Preservation is Everything in Buffalo

Last October, the National Trust for Historic Preservation held its annual convention in Buffalo, where attendees had a chance to make up their own minds about the city.

By Kevin Woo  One+ | April 2012

BUFFALO, N.Y., HAS SUFFERED FROM AN IDENTITY CRISIS FOR MANY YEARS. AND WHO COULD BLAME IT? In the past four years, Forbes has named it among the most miserable and fastest-dying cities in the U.S. The magazine has also named it one of the best places to raise a family and a top city for singles. So what’s a Buffaloian to believe?

Last October, 2,500 members of the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) attended the 65th annual convention in Buffalo where they had a chance to make up their own minds about the city. Buffalo was selected as the conference destination because its architecture and ongoing preservation efforts served as an opportunity for NTHP members to study how the community, local and state representatives, civic organizations and the federal government all work together to preserve historic buildings throughout the city.

The decision to hold the conference in Buffalo, however, did leave some members of the NTHP scratching their heads.

“Buffalo was not on my radar screen prior to the conference,” said Isaac D. Kremer, executive director of the Oyster Bay Main Street Association and an attendee of the conference. “I knew there were a few landmark buildings there, and I even visited a few while passing through years ago. [But] the place as a whole never really captured me [before the conference].” Kremer says his opinion of Buffalo changed soon after he began receiving information from the NTHP organizing committee promoting the conference.

“Everything I saw coming out of Buffalo emphasized the great history and architecture [that] the city has,” he said. “When Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Hobson Richardson and Richard Upjohn built in your town, there’s no good reason to hide that.”

Over the course of four days, attendees had the opportunity to take part—by bus, boat or foot—in 46 tours to view historic sites in other areas such as Chautauqua, Medina and Rochester in New York and Ontario, Canada. Within the Buffalo metro area, there were 284 planned outings, 83 educational sessions, trips to more than a half-dozen art exhibitions and 40 events, which were open to the public as well as registrants.

The number of planned activities was necessary because of the vast number of historical landmarks in the area according to Lori Feinman, NTHP’s director of conferences and meetings.

“In Buffalo, preservation is everything from the iconic architecture of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright down to revitalizing the neighborhoods and abandoned churches,” Feinman said.

Without a doubt, the most popular building among the group was the famous Guaranty Building, located in the downtown business district. Louis Sullivan and his partner Dankmar Adler designed the 13-story building in the 1890s. At the time, the building was the tallest in the city and considered an engineering marvel because of its height.

The Guaranty Building was constructed using steel beams, but the architects wanted to distinguish the exterior of the building and, as a result, rejected the idea of placing tile on the outside. Instead, they opted to use ornate terra cotta, the first time this type of material was used on a building.

The building was created in the shape of a “U” so that the south-facing atrium would have maximum sunlight during the day. The building also included modern conveniences such as elevators and running water. Prior to the Guaranty Building, most architects struggled to find a way to generate enough pressure to push water more than 50 feet (about six stories) into the air. Sullivan and Adler found a way to create enough pressure so that all but the 13th floor in the Guaranty Building had both hot and cold running water.

By the mid-1950s, the Guaranty Building fell into disrepair and attempts to modernize the interior and exterior resulted in some structural damage. By the mid-1970s, the building was slated for demolition, despite being designated a historical landmark. Community groups protested the demolition plans and were able to raise enough money to restore the building and make it attractive to potential tenants. This model of local citizens raising money to restore buildings, homes and churches has been used throughout the city for years to save significant landmarks from demolition.

“I was very impressed with the Guaranty Building, because I studied it when I was getting my masters degree in historic preservation,” said Paul Trudeau, program director at the center for community design and preservation at the University of Georgia. “The first time I walked by the Guaranty Building, I had a moment of, ‘Wow, I remember studying that building!’ How cool is it to see it up close in person.”

A close second in popularity among NTHP members was the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site. In 1901, President William McKinley was shaking hands with citizens inside the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Expo in Buffalo when Leon Czolgosz shot him twice. Eight days later, President McKinley died and Roosevelt took the oath of office at the Inaugural Historic Site.

The house sat vacant and fell into disrepair for years after the inauguration. A local real estate developer leased the property intending to demolish the house and build office space. As expected, the community became outraged. In 1966, a group of local preservationists were successful in lobbying the U.S. Congress to get the site declared a National Historic Site. By 1971, the group raised enough money to restore the property and reopen its doors to visitors. The site underwent another extensive renovation in 2009.

Today there are three restored rooms that are open to the public—a multimedia room, which tells the story of how Roosevelt came to be president; the library, where the presidential oath was administered; and a replica of President Roosevelt’s White House office, which is located on the house’s third floor.

Kremer says that the strategy of breaking the house into two distinct sections (the presidential inauguration and the White House years) “makes the house very different than a traditional house museum. The curators used period pieces and furnishings to transport visitors to other places and other times. Ultimately, this provides a far richer experience for learning.”

So you might wonder, how is it that Buffalo has been able to preserve so many of its architectural treasures. Dottie Gallagher-Cohen, Buffalo CVB president and CEO, says it’s happened due to a twist of fate.

“At a time when other cities were tearing down buildings in the name of progress, we did not. Why? Because at that time we didn’t have the resources to do so,” Gallagher-Cohen said. “But now we’ve come to realize how unique and beautiful our visual landscape is and quite frankly how those authentic places have disappeared everywhere else. Beyond that, Buffalo had the good fortune to be one of the United States’ wealthiest cities at a time when all of these buildings and neighborhoods were created, which makes our city unique. So in a way, those extreme economic conditions of wealth and hardship made Buffalo a city that time forgot, and now our rebirth is quite literally bringing our neighborhoods and buildings back to life using our history as our future lens. One+