Buffalo Rising Online

if they're "everyone's buildings" then everyone should pay to have them fixed...what a crock of hooey

We'll all likely be paying for this demo in the end Ike. Shameful.

The demo contractors have to be living large in this town. Where do I get my operator's license to run one of these building wrecking toys? How fun it must be to tear down history!

oh well, bye bye building. heard the owner (a cop?) will be sent the demo bill. but, will he actually pay it? hoope BRO follows up to confirm this. w/ ll the overtime they're making, one hopes he will pay the bill

Did Buffalo ReUse have a chance to salvage the woodwork/bar in this place?

Don't worry. Plans call fro canal side to chock full of pretend historic buildings.

If the owner took care of this historic building then none of this would have happened. Apparently, some people can get away with important inspections and building codes. Just think...what happened if the wall would have collapsed with people inside the bar??? Don't you think there would be lawsuits and additional problems?

Anyhow, this is really too bad that the building was not kept up to code.

If the City can front the money for the demo and then bill the owner for reimbursement, why can't they hire masons and carpenters and send the bill for that to the owner?

sad. decades and decades of memories under that rubble.

"sad. decades and decades of memories under that rubble"

...And you know what? I didn't have one nor did I ever hear of one. Please...I fully understand the concept of historical. But people....this was one old bar of hundreds in the city of Buffalo! You don't have to cry over EVERY single building that has to brought down!

I saw this building for sale on Ebay last year for around $270k. The winning bid name was something like "Dr.Scott716", but apparently it did not change hands.

my friends, I don't cry everytime an old building comes down but for once, can't one of those old buildings be saved. I know some are but, geez, what did the owner think would happen to this building if he just let it sit there? why the sympathy for buidling owners/landlords? presumably, they have more money than little old me

You know who to blame: the individual who owned it. "Good intentions" I heard someone mention in conjunction with him. Ok. I think he invested in the property with some half-baked scheme to turn it into a money making venture. Nothing wrong with that. But once he realized he bought poorly or didn't have any real plan or approach to making his pipe dream feasible, he sat on it and did nothing. Must have taken his lead fromt he AM&A's development team, sans the $200 Photoshop rendering of what could be possible.

That was a solid brick building. Each one of those bricks laid down by someone. Do you have any clue how long that took to build or the skill required? No one could even build something like this today, if they did it would be a wood frame with a brick veneer sham. Thats why you save buildings like this, the art to make them is lost in time or so bastardized today that you need examples like these to link back to the past.

Oh well. Like I said in an earlier post, the building on the south end of that street is another magnificient brick structure that will probably be coming donw within the next five years. Anyone know that buildings history? If redone, it would be amazing.

during a recent walk around this area I was amazing to see such a historic area fall to such disarray. I could not help but wonder what this corner was like back in the day. with the courier express sign shop next door it was no doubt a very busy area at one point. I have a couple of pictures of this building and the surrounding area on my site if anyone is interested: http://web.mac.com/stephenjames716/home/waterfront%26beyond.html

I ran the Shamrock Run through the Old First Ward this year. It is a worn down neighborhood, but it has a lot of history, and aparently a lot of tough residents who still live there and deal with the reality of what has happened to their neighborhood. There were surprisingly fewer vacant houses than you might expect. The area has a lot of potential, there's a park right near Ohio & Lousiana, a small park with access to the river (might not swim in it, but you could launch a boat or picnic there), and a lot of old bars, restaurants & dense housing, with some decent bargains I would bet. We don't need to over-commercialize neighborhoods to make them better, but how about a tour de Buffalo's great neighborhood bars? And hit all naighborhoods, Old First Ward, Lovejoy, Universty Dist (not Main st - UB students cover those), Riverside.... not just the EV strip. There are a lot of great places waiting to be rediscovered by the second coming of Buffalo. And it's pretty clear that our elected officials aren't going to turn the tide, so we should use some of that ol Irish, Polish, Italian, German immigrant work ethic that built the city the first time to wake it up a bit again. If there's one thing we do well in Buffalo besides complain, it's drink while we complain.

The loss of this building isn't 'sad'. You people who cry over the demolition of every old building are the reason that noting new ever comes to the city of Buffalo. 'Old' does not equal 'historically significant' They didn't bulldoze the colesium or stonehenge. It was an old bar in complete disrepair. It can be replaced with something much better. Get over it.

I am over it, but, again, why did this guy buy it in the first place? i bet the owner never pays the tab for the demo and that, my friends, IS something to cry about (b/c you and i will be paying for his incompetance)

flip-You have a good point...it will probably be replaced with surface parking. I can't dispute that 'can' is the key word there...but it will be easier to develop a shovel ready site than a site containing an old brick building. My opinion is that not all old structures are of historical significance and many BRO-bloggers place too much historical value on undeserving structures. Did president McKinley drinkat this tavern?...if so...damn shame we lost it....

... a city that allowed the FLW Larkin Building to come down should be very careful about allowing other's to come down. not sying this bar is the equivalent of the Larkin, but, when it's down, it can never come back (which, if McKinley did booze there) would be a shame

hodgepodge....i agree with you that the owner should pay for the demo. I am not disputing that.

