updates on the project's progress.

Esmonde spotlights Larkin District revitalization

Donn Esmonde of the Buffalo News today put a "spotlight" on revitalization efforts underway at the Larkin District. Led by Larkin Development Group, the plans will in 2010 see visible progress on a sweeping streetscape refurbishment, the construction of a new Larkin Square, and the rehabilitation of the Larkin filling station, the Larkin U Building, the Schaefer Building, and the Kamman Building.

 
The look and function of the historic commercial heart of the Hydraulics at Seneca and Swan streets should be completely different by year's end. Howard Zemsky, a principal in Larkin Development Group, is the subject of Esmonde's editorial today. Check it out:

Zemsky sows the seeds of revival
Donn Esmonde
May 23, 2010, 6:47 AM

This is how communities come back. This is how a downtown is revived, how a neighborhood is reborn, how streets are reclaimed.

The future lies partly with him, and a platoon of people like him. They value fine old buildings. They know it makes economic sense to revive them. They believe in the good bones of a battered old city like Buffalo. And, unlike most of us, they have the money to do something about it.

Howard Zemsky started with a single building. OK, it was not just any building. It was a monstrous building. He and his partners eight years ago bought Graphic Controls on Seneca Street, a 10- story eyesore hard by the Niagara Thruway, and returned it to its former glory - then renamed it the Larkin Building, to honor its historic roots.

Sign of the times: First Niagara after dusk

The new First Niagara skyline corporate sign was lit for the first time Monday night after being lifted into place atop the Larkin Terminal Warehouse by cranes in three sections.

 

First Niagara's presence in Buffalo's Larkin District is now announced to thousands of daily drivers along the I-190, which transects the neighborhood to the south. The new skyline element joins the prominent LCo corporate panels that frame the upper edges of the former warehouse, built by the Larkin Company in 1912.

 

The sign is intended to be a continuation of a Rust Belt tradition of rooftop factory signage, a sort of modern interpretation of historical examples like Gold Medal Flour in Minneapolis, Domino Sugar in Baltimore, and Wonder Bread in Buffalo. The sign, says Larkin Development Group principal Howard Zemsky, is "done in a style that is remiscent of a more historical sign with a metal grid as a backdrop."

First Niagara installs sign at Larkin Terminal Warehouse

First Niagara Financial Group completed the erection of its skyline corporate sign at the peak of Larkin Terminal Warehouse today. It will be lit for the first time tonight. Check out WKBW's report from earlier today:

First Niagara Financial Group, one of the fastest growing banking institutions in New York State, announced the move of its headquarters to the Larkin District in late 2009.

Young + Wright Architectural to move to Schaefer Building

The ongoing revitalization of the Hydraulics moved another step forward today with the announcement that Young + Wright Architectural, the 21-member architecture firm now located at the Larkin Terminal Warehouse, is moving its headquarters to the Schaefer Building, the historic former grocery and bank at the corner of Seneca and Emslie streets.

The Schaefer Building, built at 740 Seneca as Henry Schaefer's grocery in 1900, will go from vacant landmark to repolished neighborhood gem by August, when Young + Wright intends to occupy the first two floors of the structure. The third floor will, by the end of the year, go residential with the first market-rate apartments created in the district in decades. Two two-bedroom flats are being constructed. A corner is reclaimed!

  
Larkin Development Group is heading up the renovation of the Schaefer Building, which, paired with the Deco-styled Larkin filling station across the street, is intended to be the kick-start of a rebirth of Larkin Square as a mixed-use commercial node. Across the street, architect Robert Stark is renovating the Kamman Building, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, to house the headquarters of his Buffalo firm.

Earlier this spring, the Schaefer Building's polished stone ground-floor cladding, installed in 1954 for a Marine Trust bank branch, was removed by Larkin Development Group. The historic 1900 storefront facade will be resurrected. Fenestration along Emslie Street will also be restored.

Young + Wright was hired by Larkin Development Group to head up design on the Schaefer Building's restoration late last year. The firm (read more about them here) has been working on a number of cool projects lately, including the renovation of the Curtiss Building as a boutique hotel and a project the firm is dubbing the Power Plant Home, a green, sustainable house designed to operate at "net zero," producing all its energy needs on-site.

UPDATE: Be sure to check out Young + Wright's renderings (.pdf) for the new Schaefer Building.

