Do-It-Yourself Buffalo
By Elizabeth Licata with Tim Tielman
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E.B. Green’s Albright-Knox, its caryatids
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Olmsted’s Colonial Circle. Photo of Albright-Knox by Jim Bush |
I sure didn’t—so I turned to Preservation Coalition Director Tim Tielman, arguably one of our most discerning experts on Western New York’s architectural heritage. Within the space of a fifteen minute phone conversation, Tielman sketched out a completely doable drive-by tour of Buffalo architecture, which I altered just a bit. It’s hard to say—given possible coffee breaks or a variable time spent on foot—but this will take the better part of an afternoon. It will definitely give your visitors an excellent sense of Buffalo: what it was and still is.
Start with the Albright-Knox (1)
“A great place to introduce them to one of Buffalo’s most important planners, Frederick Law Olmsted,” says Tielman. “Remember, the Museum was actually built in Delaware Park. First, look out the front door at Delaware Park Lake. Then, walk out the back door on Elmwood Avenue, where you can see the Green and Wicks original, joined by Gordon Bunshaft’s addition. This is a prime example of how the modern and the historic should be merged.”
Tielman then suggests a look at H.H. Richardson’s Buffalo State Hospital (2) across the street on Elmwood Avenue. He suggests driving down Elmwood to Bidwell, and then to Richmond and Colonial Circle, where you can talk about Olmsted’s parkway system, now merged with a commercial district.
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Photo of City Hall and the Sullivan
Guaranty Building by Kim Miers |
After viewing the glories of Colonial circle and its surrounding Colonial-Revival houses, most built in the 1900s-1910s—drive down Richmond to Symphony Circle. Tielman recommends getting out here and admiring several highlights. First Presbyterian Church (3) is an E.B. Green masterpiece, says Tielman. “It’s a perfect counterpoint to Richardson’s building, because you have a locally accomplished architect’s best work at one end with a nationally-known architect at the other end.
“Kleinhans Music Hall (4) is a beautiful humanist, craftsman take on modernism,” Tielman adds. “It’s a great counterpart to Bunshaft—Saarinen uses traditional materials in modern ways, while Bunshaft uses modern materials but in the service of a traditional building.”
Tielman also recommends strolling around enough to get a look at the Karpeles Museum (5) (formerly Holy Angels Church) and such quaint byways of Allentown as St. John’s Place (6) and Arlington Park (7).
Proceeding downtown along Delaware, you’ll see the Midway rowhouses (8), the Mansion on Delaware (9), the Buffalo Club (10), Trinity Church (11), and the Asbury Methodist Church (12).
At City Hall (13), you could stop to ascend to the top floor (M-F, 9-4) and look out at the City and waterfront. Back in the car, you would drive down Delaware to Church and then east on Church to Ellicott. The buildings to look at are St. Joseph’s Cathedral (14), the Sullivan Guaranty Building (15), St. Paul’s Cathedral (16), the Ellicott Square Building (17), and E.C.C./the Old Post Office on Ellicott (18). And there’s so much more—if you have the time.
Points South—
The Basilica, the Botanical Gardens and the Grain Elevators
But given what’s ahead, you may want to simply reverse direction on Church and take Route 5 (the Skyway), getting off on Ridge Rd. At Ridge and South Park, you’ll see the magnificent Our Lady of Victory Basilica (built in 1922-26) (19). Turn left on South Park for the Lord and Burnham-built South Park Conservatory (1929) (20), and its surrounding Olmsted park, South Park (21), which you may easily drive around. Then proceed north on South Park Ave., turning left at Tifft {just before Holy Family Church (22)}. This leads to Route 5, but just before Route 5, you will turn right on Ohio St., for probably the best close-up views you can get of the grain elevators and Buffalo’s industrial past (23). Ohio ends at Michigan.
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Photo of 1st Presbyterian Church by Jim Bush
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Head north on Michigan Avenue, past the Michigan Avenue Baptist Church (24), headquarters for Buffalo’s Abolitionist movement and a refuge for enslaved African-Americans. From Michigan, turn east on Broadway, making sure to hit the following East Side landmarks near Broadway/Fillmore: St. Stanislaus Church (25), the Central Terminal (26), and Corpus Christi Church (27). On the way back west—via Fillmore and Best—take in Unia Polska (28), the Science Museum (29), Martin Luther King Park (30) (Olmsted’s “Parade”), and beautiful, Sycamore-lined Timon St (31).
Back to the park
Returning via Summer, head north on Delaware, viewing “Millionaire’s Row,” (32) on your way, a row of mansions for Buffalo’s nineteenth century elite, most of which are now non-profit institutions or office buildings. You’ll also pass the Campanile (33), Delaware Ave. Baptist Church (34), 800 W. Ferry (35), Gates Circle (36) (another Olmsted Circle), and Forest Lawn (37). If there’s time, you and your visitors can head back toward the Parkside area, taking in the other side of Delaware Park (38), and, of course, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin House on Jewett (39).
