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

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 nationwide audience. 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 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 (and this blogger's employer), 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.

Hydraulics held hostage by fearsome rooster

Just when you thought the "corner lounging" story (here) couldn't be topped! Seems a ferocious gamecock took the Hydraulics by storm in 1898, ripping a warpath through a wholesale grocery store, getting arrested, and holding a woman hostage in a prison cell.

 
So how in the world does that happen? At the Hydraulics, site of bizarre turn-of-the-century news stories, anything's possible! And the Buffalo Express wouldn't ever miss a beat, now would it? Here's the paper's April 24, 1898, story:

Rooster in a cell: Game escaped from a coop and was arrested: Held a woman at bay: When Mrs. Carey the janitor of Police Station No. 2 tried to slaughter the bird she found she had a big job on her hands

A proud and enterprising game rooster was responsible for it all. It might be added that the said rooster died game. Sergt. Michael Walsh and Mrs. Carey janitor of Police Station No. 2 can tell more about the affair than anyone else. This is what leaked out.

Newsweek puts spotlight on Larkin Administration Building

This just in! Newsweek puts a spotlight on Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Administration Building in a recent May 2 online article, titled "The Goodbye Swirl: The Guggenheim was Wright's last great building. What happened to the first?" This latest exploration of the Wright masterwork, written by Cathleen McGuigan, can be read online here or in Newsweek's print edition dated May 18, 2009.

 
The article is a lucidly written, poignant piece expositing on the famed structure, built from 1904 to 1906 in the heart of the Hydraulics at 680 Seneca, and the clients who hired Wright to design it:

The Larkin Company of Buffalo, N. Y., made soap, but more than suds, the company helped invent modern marketing. In the late 19th century, Larkin began to sell mail-order products for the laundry and bath with elaborate premiums: lamps, music stands, rocking chairs. The business exploded and by the turn of the new century the company needed a new building to handle all the orders. John Larkin, the founder, wanted the great Chicago architect Louis Sullivan, who'd built the innovative steel-framed Guaranty Building in downtown Buffalo, to design it. But a Larkin lieutenant, Darwin Martin, had another idea. He wanted to hire a 35-year-old hotshot Sullivan protégé named Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright was gaining fame in the Midwest for his radical "Prairie" houses, but he'd never built anything as ambitious as the Larkin Building -- and may have indulged in a little résumé inflation about his experience in commercial architecture. But he got the job in 1902 and began work on the design. Read the rest here.

Just one problem, or rather, two. Newsweek is factually incorrect on two fronts: the Larkin Company never went bankrupt, as the article states. The company managed to pay off its debts after a dramatic contraction of business in the latter half of the Depression, and it was successfully reorganized in 1945 as the Larkin Co. Inc., continuing a modest mail order business on a single floor of the Larkin Terminal Warehouse until 1962. Second, the City of Buffalo did not demolish the Larkin Administration Building, as the article also states incorrectly. That dubious honor falls to the Western Trading Corp., to whom the City agreed to sell the building (with Hunt Business Agency as an intermediary) in 1949 on the condition that the building be demolished and be replaced with taxable improvements costing not less than $100,000 within 18 months. The City granted a demolition permit for the famed structure on January 23, 1950, the building was destroyed by wreckers, and the promised improvements never came to pass. The Western Trading Corp., in 1951, backed off on plans to construct a $150,000 truck terminal at the site, citing a lack of parking.

Special thanks to Jerry Puma for bringing this Newsweek article to our attention.

Amusing Hydraulics story reveals more innocent times

A very amusing Hydraulics story published in the Buffalo Morning Express on March 24, 1900, reveals more innocent times. It's a very "Buffalo" story, to be sure...

 
The article is a gem. It details the arrest of Louis Trost, deputy sheriff and former saloon owner (at 863 Seneca, which still exists), after nearly getting in fisticuffs with police officers to defend his teenage son, about to be carted off in a patrol wagon for "corner lounging" at Emslie and Seymour streets (the image above shows where it all went down) along with other boys who were terrorizing residents with well-packed snowballs.

1836 legislation chartering the Buffalo & Attica Railroad was mighty controversial

Legislation passed by the New York State Legislature in 1836 to charter the Buffalo & Attica Railroad, completed in 1843 as the last link connecting Buffalo to Albany, promised not only steam from engines, but also steam from the ears of civil libertarians. A controversial provision in the legislation, setting the precedent for railroad incorporation legislation in New York State for the rest of the 19th century, authorized the Buffalo & Attica railroad company to forcibly take private property for the "public purpose" of establishing privately-owned rail rights-of-way.