Buffalo Green Code announced by Mayor Byron Brown in Larkin District

With the Larkin District as symbolic backdrop, Mayor Bryon Brown today (Earth Day) announced his plan to completely rewrite the City's antiquated zoning code. The initiative, dubbed the Buffalo Green Code, will completely scrap the 1951 ordinance, replacing it with a citywide form-based code focused on walkable, sustainable development.

"Our zoning reform effort will act as the foundation for the new place-based economic development strategy for Buffalo's neighborhoods in every section of the city," the Mayor said. "The new Buffalo zoning ordinance will be known as the Buffalo Green Code. It will embody 21st century values about economic development, sustainability, and walkable, green urbanism."

 
Larkin Development Group principal Howard Zemsky was on hand to praise the Mayor's effort to rewrite the 1951 code, which he described as making it easier to build coal trestles and tipples than to build green, mixed-use neighborhoods. The Hydraulics Press covered the Mayor's zoning re-write initiative (here) when the idea was first explored by the City of Buffalo. The City is now set to get to work on the Green Code, the adoption of which is expected to take thirty to thirty-four months.

Special thanks to David Torke for providing these images and for recording a podcast of the event.

Big news: Savarino buys historic F.N. Burt plant

This just in! 500 Seneca Street LLC, an investment group headed by prominent local developer Sam Savarino, has reportedly purchased the vacant F.N. Burt Co. factory complex with plans for conversion to office space.

 

The Hydraulics Press has written extensively (here and here) on the history of the landmark 400,000 sq. ft. structure, built in phases from 1901 and 1927 to house the manufacturing operations of F.N. Burt, considered in its prime to be the world's largest manufacturer of small paper boxes. New Era Cap Co. produced baseball caps at the site from 1986 to 2004, after which operations were consolidated at New Era's facilities in Derby, New York.

James Fink at Buffalo's Business First has the scoop:

Redevelopment planned for ex-New Era site

Monday, March 15, 2010, 2:59pm EDT

Business First of Buffalo - by James Fink

A historic Buffalo building that until recently was the home of New Era Cap’s city manufacturing plant has been acquired by a local development group which plans to restore the complex to its original luster. 500 Seneca Street LLC, a group headed by developer Sam Savarino, bought the circa 1920, six-story building, located at the corner of Seneca Street and Myrtle Avenue from New Era Cap Co. The purchase price was $200,270 for the 327,900-square-foot building, according to documents filed in the Erie County Clerk’s office. (Read the rest here.)

Stay tuned to the Hydraulics Press as news emerges on this highly eventful change of ownership.

Bruce Jackson: The lost bridges of the Hydraulics

Bruce Jackson, the American folklorist, documentary photographer and filmmaker, and Distinguished Professor at SUNY-Buffalo, offers up an amazing series on the lost bridges of the Hydraulics.

  
In 1997 the Seneca Street and Hamburg Street bridges were demolished by the City of Buffalo and replaced by modern concrete bridges (here) of the standard DOT variety. The bridges were visual symbols of the Hydraulics since their erection by the American Bridge Company in 1920.

  
Jackson's striking images, taken between 1995 and 1997, represent the best available public reminiscenses of the spans during the final years of their existence. From Jackson:

The two bridges in this series were in Buffalo's Hydraulics District from 1920 to 1997. The Seneca street bridge was a single truss crossing the railroad tracks. The Hamburg street bridge was more complex: four trusses, three of them abutting one another, the fourth separated by a flat section supported by the inside end of the single truss and the free end of the third truss. Each of the bridges offered interesting views of the other, the railroad tracks, and parts of Buffalo. They offered a gorgeous visual geometry.

Most people think of bridges as structures that cross water—and, indeed, the most dramatic bridges are just that. But cities are full of bridges that let roads get over things: railroad tracks, other roads, gullies, even other bridges. We hardly notice them, they are perhaps the most invisible kind of public architecture, but they are nonetheless part of our sense of place. The fact that we hardly notice them doesn't mean we don't sense their presence. They are part of our urban landscape and, if they are the kind of bridge that is supported by cables or trusses, they are frames through which we see the landscape in which they are situated. (Read the rest here.)

Be sure to check out Bruce Jackson's stunning slide show here.

  
Special thanks goes to Bruce Jackson for sharing his work with the Hydraulics Press.

Not to be missed: Historical society lecture on America's first female architect

The Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society (BECHS) is hosting a must-see lecture on the life and times of Louise Blanchard Bethune, America's first professional woman architect, on Wednesday, March 3, at 7 p.m.