Starting with Olmsted and ending with Wright, this tour covers the golden age of Buffalo architecture as well as, unavoidably — and they’ve not been mentioned — some of Buffalo’s worst late twentieth century mistakes. Your guests should gain a good sense of Buffalo paradoxical history — a place for blue collar and bluebloods, a place where landmarks are alternately cherished and torn down, and most of all, a place whose charm, vitality, and cultural sophistication has yet to be defeated by decades of economic decline and disappointments. This brick, stone, granite, wood, concrete, and marble heritage remains, not just to ornament the city but also to keep us continually reminded of its possibilities.
Elizabeth Licata is editor of Buffalo Spree.
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| west side institutions 1 > The Albright Knox was designed by Edward B. Green, the distinguished Buffalo architect also responsible for the design of the Toledo Museum of Art and the Dayton Art Institute. Five thousand tons of marble were used in the building. When completed, the gallery had 102 columns, more than any building in America except the Capitol. Planned as a temple of the arts in the tradition of many nineteenth-century museums, the Albright-Knox specifically evokes the Erectheion on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. The handsome Ionic portico and the twin caryatid porches—with figures carved by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens—derive directly from Greek monuments. Later, the Gallery was significantly enhanced with the addition of a new wing designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill of New York. Made possible with major donations from Seymour H. Knox, Jr. and his family, and hundreds of contributors, the new addition was dedicated in 1962, and the museum was renamed the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. (description by Chuck LaChiusa) 2 > Architect H.H. Richardson considered the Buffalo State Hospital to be his greatest work. Many architectural historians regard Richardson as America’s greatest architect, if not of all time, at least of the period before Frank Lloyd Wright. Richardson’s design, executed in rough, rock-faced reddish brown Medina sandstone—five feet thick—is the first major example of his personal revival of Romanesque, the style with which his name is popularly identified. The hospital consisted of connected pavilions, ten in all, stretching from either side of the administration building in the center. The administration building has monumental, medieval, double, identical towers (each 185 feet tall), each with four corner turrets and dramatically steep copper roofs mysteriously punctuated with dormered windows, all of which gave the administration building a rather sinister appearance. These great paired towers make the Psychiatric Center one of the most striking public buildings in America. (LaChiusa) 4 > Kleinhans Music Hall was built between 1938-1940 and designed by the Finnish-American father-and-son team of Eliel and Eero Saarinen in the International style. According to R.W. Apple’s 1998 New York Times article, Kleinhans “looks back to the elder Saarinen’s Romantic Revival buildings in Finland, like the Helsinki railway station, and, especially in the airy interior, forward to the younger Saarinen’s sweeping curves in the TWA building at Kennedy Airport in New York City and the terminal at Dulles Airport in Washington. The acoustics approach perfection.” (Sidebar texts are adapted from the Preservation Coalition’s Buffalo as an Architectural Museum website: www.preservationcoalition.org. ) downtown masterpieces 13 > City Hall serves as a reminder of Buffalo’s past. Its decorative art illustrates significant elements in the area history, including themes of the Iroquois Indian nation, the development of the Erie canal, the United States' relation to Canada, and the pioneering and industrial spirit of Buffalo’s citizens, past and present. Included, too, are statues of Buffalonians who were Presidents of the United States: Millard Fillmore and Grover Cleveland. Its walls are faced with tawny Ohio sandstone and gray Minnesota limestone, above a base of gray granite. 15 > Sullivan’s Guaranty Building was one of the first steel-supported, curtain-walled buildings in the world, and its thirteen stories made it, at the time it was built (1895-96), the tallest building in Buffalo. With the Guaranty Building, architect Louis Sullivan created the archetype of the modern skyscraper, a column holding up or “scraping” the sky. Sullivan’s lively reddish brown terra cotta ornament adorns the piers, spandrels, tympani, columns, and arches of the Guaranty Building, giving the structure an exuberance and personality that remind one that Sullivan’s father was an Irish dancing master. The designs seem to be derived from American nature forms and perhaps from the Celtic Book of Kells. The main motif is a kind of oval pod or seed shape, which Sullivan used to suggest man’s potential for spiritual and creative growth. The pod is sometimes superimposed on a rectangle and connected to it with stem-like filaments. It recurs profusely in the interior of the building, in the stairway balustrades, the elevator cages, the letter drops, and the Tiffany-like art glass ceiling. The swirling lines and the opalescent glass also reveal Sullivan’s interest in Art Nouveau. (LaChiusa) 16 > St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, built in 1851, is Buffalo’s first national architectural landmark. Situated a short distance from the terminus of the Erie Canal and designed by the noted Richard Upjohn, the church is built of Medina sandstone and follows the Early