 
Economists today would likely agree the railroad, part of a system that crossed the entire state and became part of the behemoth New York Central system in 1853, could not have been built quickly and efficiently without having exercised periodically the powers of eminent domain. But unlike the European system, by which the state itself exercised this taking power and built the railroads utilizing the public purse, it was the American style to defer using the public budget to build speculative roads and instead to deliver its taking powers to private corporations who would assume the bulk of the risk. The state, having opened the Erie Canal at immense public expense in 1825, was not willing to wage the political capital necessary to construct an experimental road that could potentially diminish its own investment in the canal. This public responsibility was consequently transferred to private capitalists, who were then given quasi-governmental authority to build, to the purported benefit of the public, railroads that would help secure the Empire State's preeminence as an industrial heartland of America.

The Swedish Invasion: Swedes tour the Hydraulics

What would Swedes be doing trolling around the Hydraulics, an industrial district on the outer edges of downtown Buffalo? Getting a fascinating tour from a certain blog author, that's what!

 
The Swedes, a group of fashion design and management students from Gothenburg, were in Buffalo for three weeks to examine the relationship between vintage clothing and vintage cities.

 
Seems they found a match in the complex of Larkin factory and warehouse buildings, a group of vintage structures undergoing a shift in economic purpose, not unlike classic clothing finding a new use after a period of underappreciation.

 
The Larkin Company, which, as it happens, produced clothing, appears to be a fine test case for their unusual inquiry. The students explored the only remnant of the Larkin Administration Building, the historic corner of Seneca and Swan streets, the revamped Larkin Terminal Warehouse, and the sprawling Seneca Industrial Center, all places of hope and possibility.

Group tours of the Hydraulics can be arranged by contacting this blog's author at chrishawley@buffalo.com.

Wagner & Nauland Block: Economic opportunity forfeited?

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
- John Greenleaf Whittier, "Maud Muller," 1856

The Wagner & Nauland Block, a composition of two Italianate commercial structures at 742-748 Seneca Street, was demolished in the late 1990s. Was it necessary?

 
This photograph, taken at about 1979 by Black Rock activist Scott Glasgow, shows the block in its final iteration as Mindy's Home Service, a used appliance store that occupied the site into the mid-1990s. The heritage structures, which would have finely complemented the streetscape of any city, were reportedly in good repair at the time of their demolition, only a few years before the 2002 rehabilitation of the Larkin Terminal Warehouse, 500 feet away, shattered misconceptions about the potential marriage of preservation and economic development in Buffalo's "near downtown."

Keller's was neighborhood fixture for nearly 120 years

The Keller Drug Store first opened in 1872. It didn't close until around 1992, making it probably the longest running such establishment in city history.

 
This photo of Keller's (known as Keller & Deuchler from 1894-1910) above, kindly provided by Judith Keller Morganti, is a poignant scene of round-about 1905 or 1906, when the store was located at 739 Seneca, now demolished. From left to right in the photograph is Andrew Keller, the mailman, and Andrew's son, Edward Keller. Andrew Keller, a prominent member of the Hydraulics community, was also a member of the Common Council, elected in 1894 for one three-year term, and ran the store until 1927, when it was reportedly sold to a new owner who chose to keep the original name. Keller's moved to a storefront in the Kamman Building at 757 Seneca Street at about 1931, and stayed open in the same location for another sixty years.

738 Seneca: You can bank on this building's character

The handsome three-story commercial structure at 738 Seneca, now vacant but secured, was the longtime home of the Hydraulics branch of the Marine Trust Bank, which occupied the building in 1919. The building, constructed in 1900 to house Henry Schaefer's grocery, was designed by architect Joseph J. W. Bradney. Architecture firm Mann & Cook headed up the building's expansion in 1919 when Marine Trust moved to into its first story, and in 1954 the storefront was re-clad in polished stone and a bay window on the second story was removed. For years, a billboard Marine Trust installed in 1927 on top of the building was a landmark of its own accord.

 
The branch's establishment at 738 Seneca in 1919 was no coincidence. John D. Larkin, president and founder of the Larkin Company, was also on the board of Marine Trust Bank and almost certainly had a hand in this choice of location to provide an amenity for factory workers and shoppers at the famed Larkin Store. The bank was a fixture in the neighborhood into the 1990s, though under different names. Marine Trust became Marine Midland in the 1960s and then became HSBC in the 1990s.