 
Louise Bethune, of Bethune, Bethune & Fuchs, was the accomplished Buffalo architect who reportedly designed the the Iroquois Door Co. (1904) at 659 Exchange Street in the Hydraulics. This is the same landmark described in Reyner Banham's Concrete Atlantis: U.S. Industrial Building and European Modern Architecture as "a model of puritanically stern, rectangular discipline, achieved by using concealed metal angles for the spans and plain stone sills under the windows." From BECHS:

Louise Blanchard Bethune was a trailblazer in the world of architecture. Hear Kelly Hayes McAlonie, AIA, share how Bethune became the first woman to join the American Institute of Architects and how she designed Buffalo’s Lafayette Hotel, the 74th Regiment Armory on Virginia Street and many of the city’s school buildings.

The lecture will be essential to anyone interested in architecture, engineering, and the professional advancement of women. The cost is only $6. Proceeds help support the ongoing and important work of the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society.

St. Patrick's: Hydraulics landmark removed in 1982

St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, the Hydraulics landmark that once stood at the corner of Emslie and Seymour streets, was demolished in 1982 by the Diocese of Buffalo.

    

The erasure of the ecclesiastical monument, built in 1891 as the permanent house of worship for the parish founded at the site in 1853, was an act of vandalism against the public memory of the Hydraulics as Buffalo's first Irish neighborhood - later, a largely German and Polish neighborhood.

 

The memory of weddings, funerals, baptisms, many of the principal defining moments of the lives of the neighborhood's Catholic residents, disappeared as quickly as the rubble of the church's Medina sandstone walls could be carried away to the landfill.

 

Gone, too, was a resource that might have helped spur the ongoing redevelopment of the Hydraulics and the Larkin District today. The foresight simply wasn't there. The Hydraulics, it was clearly assumed, was a dying neighborhood. Why not help pull the plug?

    

When the cornerstone was laid in 1891, the plans for St. Patrick's were described by the Buffalo Express: "The new structure will be an ornament to the city and a credit to the people of the church. It will be in a pure gothic style, built of Medina sandstone, and will cost about $150,000. It will have a seating capacity of 1,250. In size it will be 80 by 160 ground measurement and 68 feet high to the top of the gable. Its two towers will be respectively 165 and 130 feet high. The inside height from floor to ceiling will be 60 feet. The plans were drawn by architects C. K. Porter & Son."

 

The Diocese contracted for the demolition of St. Patrick's, reportedly in fine shape prior to its dismantlement, without exploring adaptive reuse for the structure or marketing it to prospective buyers. The adjacent friary on Seymour Street is all that remains of the original church complex.

 

Special thanks to Tina Lewandowski for providing these stunning images. It is hoped they will help provide insight for current debates on the future of Buffalo's ecclesiastical landmarks.

Hydraulics was terminus of first rail link from Buffalo to the Hudson

The Hydraulics was the site of a small depot where the first rail line running from Buffalo to Albany was opened for business on January 8, 1843. The completion of the Attica & Buffalo Railroad, the last link in a chain of seven connected, independent railroads stretching across New York State from Buffalo to the Hudson River, was declared a moment in the history of Buffalo second in importance only to the completion of the Erie Canal.

 
The cross state rail link, reducing the time of travel between Buffalo and the Hudson River from six days to 25 hours only 18 years after the canal's completion, reordered the landscape of Buffalo's economy and established the early conditions for large scale manufacturing in the city.

 
The line still exists! The rail corridor built in 1843 and absorbed into the New York Central system in 1853 is still in operation on the same ROW, passing underneath Seneca Street in the Hydraulics. The first terminal depot for the cross state line was at Seneca Street near these tracks on property owned by Reuben Heacock, the Attica & Buffalo's proprietor and the founder of the Hydraulics.

Almost everything you ever wanted to know about the Attica & Buffalo Railroad is located in a 7/11/1943 article in the Buffalo Courier Express. Check it out:

All-rail route traversing state finished century ago: Completion of Attica & Buffalo Railroad gave city year-around link with the East

By Donald M. Rippey

If you had been living in Buffalo a hundred years ago, you probably would have noticed in your morning Courier or evening Advertiser a series of little advertisements like this:

ATTICA AND BUFFALO RAIL ROAD
(Cut of old railroad train)
On and after Monday the first of May next, the afternoon train will leave at 4 p.m. Through to Rochester, 75 miles, in five hours. Fare, $2.
William Wallace, Superintendent, Attica and Buffalo R. R. Co.