Kind of symbolizes NY State (or I should say WNY/Upstate)

Crumbling and No one cares about it

sleepl8, my friend, but he won't. leaving the city's only remedy to place a lien on the property with that lien likely worth more than the property itself. so, property owner walks away, bldg comes down, we get stuck w/ the bill. depressing, no? i also would like to ask everyone which cities they believe look the nicest; the one's with the most regulation? no? (NYC, San Fran, etc.) leaving things up to private owners is not always the best thing

Hodge-shame on Buffalo for letting him get away with it then. The city needs to take a stand on property owner who abandon thier lands.

Has anyone noticed that the machine shop over towards Louisiana Street from McBrides - I can't remember the name of it but it was in operation until not too many years ago - has collapsed? It's a 3 or 4 story brick building just off Louisiana Street. The collapse is on the rear so I don't know if anyone is aware that it's gone. These were two of the last few buildings in the area - "there is no longer any there there."

links- I'll support comemorative plaque to be built into the sidewalk in front of the building.

"On this ground once stood a building that was a 3 stories tall. It was made of bricks. It was built around 1850. People got drunk in it. Please don't urinate on me."

I know what you are are thinking and yes, I am a freelance poet. I am for hire for wedding invitations and such ;)

Sleep8 - "They didn't bulldoze the colesium"

HAHA The coliseum as were many of ancient Rome's monuments considered a public quarry for almost 500 years.. They sure did their damnedest attempting to demolish it. Too bad they failed. I mean geez it was just a coliseum. One of many. Who cares its old it must be worthless.

hindsight is 20/20 they are lucky to have what is left of it. But we go through and demolish buildings like the larkin admin building, statler hotels, lighthouses, libraries prominent banks, that could very well have been jewels in their own light. Sorry but we do not know what will be considered important to future generations. We should take care of what we have and not ruin something that we know or could become important one day.

People complain about saving too much, but just how much is or has been saved? There are only two continuous blocks from the 19th century left in ALL of downtown. Everything except for two little blocks at some point was demolished.. That isn't even whole blocks, only one side. I bet that if you took every old building left in downtown and put it together you probably couldn't even fill up the new fake historic canal side development. That is hardly saving everything. Areas in the cobblestone district are emptying just as fast. Every building of this nature does count because there are not as many left as you might think. Yea there are still a lot of bars but most of them are just in converted homes or newer buildings. Very few are in buildings older than the 1920's. This isn't one of many this is one of a few. Give it 10 years there won't be anything left in the cobblestone district.

Take a look at images of the past then maybe you will realize how little has been saved.

knocking building down is a death sentence. some level of serious consideration (like appeals) should be given before this happens. this town, especially (for the reasons cited by sbrof) should be very careful about imposing the death sentence on thse buildings. but, then again, what's not to like about another rite aid or dollar store?

The building was part of an urban fabric that slowly, or not so slowly, is disappearing. Its not specifically the buidling or what happened in it, its the "wholeness" of the community and the built environment. Buildings make cities, and neighborhoods. The more buidlings lost in areas where new construction probably won't happen, the quicker that neighborhood tips and disappears forever. Each gap tooth that appears signals another block soon to be strewn with weeds, unsalvagable and most likely never to be rebuilt to the urban context.

I don't have the answers but if there was a new project that would add vitality, stability and life to the neighborhood, I would support the demolition. I am not against new things. There are a lot of great new buildings being built. But there is no plan here. There is no new HQ moving here. This will end up being a rat infested dug dealing lot within a week.

Perhaps this building was too far gone, from the pictures it was in quite a state. But this isn't an argument about just this building. It is about a problem with the system and culture of throw away history only to want to rebuild it later. It is about the buildings next to Red Jacket on Main, The Graystone, The Webb (before Rocco) A building that you probably would have said tear down. See how the list continues on until there isn't anything left.

We have been demolishing our history and the urban fabric that produces places for entrepreneurs to start their business. Places that spur whole new ideas and neighborhoods (SoHo, Greenwhich Village, Meatpacking etc.) But I guess we should let property owners allow buildings to fall apart, spend tax money to tear them down, spend tax money to maintain them and when the situation has gotten SOO bad spend tax money to collect land and build some flawed government silver bullet project, in some cases spend tax payer money to rebuild what we had there before all of this.

Buildings should be secured and mothballed until an owner can be found. The key being secured because it saves money in the long run for the prospective owner and therefore opens up more opportunities for that developer to continue and work on more projects. Maybe if we spend money securing the graystone, webb. main street Rocoo could have done 9 projects instead of 5. That would be more properties on the tax roll and more renovated properties.

Letting buildings fall apart or demolishing them creates a situation where only the very rich can do anything. When a secured building could open up the retail business to a larger group of people. Maybe if the city actually pressured and did its job I could buy one of these properties to invest in.

You can't have a blanket statement as to what will happen to a neighborhood if a building is left standing. Each neighborhood has different dimensions and characteristics. Once a building reaches the state that this was in, the arguement is moot, the building was falling down so it had to be razed. That doesn't explain why the building was allowed to get to that point, due to both owner neglect and city acquiesence. Again there are circustances beyond the neighborhood which cause economic decline and make buildings not viable and these ills cannot be solved on the streets, but losing these types of buildings makes it harder to rejuvinate a neighborhood.