Tackling the Corners
The two houses that I am featuring in this post are similar in many ways. The impressive size of both of these houses, the rotunda that is found on each corner, and the location where the structures are found all contribute to the similarities. To me, one of the most exciting aspects that they share is that both of these houses have been resurrected from some sort of rooming house. The one featured at the top is located at the corner of Lafayette and Elmwood and is currently being renovated by E Square Capital and Silvestri Architects. Not long ago it housed many of the neighborhood shoplifters (among other activities), and was a constant concern for the nearby shop owners and residents. The fact that we are seeing a renovation that will add upscale rental units to such a hi-profile corner is good news.
It wasn't too long ago that we saw another transformation of another rooming house (below) located at the corner of Auburn and Elmwood (two blocks away). The transformation there was also one that the shop owners praised. Not only did a number of vagrants get ousted from the building that had been branded the '911 house', on top of that the change of use went from residential to commercial. That meant that the commercial district added new businesses to its roster, and the police didn't have to worry about the corner being a constant source of 911 calls. Both the Lafayette and Auburn corners had fallen into a state of neglect over the years. We have already seen one success story unfold and we are about to witness another.
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Jefferson
Beautiful. If only 419 Porter could achieve the same fate.
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concerned
This needs to happen a lot more and further down as well. My understanding is that Fleet Feet was helfd up at gunpoint last week. Not cool.
How about the police enforing loitering laws?I know its not the homeless but when the crowing jewel of your city and a retail store to boot gets held up, something is going wrong. One thing if its a liquor store or gas station, another a shoe store?
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concerned
In fairness, I did forget to say thanks to E S C for doing the project. So go Eran go!
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nik
Also in fairness, when will the project on Lafayette happen? I've seen the sign hanging there for months and months. I hope it does soon, but I can't help but have a little bitterness toward the owner as he appeared to keep the rooming inhabitants in that house even after he first purchased it. I called a number of times as I walked by that house and was always harrassed for money by someone on the porch. This is one instance that I was thrilled to see the boards go up on the house. I just hope they get this project going quickly. On another note with the Elmwood and Auburn house, I lived on Auburn at the time when they were remodeling that property. It was as exciting as could be to see the progress advance and we all know what an amazing job they did. But they deserve even more credit than usual as for some reason there was a regular contigent of city inspectors together in front of that house on a ridiculous basis hassling the workers. I had a chance to speak with one of the workers one morning and he was just baffled as to why they were constantly being given a hard time. He told me that all the permits were in order, yet these guys (inspectors) were still there on a regular basis. Maybe the owner or the contractor did something to really piss somebody off. But I thought it was worth noting since we all want to see the city and Elmwood advance, yet our city seemed to do quite a bit to stand in the way of a renovation that really should be an example for many parts of the city.
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turret preservation society?
something about turrets, with or without their pointy metal ornaments, is so special. i always think about the folks that decided to build a house and said "yes, let's have a turret." and we have so many here...
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Rayzor
"Also in fairness, when will the project on Lafayette happen? I've seen the sign hanging there for months and months. I hope it does soon, but I can't help but have a little bitterness toward the owner as he appeared to keep the rooming inhabitants in that house even after he first purchased it. "
Nik -- I believe some had leases that needed to be terminated/expire, and frankly, with squatter's rights laws, it can take weeks, even months, to kick someone out. From what I heard, the place is a complete dump, and ESC has a ton of work to do, so just have some patience -- they have an excellent track record for redevelopment.
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Jessica K
The house my apartment is in is another great example:
http://freenet.buffalo.edu/bah/a/pa/277/index.html
No more red, white and blue bunting hanging out of the living room window, though -- we run more to a rainbow-striped peace flag at 277 PA these days.
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Affectionate Copy Editor
That cylindrical corner feature is called a turret. A rotunda is a dome, as in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.
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mike
The corner features displayed above are actually towers; turrets are indeed cylindrical however they are supported by corbelling and do not touch the ground.
FWIW, here's my favorite corbelling in Buffalo...can you guess where it is?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/calanan/290691650/
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Eric
Were all the residents of the Lafayette House "vagrants" and "shoplifters"?
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mj worthington
but turret sounds so much cooler than tower....
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turret girl
ashland, on a corner, northwest corner, maybe breckenridge?
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wardo
The house has been completely gutted so stay tuned for the next step.
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STEEL
mike that would be this house:
http://www.buffalorising.com/city/archives/2006/09/extraordinary_detail_and.php
Unfortunately the image links are all busted...complain to Queenseyes.
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westcoastperspective
585 Lafayette will have six apartments- floorplans (dated Sept. '06) can be found on the E-Square website here:
http://www.hollingplace.com/585lafayette.htm
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ExWNY'er
When I think turret, I think guys shooting arrows and crossbows. So this house had a bunch of shoplifters in it? How can that be? That's the weirdest thing I've heard. That house out here in San Francisco would be well in excess of 2 million.
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DJK
Affectionate copy editor-
SInce everyone is getting technical, the dome projection above the roof of the Capitol is actually a cupola; whereas the transferrence of it's plan into the building as a circular room is the rotunda... And as was stated, these pictures show towers, since a true turret is corbelled, meaning is does not project down in plan (making it kinda the opposite of a rotunda).
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comptart
not sure if the links will work but, I'll try TURRET http://freenet.buffalo.edu/bah/a/DCTNRY/t/turret.html http://freenet.buffalo.edu/bah/a/porter/361/source/12.html
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B-lo
I saw a man get arrested outside my apartment building on Thursday, I asked the cop and he said that he might be the guy that held up a store on elmwood at gun point. Might have been fleet feet like concerned mentioned above. The cop said he ran up layafette and they found him on lancaster. Hope they got the right guy
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Affectionate Copy Editor
Thanks, Mike & DJK, for the corrections. So what is the difference between a dome and a cupola? I have a cupola on my barn, as does every "colonial" gas station from the 1960s and '70s, but it sure ain't a dome.
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sbrof
:) architectural jargon amuses me. :)
a cupola is the small structure that sits at the top of a roof or dome. If you can actually get into it, it is called a belvedere.
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