If you were something of a man about town, you might have heard earlier of the arrival by Erie Canal boats of the new locomotive and two cars. Perhaps you had even seen them being slowly trundled across Main Street and out Seneca Street to the Hydraulics, a short distance east of Jefferson Street, then the city line, where a temporary depot was being built and the tracks began.

Zemsky expounds on the future of Buffalo

Howard Zemsky, the principal in Larkin Development Group responsible for the transformation of the Larkin Terminal Warehouse as modern office space, expounded on the future of Buffalo at a forum Tuesday.

 

Check out the 1/27/2010 Buffalo News article:

Zemsky sees a brighter future: Co-hosts with Lipsey at Prospectus Premiere
By Samantha Maziarz Christmann

Perhaps it was his taste for science fiction that led Howard Zemsky to see the hulking, abandoned Hydraulics district and envision the gleaming Renaissance taking place in what is known as the Larkin District today.

The New York City native and former president of Russer Foods has lived in Buffalo since 1981, building a reputation as a developer, investor, philanthropist and community project leader ever since. (Read the rest here.)

A decade in review: Larkin Terminal Warehouse is reborn

In 2002 investment partners Howard Zemsky, Joe Petrella, Bill Smith, and Doug Swift purchase the idled, 600,000 sq. ft. Larkin Terminal Warehouse from Graphic Controls for $1 million.

 
Plans to convert its ten stories of former warehouse space to Western New York's premier Class-A office building are met with skepticism. The investors press forward with a $10 million renovation and snag an early home run, attracting in 2002 their first tenant in Capital Management Services, a collections firm with plans to grow from 150 to 750 employees within the year. "When we looked at this building, we envisioned its potential as a great place to work. But until a tenant comes along and buys into that vision as well, it isn't quite real," says Zemsky at the time. "This is now real."

  
In addition to remodeling space for Capital Management, Zemsky and his partners undertake a complete overhaul of the structure's heating, cooling, and electrical systems, along with a total window replacement and facade improvements. The signs for Graphic Controls are removed, and beneath them, crowning the corners of the building, the old Larkin Company logos are revealed.

In 2010 the structure is 100% occupied and is the centerpiece of an ongoing economic resurgence of the Hydraulics and the Larkin District.

A decade in review: Frank Lloyd Wright's Buffalo brought to national audience

PBS releases its new documentary, Frank Lloyd Wright's Buffalo, in 2006, bringing a fresh national spotlight to Wright and the work commissioned by his patrons at the Larkin Company.

 
Produced by WNED Buffalo/Toronto, the documentary receives rave reviews and a wide viewing. From WNED:

More than a biography of America’s greatest architect, Frank Lloyd Wright's Buffalo is a story of family, friendship, and the meaning of home in American life.  The high-definition film, airing on Monday, September 4 at 10 pm, explores how a friendship spanning decades affected the structural aesthetic of a major American city and made a significant impact on architectural history.

Be sure to check out the preview of Frank Lloyd Wright's Buffalo on YouTube here.

A decade in review: New Era Cap closes Buffalo factory, moves headquarters downtown

New Era Cap Co., one of the world's leading manufacturers of baseball caps, phases out its Buffalo factory at 540 Seneca in 2004, citing the plant's excess production capacity and outmoded layout.

  
The last of 550 production workers employed at the factory are laid off or consolidated into the company's facilities at Derby, New York. The historic, 400,000 sq. ft. factory complex, constructed from 1901 to 1927 in phases by the F. N. Burt Co., is mothballed by New Era Cap. It remains vacant in 2010, awaiting a creative reuse.

 
In 2006, New Era Cap makes economic development headlines when it moves its world headquarters from Derby to new digs in downtown Buffalo at the former Federal Reserve Bank at 120 Delaware Avenue. Bringing 300 jobs to the downtown core, New Era Cap finds the right fit in the city where it started business 86 years earlier.

A decade in review: Larkin fence pier restored

In 2003 a half-dozen civic activists at the Larkin Collectors Group secure and restore a deteriorated fence pier that represents the sole remnant of Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Administration Building, demolished in 1950.

     

  

The fence pier restoration, at the 100-year anniversary of Wright's commission by the Larkin Co. in 1903, brings new attention and appreciation to the Swan Street site, long forgotten to all but a few industrial archaeologists and architecture fans. The site is quickly resurrected as a shrine to Wright and his work in Buffalo.

