Richardson-Olmsted Complex: 2 Alarmer @ 3am

I think this is right on. Buffalo State should have redeveloped this building. They are spending several hundred million dollars right now on several building projects and could have easily refurbished this building for classroom space. It would also have been a great selling feature to get students to go there. The Richardson complex could house several different departments at once whereas they need to build a couple new buildings for that. Buffalo state should be responsible to redevelop that building because they are in the perfect position to do so. But I guess its too late now.

The administration building (with the towers) directly above the front doors.

I don't understand people like you, what are you doing here? So Buffalo is dead it is worthless and not worth saving. Well then why are you here why are you talking about it? Personally when I find something that is as hopeless are you seem to feel the city of Buffalo is I move on and try to do something else.

So is you life that bad that you can't find something worthwhile and are forced into commentary on things that are utterly hopeless?

What do you do in your life that is so positive that Buffalo is failing despite your heroic efforts, seriously, I would love to know? Do you volunteer? Do you work?

I'm just sick of people like you locally nationally it doesn't matter. People who hate thier lives so much they can't be positive about anything else.

Maybe you should use Buffalo Rising for something positive instead of spewing negativity. I got an idea, next time you go to Applebee's or Olive Garden on Friday night and they say the wait is an hour and a half. Make a promise to yourself to go on here and look for a real resturant to go to, that is one productive way to use this site.

I'm just sick of all the dbags on the internet comment sites, maybe I'm one of them I dunno. I like to think I'm positive sometimes, or at least proposing solutions.

If you want to say "Oh my god, you are attacking me" go ahead I am. I see people who have nothing productive to say in their post on here as bullies and a part of the problem not the solution. I've always stood up to bullies, cause I think its the right thing to do. If you want to say anything is not fair, maybe its that I picked you cause there are lots of other people on this site that are just as bad if not worse. But make no mistake about it I think you and this statement you made are a joke.

I saw the H.H. Richardson Complex (Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane) with a friend who shares your love for it, (she also has the snow globe!) and it's a fascinating building. I did a little research, and when I discovered it was designed in 1870 and completed almost 20 years later, it only made it seem more special for me. It's been a National Historic Landmark since 1986, and it truly is deserving.

The architect, Henry Hobson Richardson (September 29, 1838 – April 27, 1886) was a prominent American architect of the 19th century. His work left a significant impact on Boston, Pittsburgh, Albany, and Chicago, among other cities. The style he popularized is named for him: Richardsonian Romanesque. Richardson is one of few architects to be immortalized by having the honor of having a style named after him. "Richardsonian Romanesque", unlike Victorian revival styles like Neo-Gothic, was a highly personal synthesis of the Beaux-Arts predilection for clear and legible plans, with the heavy massing that was favored by the pro-medievalists. Significant to Richardson's style was his picturesque massing and roofline profiles, along with his mastery of rustication and polychromy, semi-circular arches supported on clusters of squat columns, and round arches over clusters of windows on massive walls. The H.H. Richardson Complex was the largest commission of Richardson's career, and marks the advent of his characteristic style.

The landscape architect for the project, Frederick Law Olmsted was a frequent collaborator with Richardson, for whom he devised the landscaping schemes for half a dozen projects, including Richardson's commission for the Buffalo State Asylum. Olmsted is known for winning the competition (along with Calvert Vaux) for the landscape design for New York's Central Park. He also established what is considered to be the first full-time landscape architecture firm in Brookline, Massachusetts. He called the home and office compound Fairsted. It is now the restored Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site. Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American journalist, landscape designer and considered to be the father of American landscape architecture. In 1865, Olmsted cofounded the magazine The Nation.

The Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane was developed as part of the Kirkbride Plan. The Kirkbride Plan refers to a system of mental asylum design advocated by Philadelphia psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride in the mid-1800s.

The establishment of state mental hospitals in the U.S. is partly due to reformer Dorothea Dix, who vividly testified to the Massachusetts legislature in 1844, describing the state's treatment of people with mental illness: they were being housed in county jails, private homes and the basements of public buildings. Dix's effort led to the construction of the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum, the first asylum built on the Kirkbride Plan.

Kirkbride developed his requirements based on a philosophy of Moral Treatment. The typical floor plan, with long rambling wings arranged "en echelon" (staggered, so each connected building still received sunlight and fresh air), was meant to promote privacy and comfort for patients. The building form itself was meant to have a curative effect: "a special apparatus for the care of lunacy, [whose grounds should be] highly improved and tastefully ornamented." The idea of institutionalization was thus central to Kirkbride's plan for effectively treating patients with mental illnesses.

These asylums tended to become large, imposing, Victorian-era institutional buildings within extensive surrounding grounds which often included farmland. While the vast majority were located in the United States, there were also some in Canada, and a psychiatric hospital in Australia was influenced by Dr. Kirkbride's recommendations. By 1900 the notion of "building-as-cure" was largely discredited, and in the following decades these facilities became too expensive to maintain. Many Kirkbride Plan asylums still stand today. Most are abandoned, neglected, and vandalized, though several are still in use or have been renovated for uses other than mental health care.

This complex is captivating and historical on so many levels. It's compelling beauty and imposing presence leave a lasting impression on visitors; I know it did for me. I hope plans to save it are successful.

What were the projects that the money was used for?
Is that legal? How can they do that and who are these people?

Were you using old Hitler transcripts for this statement?