English parish church Gothic of the thirteenth century. Upjohn had earned a national reputation for his design of New York’s Trinity Episcopal Church (1846), which firmly established the Gothic revival in American church architecture. (F. Kowsky) 17 > The Ellicott Square Building was built in 1885-86 to commemorate Joseph Ellicott, founder of Buffalo. Built by D. H. Burnham and Company , the Ellicott Square Building is constructed around a large interior court. This glass-covered concourse is one of Buffalo’s most ornamental public spaces. The elaborate terra-cotta exterior, now painted gray, which in its essential lines follows Richardson’s Marshall Field Wholesale Store in Chicago, was conceived by Charles B. Atwood (1849 - 1895), the designer-in-chief of the World’s Columbian Exposition and master of “all artistic matters” in the Chicago-based firm of D. H. Burnham and Company. A cornice was removed and the exterior painted in 1971. east side highlights 24 > The current Michigan Avenue Baptist Church was built in 1845 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Over the years, the Michigan Street Baptist Church has been a central part of the history and culture of Buffalo’s African American community. In 1842, the Michigan Street Baptist Church adopted a resolution opposing slavery. Black abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Henry Highland Garnet, Martin Delany and others, made frequent stops in Buffalo to speak at anti-slavery gatherings. In fact, Brown was a resident of Buffalo during the 1830s. Although providing assistance to fugitive slaves was a violation of federal law, it was widely held that the Michigan Street Baptist Church was a station on the “underground railroad.” By the late 19th century, such stories had attained legendary status. Members of the Michigan Street Baptist Church participated as delegates to the National Convention of Colored Citizens. (text from “Origins of the Michigan Street Baptist Church,” by Monroe Fordham) 25 > The Central Terminal owes its appearance to the Art Deco movement that swept the nation in the 1920’s. Here it is melded with proven patterns in public buildings. The organization of the mass, including the off center tower and cathedral-like vaults, has its origins in twelfth century Romanesque churches. Passengers entered the Terminal through the tower lobby. Inside, they found an interior that ranked with City Hall as a prime example of Art Deco. The concourse was massive (225’ x 66’and 581/2’’ high) and Art Deco details were everywhere: metal and frosted glass sconces, metal finials in fleur-de-lis patterns atop pilasters flanking the 18 ticket windows metal grillwork in exuberant geometric patterns, and seductive light fixtures at the apexes of the domes at either end of the concourse. The floor of the concourse contains four shades of marble. Marble rises along the walls to a height of 15 feet, where it is met by the Guastavino tiles of the barrel vault. (excerpted text by Mark Kohan) 26 > St. Stanislaus (1882) is the oldest Polish parish in the diocese of Buffalo, and maybe the oldest in New York State (St. Stanislaus in NYC was also founded the same year). The first pastor and founder was Rev. Jan Pitass, a Silesian who was the “irremovable pastor” for thirty-nine years. Pitass, the pioneer priest, is also considered the founder of the Polish American community in Western New York. A nationally known figure, he built an enormous empire for the Poles on the east side of Buffalo. He established a parish school and brought the Felician sisters to Buffalo. In 1882, he founded a parish cemetery in 1889, co-founded a national fraternal organization, Unia Polska w Ameryce (28), and was responsible for the first Polish Catholic Convention in America. The magnificent cathedral type church that Jan Pitass built in 1882 stands as a lasting memory to his ability. (Excerpted text by by Mike Drabik, Polish Genealogical Society of New York State.) Olmsted’s Parkway System Adapted from Francis R. Kowsky’s Frederick Law Olmsted's Buffalo Park and Parkway System: Olmsted defined a special relationship between the new parkways and his newly-designed park system for Buffalo. [The contemporary names for these parks and roads are used.] Four parkways approached Delaware Park: Humboldt Parkway, which joined Delaware Park to Martin Luther King Park nearly three miles away on the east side of town; Bidwell Parkway, starting at Colonial Circle, ran northwest to Soldiers Place, also the terminus of Chapin Parkway, which met Delaware Avenue at the present Gates Circle. Both Chapin and Bidwell Parkways retain their broad central medians designed for horseback riders and pedestrians. From Soldier’s Place, Lincoln Parkway led northward to Delaware Park. In addition to the new parkways that formed the monumental approaches to Delaware Park, several existing city streets assumed new importance as residential avenues leading to the parkways. These streets were enlarged and planted with American elms, as were the parkways. They include Delaware Ave., which ran north for three miles from Niagara Square to Chapin Parkway; Porter Avenue proceeding east, generally following the path of two older streets (York and North); and Rodgers Street—now called Richmond. At Ferry Street, where the original Rodgers Street had ended, Olmsted and Vaux laid out Ferry Circle and extended the line of Richmond across unimproved land to join Bidwell. Where Richmond Avenue met Porter, the architects created the present Symphony Circle, which united the existing neighborhood to the park system. Richmond Avenue became a street of large houses set well back from the street. |
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