 
Check out the July 18, 2003, story in Buffalo Business First:

Larkin Co. enthusiasts preserve wall remnant
Business First of Buffalo - by Annemarie Franczyk

That's just not any old brick wall obscured by debris and overgrown weeds.

It's the last remnant of what some say was one of the 20th century's greatest structures, the Larkin Administration Building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1906. The landmark's demolition 44 years later has been continually mourned by those interested in history and architecture as one of last century's biggest mistakes. Read more.

Photographs courtesy of Patrick J. Maloney of Lauer-Manguso & Associates Architects. At top is Beth Carnevale and Jerry Puma cleaning the interior of the pier before it is sealed; at bottom, mason Rosolino D'Agostino of BRD Construction stabilizing the pier.

A decade in review: Jacobs brings new life to Exchange Street

Developer Chris Jacobs becomes a pioneer in urban redevelopment of the Hydraulics in 2001 with the purchase of the former Buffalo Lounge Co. warehouse at 567 Exchange.

 
As Jacobs converts the upper two stories to artist studios, the 60,000 sq. ft., 4-story warehouse is quickly filled by creative industries tenants, including the quirky Coo Coo U and the Stock Exchange, setting the stage for the economic resurgence of the neighborhood.

   
"I acquired the building without a defined use and I fell in love with the building and its potential," Jacobs now reports. "567 Exchange Street is an evolving project and we will continue to reinvest and improve the building in the future. We are happy with the building's progress to date and the overall progress of the Larkin District."

Interior shot courtesy of Doug Levere. This is Levere's artist work studio, a gorgeous 1,500 sq. ft. space in the former Buffalo Lounge Co.

A decade in review: Keystone warehouses sent to landfill

The circa 1912 warehouses of the Keystone Warehouse Co., designed by engineering firm Colson & Hudson and listed on the Historic American Engineering Record, are demolished by the City of Buffalo in 2002 to make way for unspecified "economic development."

 
    

In 2002, the focus of the administration of then-Mayor Anthony Masiello is the creation of new "shovel-ready" lots for what planners dub the "Exchange Street Industrial Park." The warehouses, at 491-541 Seneca, are subject to a dramatic clearance, including one implosion, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $872,000.

  

 
The demolition forfeits permanently the reinvestment opportunity represented by the existing structures. The shovel-ready site remains empty and City-owned in 2010.

 

A decade in review: First Niagara moves to Larkin District

First Niagara Financial Group, the regional banking giant, announces the move of its corporate headquarters from Lockport, New York, to Buffalo's Larkin Terminal Warehouse at 726 Exchange, cementing the Larkin District as an extension of the downtown business district. The news caps off an eight year adventure by Larkin Development Group to transform the once vacant warehouse into one of Upstate New York's finest business addresses.

Check out the September 10, 2009, coverage in Buffalo Business First:

First Niagara to call Buffalo home
Business First of Buffalo - by Allissa Kline

First Niagara Financial Group, Inc., is relocating its corporate headquarters to Buffalo from Niagara County, the company announced Thursday.

The announcement of the fall move to the Larkin at Exchange Building, where First Niagara opened an operation in 2006, comes just days after First Niagara wrapped up its acquisition of 57 Western Pennsylvania bank branches from National City Bank.

“As an organization, we’re jacked and juiced” about the move, First Niagara president and CEO John Koelmel said during a news conference Thursday morning at the Larkin site. “This is truly another significant, noteworthy day in the history of First Niagara.” (Read the rest here.)

A new year, a new face for the Hydraulics blog!

2010 is finally here. So, too, is the new, rebranded Hydraulics blog! Welcome to the Hydraulics Press!

The Hydraulics Press, unveiled today, represents the evolution of this blog as a medium for news and stories about Buffalo's earliest industrial district, the Hydraulics.

2010 promises some pretty amazing developments in the neighborhood - some ongoing, some yet to be announced. 2009 was a banner year in the economic revitalization of the district. The First Niagara Financial Group, one of the Western New York's largest banking institutions, relocated its corporate headquarters to the Larkin Terminal Warehouse, Larkin Development Group announced the purchase of the Larkin U Building with plans for new office space, work started to prep the Larkin gas station for future reuse, the Kamman Building took a few more steps closer to being rehabbed from top to bottom, and the Larkin District Streetscape Project was announced with construction scheduled to get underway this year. This is only the beginning.

