My Favorite Buildings: Green #14
This simple little building at 174 Franklin Street probably goes unnoticed by 99% of those who pass by. Maybe I would not have noticed it either where it not for its unusual green paint job.
There is nothing great about it other than the fact that it helps create a nice urban street-scape. That alone is worth heralding. Cities are not composed solely of magnificent landmarks and masterpieces. Cities need the everyday unnoticed buildings like this one to form the connective tissue between landmarks. These simple background buildings are what make up a majority of even the greatest cities.
As for this little jewel, its plain but very nicely proportioned facade quietly holds the street wall with minimal but delicately detailed decorative elements. The band of 2nd floor windows spanning over the commercial storefront seems to be cropped by the frame like building edge walls (notice how the details become clipped at the ends of the window band..very subtle). It is almost as if one facade has been layered over another. The single swag detail at the center of the very low temple like pediment is unexpectedly refined and detailed.
I can imagine creating a very nice space on that second floor. Though currently occupied it certainly could use some TLC to reach its full potential. Intact street-scapes such as these have become precariously rare in Buffalo. Urban compositions built of simple buildings such as this one can be damaged by the loss of even one simple building. Preservation of even the acknowledged masterpieces is a major challenge in the climate of economic stagnation that tears at Buffalo. Just as important are these little treasures that we quietly lose with little notice.
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TjR
this building is for sale.
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TjR
Building and business for $270,000. Business can be separated from sale.
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nonono
[deleted: off topic]
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bfloMatt
uh oh...must be that time of the month again for nonono
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nonono
ps...the Fleur-de-lis is thought by some in the paranoid universe to be representative of the 'little penis' of the christ child born to mary magdalene....how scandalous that you would miss this architectural detail, reference to antiquity, and the da vinci code.
not so cloaked in mystery is the fact that steel wrote a supposedly esoteric post about a building facade, and low and behold, the building is for sale, as noted by the first two posts....Yo BR--- u mY down on the lo lo FAV crib pimper, u soo sly steel man!
and no bathMatt, im not on the rag...i cant help the fact that this site makes my eyes bleed!
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sbrof
Some of the post is very true and important to the way we thinking about designing, building, (re)building our city. Buffalo is a city that has lost much of its older fabric, especially in downtown. This post talks about not that every building needs to be gehry - hadid quality but that there are a lot of un-spectacular, but property designed buildings that do fill in the gaps.
Cities needs these infill projects to move people, shade them from the sun / wind / snow. They provide the places for everyday people to live and work. Since we can't all afford the waterfront, statler or dulaski escque developments.
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wizardofza
this section of Franklin would make a great red-light district.
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RisingDamp666
...pssst, it already is, sweetcakes...
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nonono
as regards someone's over use of the (delete) button..... """The simple little building at 174 Franklin Street probably goes unnoticed by 99% of those who pass by."""
Ummmm, how is it off topic to point out that I and many others have noticed this building for years??? This sentence of the author's is presumptive and offensive to the majority of us who are less oblivious to our surroundings than he. But of course, I will be criticized for pointing out flaws in meaning and logic, as irrelevant topics on a 'discussion' board.
I think perhaps you meant to delete the 'little penis' post .... but as is the case with all petty despots and most totalitarian states, your attempt at face saving censorship inevitably becomes arbitrary and senseless.
If the writers on this site are so hypersensitive to criticism, perhaps they should avail themselves of other pastimes to which they are better suited, like collecting navel lint, or balling yarn.
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