Larkin logo still advertising vehicle for heritage structure

The Larkin Company's corporate logo, emblazoned across the late mail-order company's Larkin Terminal Warehouse for the past 97 years, is still a potent advertising vehicle for the heritage structure, now repurposed as Class-A office space.

The corporate logo ("LCo") was actually obscured for years by another sign for Graphic Controls, which leased 4,000 sq. ft. space in the former warehouse in 1940 and later purchased the entire building from the Larkin Warehouse Co. in 1967, the likely year of the original sign's concealment. (Graphic Controls expanded to the nearby Exchange Street Industrial Park in 2001.) When the mammoth 600,000 sq. ft. structure was purchased by investors Howard Zemsky, Bill Jones, Doug Swift, and Joe Petrella in 2002, the original Larkin sign was revealed, a highly-visible first step in the building's rehabilitation.

83 Roseville was home of Buffalo mayor downed by Blizzard of '77

A little house on the urban prairie, 83 Roseville Street, was the longtime home of Stanley Makowski, the Buffalo mayor who, in the 1970s, weathered the storm of plant closings, 15% unemployment, mandatory school integration, and the disastrous Blizzard of '77.

 
Mayor Makowski, an eternal optimist during one of the city's grimmest decades, was known to frequently refer to Buffalo as "the greatest city in the world" in his public remarks. Upon his appointment by the Common Council to the mayor's spot to succeed the ailing Frank Sedita in 1973, Makowski promised the Common Council his cooperation on the development of the city,  famously stating to the Council: "Without your support, I cannot succeed. With it, I cannot fail."

Urban scene of the week: Exchange St. and the RR tracks

Today's urban scene of the week (er, scene of the month?) brings us to 567 Exchange Street, an alluringly spare, rustic loft building at the banks of Buffalo's most historic and longest-enduring rail line, the Buffalo & Attica, first built in 1843 and later subsumed into the New York Central rail empire that connected the city to New York, Chicago, and the vast reaches of the continent beyond.

 

The four-story structure was not constructed at this site in 1900 for no reason. The Buffalo Lounge Co., for which the building was erected, chose this precise location because of the geography of the Hydraulics at the intersection of several rail lines, including the Erie and New York Central. The Buffalo Lounge Co. was directly linked to both lines via a rail bed that once existed behind the building.

1929 Larkin Square proposal assailed by Socialist council president

A 1929 proposal by the Larkin Company to establish a "Larkin Square" at the corner of Seneca and Swan streets was shelved by a reticent Common Council and assailed by the Socialist council president Frank C. Perkins as a corporate give-away that "smelled to the heavens."

The public square proposal (click here for a bird's eye view of the site) would have seen Van Rensselaer Street cut through Seneca Street to Swan Street to relieve traffic congestion (yes, there was traffic congestion!), setting aside a triangular plot of cleared land for a public space honoring the company's late founder, John D. Larkin.

F. N. Burt was world's largest paper box manufacturer

Did you know the largest manufacturer of small paper boxes in the world was in Buffalo? Consider yourself now in the know! The F. N. Burt Company, whose sprawling factory complex at Seneca and Hamburg streets churned out upwards of four million boxes a day, was one of the largest employers in the Hydraulics and one of the shining lights of Buffalo industry.

F. N. Burt, an innovator in graphic design, was one of the most respected box manufacturers on the planet. Renowned for the glamour and sophistication of its manufactures, the company experienced tremendous growth in the early 20th century that coincided with, as well as contributed to, the emergence of the stylized box as an advertising vehicle for mass-produced consumer goods. Its prodigious, 400,000 sq. ft. factory complex is entirely intact - every building it ever constructed on Seneca Street from 1901-1927 still stands, a miracle by any standard in industrial heritage preservation.

Our Lady of Seneca Street blesses the Irish

Our Lady of Seneca Street, an eccentric shrine devoted to the Virgin Mary at 847 Seneca Street, wishes you a happy St. Patrick's Day. The shrine, adorned today with three-leaf clovers, appears to be out to spread the luck of the Irish.

The shrine is lovingly maintained by the family of Helen Grek, 88, who has lived in the Hydraulics all her life and whose daughter and son-in-law are now stewards of the religious structure. The shrine, almost demolished by the City of Buffalo in the 1980s, is today a beacon of hope, linking the neighborhood to its past and underlining the district's struggle to keep its traditions alive.