It was time, more than a year after the blog's founding in November 2008, to tweak the brand of the site and switch up its mission. The Hydraulics Press, at hydraulicspress.com, reflects the evolving orientation of the site as a news source and periodical on the neighborhood. It also represents a pithy play on words - the new site domain sounds like a newspaper, such as the Grand Rapids Press, and its name derives from the term "hydraulic press," the hydraulic mechanism for applying a large lifting or compressive force, or the hydraulic equivalent of a mechanical lever. Creative, eh? I thought so!

I'm excited about the continuing contribution the site will play in telling the story of the Hydraulics, one of America's most important industrial heritage sites. Here's to a new decade, and to the new Hydraulics Press!

Registered! Kamman Building, Hydraulics history set for national spotlight

The history of the Hydraulics, Buffalo's earliest manufacturing district, is about to get some national attention. Yesterday the New York State Historic Preservation Office recommended two applications, including the individual listing of the Kamman Building and a Multiple Property Documentation Form (MPDF) on the Hydraulics neighborhood, for nomination by the National Parks Service for the National Register of Historic Places.

 
With the recent passage of New York State's Enhanced Historic Tax Credit Program, providing tax credits of up to 40% of the costs of rehabilitating heritage structures, the event is a watershed moment in the ongoing development and economic revitalization of the Hydraulics.

Mayor Brown announces ambitious public-private partnership to upgrade Larkin District

Today the Larkin Development Group, First Niagara Financial Group, and Mayor Byron Brown unveiled an ambitious neighborhood improvement program in the Hydraulics centered on a proposed Larkin Square at Seneca and Swan streets.

 

By this time next year, a $2 million package of investments will be well underway, incorporating streetscape upgrades, historic building renovations, and a $100,000 Community Improvement Fund to help district homeowners make upgrades to their properties.

 

The new partnership is being spurred by the recent corporate move of First Niagara Financial Group to new headquarters at the Larkin Terminal Warehouse. The series of projects represents the most ambitious neighborhood improvement program since the 1927 widening and reconstruction of Seneca Street.

PBS documentary on Elbert Hubbard to air tonight!

The highly anticipated, nationally televised documentary, "Elbert Hubbard: An American Original," airs tonight, November 23rd at 10 pm, on PBS. Check out the full trailer at You Tube.

Elbert Hubbard, the former Larkin Co. executive, marketing guru, and founder of the Roycroft Arts & Crafts Movement, was the originator of the direct-to-consumer "Factory to Family Idea" that helped transform the Larkin Co. into one of the country's largest mail order firms and the Hydraulics into one of its premier Machine Age industrial precincts. From PBS:

The dawn of the 20th century was a fluid time in America. Mass production was at a fever pitch, traditional values were in flux, the roles of men and women were changing, and America’s consumer culture was emerging. A new aesthetic was also entering the vernacular – Arts and Crafts. It evolved out of a socialist movement in England that rejected the dehumanizing effect of mechanization in favor of honest craftsmanship. Elbert Hubbard was one of the most influential forces in American business as the new century opened and the Roycroft artisan community that he founded in East Aurora, New York was the first and most successful purveyor of Arts and Crafts in the nation.

Read the rest here. And be sure to watch this stunning documentary this evening!

Artvoice stumbles into the Swan!

Nothing says "the edges of industrial Buffalo" like the Swan Lounge! The historic tavern at 716 Swan (yes, its address is Buffalo's area code!) is a throwback to the hard-drinking, hardscrabble halcyon days of the Hydraulics when factories in the district were churning out books, boxes, baked goods, and baby powder.

Now the Swan is the subject of a poetic review (read it here!) by the bar-hopping documentarians of Artvoice, Buffalo's regional newsweekly. So, three guys walk into a bar, and what do they find? Says Artvoice: "We had walked into a bar that could write this column virtually on its own."

Zemsky testifies before Congress: Highlights success of Larkin redevelopment project

Howard Zemsky, principal in Larkin Development Group, testified before Congress yesterday, bringing the success story of the Larkin Terminal Warehouse conversion to a national stage. The 10-story building, transformed in 2002 from industrial to chic office space and now at full occupancy, is one of many projects across the nation that benefited from the federal Renewal Communities program.

 

Check it out! The Buffalo News has the scoop:

Businessman boosts renewal program: Larkin project proves it works, Zemsky says

By Jerry Zremski

WASHINGTON - Buffalo businessman Howard Zemsky told a House subcommittee Wednesday that the building his company renovated just east of downtown is proof that the federal Renewal Communities program is working.

"Today our Larkin at Exchange building is home to approximately 2,000 employees working for over 30 companies and organizations," Zemsky, managing partner of Larkin Development, told the House Ways and Means subcommittee on select revenue measures. "The federal government's investment, coupled with our own private investment, has resulted in a re-emerging and reinvigorated neighborhood, which was the goal of the renewal community program," he added. [...]

Read the rest of the article here!

Larkin Square preliminary plans revealed

On the heels of a major announcement last week by First Niagara Financial Group to relocate its corporate headquarters from Lockport, NY, to the Larkin Terminal Warehouse, plans are now being discussed for streetscape upgrades at the historic intersection of Seneca, Swan and Van Rensselaer streets.

Buffalo Rising has the scoop:

First Niagara invests in Larkin's future

Following last week's announcement that First Niagara Financial Group is moving its corporate headquarters from Lockport to the LCo Building, Larkin Development is showing off its preliminary plans for adaptive reuse of two additional structures.

Initial work is underway on conversion of the Larkin Station #6 at Seneca and Van Renssealer streets into commercial or retail space. Definitive plans for its masonry neighbor, the Larkin U Building at 237 Van Renssealer, have not been announced. Both properties were purchased in late-May. (Read more here.)

The intersection, the commercial heart of the Hydraulics, is the historical location of a proposed Larkin Square, initially planned by the Larkin Company in 1929 but never implemented. Concepts to revive the 80-year-old square proposal are being evaluated in the streetscape project, which would be funded by a $1.3 million grant from Empire State Development. Stay tuned to the Hydraulics Press for more details on plans as they solidify.

Yes, I'm writing a book...

So, dear reader, this blog tells the story of the Hydraulics, Buffalo's earliest manufacturing district. The blog, however, has a background objective: I'm writing a book. The book is a comprehensive historical narrative of the Hydraulics.

The book is tentatively titled Industrious: The Story of the Hydraulics. It is a collaboration of this author (Chris Hawley) and the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society, which is providing dozens of stunning historical images for publication. The patron for this work has been Howard Zemsky, the real estate investor and partner in Larkin Development Group. Zemsky's interest in the story of the Hydraulics is the reason any of this information is out there.

Paper box factory or the Temple of Aphaea?

"When an architect does achieve something worthwhile with the simplest materials and under the most strictly utilitarian limitations, it is a greater monument to his skill, perhaps, than the millionaire's mansion." - American Architect, 1909

Stay put, Buffalo! Turns out it isn't necessary to get a flight to the Greek island of Aegina to secure a glimpse of the Temple of Aphaea. Though the original 2,500-year-old version is undoubtedly very interesting, it is possible to experience a hint of Greek temple life by standing outside the doors of a former box factory in the Hydraulics: the F. N. Burt Co. at 540 Seneca Street.

The 1926-27 steel-reinforced concrete extension to the F. N. Burt plant, designed by Plumer & Mann Engineers and Architects, is a confidently modern, functional structure with an unusually striking entrance of the Doric classical order. The entrance to the box plant, run by the formidable female executive Mary R. Cass from 1909 forward, is an example of industrial building design ennobled by a reference to classical origins.

Imagine, as a laborer, entering through these doors daily. The classical idiom awakens the sense of civic beauty that utilitarian structures rarely exhibit today. Even in this austere, straight-forward factory building, though beautiful in its functional simplicity, the idea of a small Greek temple framing one's entrance to an industrial workplace must have struck the architecturally-conscious paper box maker as something noteworthy.

Construction activity heats up at Larkin Square

The former Larkin Filling Station #6 at 725 Seneca, purchased by Larkin Development Group in May, is now a construction site.

The Art Deco filling station is adjacent to what was identified by Larkin Co. executives in 1929 as the site of a proposed public space dubbed Larkin Square. The public space was never built out, but new construction activity at the historic filling station, built in 1930, signals the revival of Larkin Square as a place identity and focal point for proposed mixed-use development at the Hydraulics.

 
The site, according to Larkin Development Group, is being prepped from top to bottom for an undetermined, likely retail use. The circa-1960 Gulf Oil metal sheathing that once covered the station has been removed, revealing a damaged but recoverable Deco brick exterior trimmed with decorative concrete panels. The panels, made to look like piers, are topped with a curious "icicle" motif, an unusual example of Buffalo architecture mimicking an effect of winter weather.

 

"Without tying us to a time frame, I think it's safe to say we're very excited about the potential of this project," says Joseph Petrella, a principal in the investment group. "What we're doing is preparing the site for rehab and exploring our options." Petrella catalogues the progress already made at the site in only two months: the removal of the blighted parking lot and guardrails, the interior gutting and exterior unsheathing of the filling station, and the removal of underground petroleum tanks that have rendered the site with the appearance of an archaeological dig. "The building is in decent shape, it has a great story, and we want to make it a vibrant part of the streetscape again."

Uncle Sam's: North America's largest Army Navy outfitter occupies the Hydraulics

Gearing up for MASH Bash, Buffalo's beer-soaked, military-themed, American Red Cross charity event this Friday? Be sure to gear up at Uncle Sam's Army Navy Outfitters, the veritable department store of military surplus items at 290 Larkin Street!

 
Uncle Sam's, a Hydraulics landmark established in 2001, has adaptively reused a recently vacant 1902 warehouse designed by engineer R. J. Reidpath for the Larkin Co. In its 107th year, the heritage building is now the warehousing and retailing headquarters for the military surplus dealer, easily North America's largest.

 
The 33,000 sq. ft. military surplus store at ground level is stunning, one of the hidden (camouflaged?) gems of Buffalo. Robert Geist, the CEO of Uncle Sam's, identifies closely with the history of the building and figures the "recycling" of the heritage structure is much like the recycling of military clothing and accessories. "We're the original green of green," says Geist.

Larkin executive Elbert Hubbard speaks on "the Hydraulics"

This just in! Elbert Hubbard, the former Larkin Soap Mfg. Co. executive and influential poet and philosopher of the Arts & Crafts Movement, published a little-known 1914 pamphlet on Buffalo, titled "A Little Journey to Buffalo," that elucidates his views on the city and its economic prospects.

 
The pamphlet, written in the simple, compelling language of the famous marketing guru, reveals the city's unbridled optimism as well as Hubbard's experience building up the national mail order firm founded in 1875 in "the Hydraulics."

A new U: Larkin U Building to be renewed!

The historic Larkin U Building, 237 Van Rensselaer Street, has been acquired by Larkin Development Group. The former manufacturing building, which most recently housed the now defunct Par Foam Products, Inc., will be renewed (re-nU-ed?) likely as "loft style" office and retail space. Build-out is expected to be market-driven.

   

The former Larkin Filling Station #6 (read more about it here and here), an Art Deco filling station built in 1930, is also part of the sale agreement with SNPT Partnership, the recent owner of the two contiguous structures. Howard Zemsky, a principal in Larkin Development Group, formally announced the purchase and the firm's plans yesterday.

New comedic production inspired by odd Hydraulics shrine receives rave reviews!

Tom Dudzick's new Buffalo-inspired comedic production, "Our Lady of South Division Street," has received rave reviews since its June 15 world debut at the Penguin Repertory Theatre in Stony Point, New York.

 
The hilarious play, based on the odd shrine (read more about it here and here) devoted to the Blessed Mother at 847 Seneca Street in the heart of the Hydraulics, is Dudzick's latest installment on his renowned series of theatrical productions based on his life growing up the hardscrabble industrial district in the 1950s and 60s. Playing thru June 7, "Our Lady of South Division Street" is a smash hit! Read up on Peter Kramer's May 18th review from the Lower Hudson Valley's Journal News blog:

Every family has its stories. The Nowaks of Buffalo have a doozy. In Tom Dudzick’s heartwarming and clever comedy, “Our Lady of South Division Street” — getting its world premiere at Stony Point’s charming Penguin Rep through June 7 — Clara and her three children live in the shadow of that story.

More specifically, they live in the shadow of a small shrine that was built to mark the day when, as they repeat to passersby in what they have come to call “the statue speech,” “the blessed Mother appeared” to Henry Nowak, the family’s patriarch, a barber just off the boat from war-torn Poland in 1944. Continue reading here.

The new production, which if we say our rosaries often enough will undoubtedly have a showing in a Buffalo-area stagehouse sometime soon (stay tuned!), continues a long line of theatrical productions that have shined a light (and now a very heavenly light) on the old Buffalo neighborhood. The odd shrine, affixed in a parking lot, has been quite a blessing to the city.

Photo courtesy of Kerwin McCarthy.